Linguistics thread

[linguoboy]

thats wy i invented the a-i-o-u sistem: -a for femminin, -i for neutral, -o for masculin and -u for "thingly". so i dont hav to think about it, do enny reserch, i no that the woman from tuvalu is a tuvala, the person a tuvali, and the language is tuvaliano. the inhabbitants of barcelona ar the barcelonis, the male inhabbitants of irkutsk in siberia the irkutskos. and i use this scheem for all my sistems.

Shouldn't that be "tuvalua", "tuvalui", "tuvaluiano", and "barcelonai"? What do you have against hiatus, Zé?

[Saim]

he escuchado a noruegos y finlandeses lo decirlo (voy a europa), también ingleses, pero no tuve mucho contacto con suecos...

¿En español es escuchar a una cosa con la preposición como en inglés? Sé que en francés es solamente écouter quelque chose sin la preposición.

No tiene nada que ver con el verbo escuchar. En español cuando el complemento directo es personal lleva la preposición a.

Vi a noruegos, encontré a noruegos, ataqué a noruegos, llamé a noruegos...

[linguoboy]

Vi a noruegos, encontré a noruegos, ataqué a noruegos, llamé a noruegos...

Suena que tú y los noruegos tenéis una relación conflictiva...

[Luís]

thats wy i invented the a-i-o-u sistem: -a for femminin, -i for neutral, -o for masculin and -u for "thingly". so i dont hav to think about it, do enny reserch, i no that the woman from tuvalu is a tuvala, the person a tuvali, and the language is tuvaliano. the inhabbitants of barcelona ar the barcelonis, the male inhabbitants of irkutsk in siberia the irkutskos. and i use this scheem for all my sistems.

Shouldn't that be "tuvalua", "tuvalui", "tuvaluiano", and "barcelonai"? What do you have against hiatus, Zé?

Peruvi is even weirder.

[Zé do Rock]

When you write in English, can you at least try to spell things correctly? Keeping to your own standard is very rude to anyone who struggles with their English. I even had to read a few words twice and my level in English is at the very least C1.

Since I am using my administrator voice here, disregarding this will be seen as open contempt. I am sorry to be this blunt, but you have to understand that we are a forum dedicated to helping people learn languages in a useful, or at least genuine, way.

If you're dyslexic, please install a spell checker for the languages you want to write in.

yo no estoy af acuerdo ki estoy siendo grosero. I напiсаl 5 кнig i пlюс ki 100 gазетнiх статеi, dаje моя оficiаlная корреспонdенцe напiсана в упрощенноi орfоgраfie - e dependendli do dificuldee grad, no poucos pararam ler la texto ou ni comessaram, mas i posso no me lembrar ki algi mi disse ke i tava sendo rud, speciali cuando la reform é soft como la ke i tou usando aki. i ha da au üba 100 literari shows in sculas, e kainer had so wenig inteligenz um nit draufzucommen, dass ik eben andas screib als el andris.

i se au nit, dass fili hir english-beginner sind. i hav the imprecion ki most usis hir ar linguistis, e linguistis who cannot spik inglishe can bi counted with la fingeres af one hand, mem if it is la hand af a sawmil werki. donc i ne cre pas ki beaucoup gens ici hayent des problemas avec el ortografie, mas ist bene possible ki beaucoup d'eux ha des problemas de prononciacion, si pas souvent, au moins parfois - in TESS también profesoris de inglish in universidees (ablantes nativos) descubren a veces ki han pronuncedo una palabra de maner incorrecta toda su vid. dat är ofta la fal med ord ki du ofta ser scrivee ma sällan talat. e assim, tendo uma ortografie mais lógic, você descobre dises erros - um "correct" zu lesen e zu screiben, musst du nur die tausenden andren postings lesen, o la dages journal.

since i fa falsitees, no matter if i write in HS or in tradicional ortografie (you certanly observd that i was corrected quite a few taims), i cannot stei hir - i ha pas ecrit in tradicional ortografie sa fait des decadas. una lástima, porke este forum mi gustó mucho, is super interesal. ma duke gjykuar nga postimet, duket se unë më pëlqen grupa më shumë se grupa laike mi. i pensei ki a gente ki lerne linguas como amharic ou kannada ou outre mega desafios no teria problem bai lern um inglishe levemente modifikee (ou hoi mem um pouco suego levemente modifikee...).

na ja, if algi mer über europan e main ortografische reformen wissen wil, li cann maine youtube-videos sen, man muss nur 'zé do rock' und 'landes e linguas' aingeben. and in fact i can stil wraite na conlang seccion, or ai conlang reglas dat ar to bi observee too?

i ha pensee ki les gens ki aprennent des linguas com amharik ou kannada et des autres mega defis nauraient pas des problemas avec un peu d'inglishe modifikee. mas tal vez la problem is mas uno de opinión ki uno de capacidad.

pretože hovoríme o ťažkostiach s čítaním: cuais foram las palavras na texto acima ki causaram problemas de legibilidee pra você? dise wörter waren nich konventionell geschriben: themselvs? at leest? relativ? thare? freequently? mor? comprehensiv?


i cant agree that i'm being rude. i wrote 5 books and mor than 100 articles, and i also write my oficial correspondence in reformd spelling - and depending on the degree of dificulty, quite a few peeple stoppd reeding my texts or eeven didnt start with it, but i cant remember that somebody told me i'm being rude with them, especialy wen i write in a soft reformd spelling as i'm using heer. i had mor than 100 literary shows in scools, and nobody had so little intelligence to think that wat i write is the oficial spelling.

i dont see that many users heer ar beginners in the englishe language. i hav the impression that most of them ar linguists (or linguaholics like me), and linguists who cant speek inglishe can be counted with the fingers of one hand, eeven if it is the hand of a sawmill worker. so i dont beleev that many peeple heer hav trouble with the spelling, but it is possible that quite a few hav problems with the pronunciation, if not very offen, at leest sometimes - in TESS nativ speekers, offen university professors, find out that they hav been pronouncing a word the wrong way all thare lives. this is offen the case with words you offen reed but rarely heer. and so, having a mor logical orthografy, you find out thees mistakes - to Spell the rite way, you just hav to reed the many thousands postings in this forum or the billions of texts outside it.

since i make mistakes, no matter if i write in HS or in traditional spelling (you certanly observd that i was corrected quite a few times), i cant stay heer - i havnt written in traditional spelling for deccades. it's a shame, since i like this forum, it is quite intresting. but it seems, judging by the messages, that my comments and my spelling arnt appreciated anyway. i thaut that peeple who lern or try to lern languages like amharic or kannada or other huge challenges wouldnt hav trouble to lern a slitely modified inglish (or in this post eeven a bit of modified swegish). but maybe it is mor a problem of personal attitude towards spelling reform than one of ability.

wel, if someone wants to know mor about europan and my orthografic sistems, he can watch my youtube viddeos, you just hav to enter 'zé do rock' and then 'landes e linguas'. and actualy i can stil write in the conlang section, or ar thare conlang rules that ar to be observd too? and wat about the spelling reform thred - is it alowd thare, or peeple can write about it but not giv examples?

and since we'r talking about reeding dificulties: wich wer the words in my text above that causd legibility problems for you? thees words wer difrent from TS (traditional spelling): themselvs? at leest? relativ? thare? freequently? mor? comprehensiv?

buy the weigh, spell chequers are knot a guarantee that ewe will right the write weigh. knot in english, that is 4 shore. it wood knot correct a single word hear in this sentence.

eye love ewe all... (finaly a sentence without weerd spellings, ay?)

[Dormouse559]

M'kay. Bye, Felicia.

[księżycowy]

i wrote 5 books and mor than 100 articles

Concidering what passes for publishing now-a-days, that's hardly anything to flaunt.

[dEhiN]

since i make mistakes, no matter if i write in HS or in traditional spelling (you certanly observd that i was corrected quite a few times), i cant stay heer - i havnt written in traditional spelling for deccades. it's a shame, since i like this forum, it is quite intresting. but it seems, judging by the messages, that my comments and my spelling arnt appreciated anyway. i thaut that peeple who lern or try to lern languages like amharic or kannada or other huge challenges wouldnt hav trouble to lern a slitely modified inglish (or in this post eeven a bit of modified swegish). but maybe it is mor a problem of personal attitude towards spelling reform than one of ability

Attitude towards spelling reform might be one factor in the responses you've been getting. But I think the main problem with your using your reformed spelling is that this is a public forum. And as such, we can't just think of ourselves when we write or post stuff. We also need to think of everyone else, and in this particular case, how what I write might affect/inhibit/foster communication. As you pointed out, probably the majority of the active, non-native English speakers on here could read your messages and understand them. But that doesn't mean your reformed spelling is adding to the communication. None of us are familiar with your spelling system, and it would take us a long time to learn it and get used to it. So what ends up happening is that we are either faced with the choice of spending more time reading and parsing your message, or skipping it and choosing not to have a conversation with you. And if we choose the former, then after we've spent that extra time parsing your message, we now have to spend even more time responding. Why should any of us do that, when UniLang is just one part of our lives?

I hope that makes sense. If not, an example that might help illustrate my point is this: let's say I'm a nudist. I like being nude at home, and I'm even part of a nudist club where I interact with others who are like me. Maybe I even extol the reasons why I believe society should be free of the restriction of clothing through published books and so forth. Does this mean I can walk around in public in the nude? No, I need to get used to being clothed in public, and then I'm free to be nude in the environments that accept it.

You're more than welcome to create a specific thread (if one doesn't already exist) for discussing English spelling reforms, or even specifically your spelling reform.

[linguoboy]

i dont see that many users heer ar beginners in the englishe language. i hav the impression that most of them ar linguists (or linguaholics like me)

LOL. I'm sure that after being here for all of two weeks, your impressions of who's on Unilang are more accurate than those of someone who's been a moderator and regular poster for at least a decade.

[Car]

The thing is that you should strive to make sure that even people who don't speak English that well or have problems reading (not to mention people who might need software for it because they're visually impaired - I think we might have had a user in the past who needed it) shouldn't have to face extra difficulties when reading someone's posts. I'm certainly not a beginner and in general, I'm a fast reader, but it does take me considerably longer to read the posts in that spelling. You could at least use a standardised version of English in addition to it, then everyone is free to read whichever version they choose.

[dEhiN]

You could at least use a standardised version of English in addition to it, then everyone is free to read whichever version they choose.

Which is something I've also suggested before.

[Zé do Rock]

Vijayjon, Dehin, Saim, Luís, Car,

I replied to some of your comments on the 'europan' thred in the conlang section, so if you can still bear some weird spellings, you're welcome...

zé

[OldBoring]

Vijayjon, Dehin, Saim, Luís, Car,

I replied to some of your comments on the 'europan' thread in the conlang section, so if you can still bear some weird spellings, you're welcome...

zé

[md0]

Continuing on the theme of marginally-related to linguistics questions: does anyone here have experience with the linguistics journal Snippets as a submitter?

[rmanoj]

I read a post on r/linguistics earlier that talked about how the accusative case has fallen out of use in modern Elfdalian. The oldest living speakers can recognise it as something their parents and grandparents used, but apparently can't produce it accurately. Is this true?

This is quite fascinating, if accurate. I wonder if anyone knows of similar observed instances (especially morphosyntactic examples like this one).

[Johanna]

I read a post on r/linguistics earlier that talked about how the accusative case has fallen out of use in modern Elfdalian. The oldest living speakers can recognise it as something their parents and grandparents used, but apparently can't produce it accurately. Is this true?

This is quite fascinating, if accurate. I wonder if anyone knows of similar observed instances (especially morphosyntactic examples like this one).

That's pretty much what happened in all other North Germanic varieties, except those spoken way out in the Atlantic of course, since those still have all four cases intact. More or less, Faroese is in the process of getting rid of genitive.

I'm not entirely sure about the timeline... Judging from the translation of the New Testament that I'm looking at at the moment, the accusative was still sort of used in the 1520's in the Mälardalen region of Sweden, but the forms that hadn't completely merged with their nominative counterparts were few and far between. I'm comparing it to the Bible translation from 1703, in which there is no trace of an accusative but still very much a dative case, although used less frequently than almost 200 years before.

I do know that there are still a few dialects of Swedish and Norwegian with a fully productive dative case, and even more that use it for specific words in certain contexts, but I can't think of any that retain the accusative. There certainly isn't a single one that keeps accusative around, even on life support, while it's completely done away with dative.

Seems like Elfdalian simply joined our little party late

[vijayjohn]

Continuing on the theme of marginally-related to linguistics questions: does anyone here have experience with the linguistics journal Snippets as a submitter?

Nope, sorry.

[ich]

unergative vs unaccusative

I am having difficulties wrapping my head around these two concepts. On Wikipedia, unergative verbs are described as intransitive verbs that have an agent or treats the argument like the ergative argument of a transitive verb. Wiki uses examples such as "run," "talk," etc.

I understand the fact that unaccusative verbs such as "die" and "fall" do not have subjects that are agents because they did not cause the action whereas in the examples of unergative verbs, the subject is causing the action, making it the agent.

It is the statement "or treats the argument like the ergative argument of a transitive verb" is where I am confused. In the following sentences such as:
You ran over the hill.
She dies.
Both "she" and "you" are nominative. In an ergative/absolutive language, "you" and "she" would be both absolutive, right?

So, my final question is, how is "you" being treated as an ergative argument of a transitive verb?

[Multiturquoise]

Sorry for being late to join this thread, but I would like to demonstrate that some languages including Greek and most Slavic languages have separate imperfect and perfect tenses. I also didn't mean to derail your thread.

For example in Greek:
Imperfect tenses: Ενεστώτας (Present)*, Παρατατικός (Past Continuous), Συνεχής Μέλλοντας (Future Continuous)
Perfect tenses: Αόριστος (Past Simple), Απλός Μέλλοντας (Future Simple), Παρακείμενος (Present Perfect), Υπερσυντέλικος (Past Perfect), Προστακτική (Simple Imperative)

* Greek has no separate tenses for present simple and present continuous.

[vijayjohn]

Sorry for taking forever to answer this, but:

unergative vs unaccusative

I am having difficulties wrapping my head around these two concepts.

It's okay. I still have difficulties wrapping my head around them.

On Wikipedia, unergative verbs are described as intransitive verbs that have an agent or treats the argument like the ergative argument of a transitive verb. Wiki uses examples such as "run," "talk," etc.

I understand the fact that unaccusative verbs such as "die" and "fall" do not have subjects that are agents because they did not cause the action whereas in the examples of unergative verbs, the subject is causing the action, making it the agent.

It is the statement "or treats the argument like the ergative argument of a transitive verb" is where I am confused. In the following sentences such as:
You ran over the hill.
She dies.
Both "she" and "you" are nominative. In an ergative/absolutive language, "you" and "she" would be both absolutive, right?

So, my final question is, how is "you" being treated as an ergative argument of a transitive verb?

I think the way it's phrased on the Wikipedia article is just weird. There are some ergative-absolutive languages that make a case distinction between these two kinds of verbs. (I'm sure there are others that don't; for instance, IINM Basque does not make this kind of distinction despite also being ergative-absolutive). For example, in Bats, a language somewhat closely related to Chechen but spoken in Georgia, there are two ways to say 'I fell'. One is:

So vož-en-so.
PRO.1SG-ABS fall-AORIST-1SG:ABS

Another is:

As vuiž-n-as.
PRO.1SG-ERG fall-AORIST-1SG:ERG

In the first sentence, the subject is in absolutive case, but in the second, it's in ergative case. In that sentence, the ergative case implies a greater degree of control. It could mean that the speaker deliberately fell down or, more likely, that they could have avoided falling down but didn't. (In other words, they failed to exercise the control they could have had over the situation).

There are also languages that aren't ergative-absolutive but have similar distinctions, though. For example, Sinhalese is nominative-accusative but observes the following distinction:

Mamə naʈənəwa.
'I dance (deliberately).'

Maʈə næʈəenəwa.
'I dance in spite of myself.'

(I was about to include citations. Both the Bats examples and the Sinhalese examples are from secondary sources, so I can list both the sources I got them from and the sources they got them from, but only if someone is particularly interested for some reason ).