Linguistics thread

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby dEhiN » 2018-02-26, 20:22

Multiturquoise wrote:I also didn't mean to derail your thread

You didn't derail anything; this is after all a linguistics thread, so any linguistic questions or discussions are welcomed. :D

Multiturquoise wrote: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.

Could you give an example of the present (imperfect) versus the present perfect? Is the present perfect (and I guess past perfect as well) similar to English where it's used to contrast two points in time?

vijayjohn wrote: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.'

What is the aorist tense? If I remember correctly, I've seen this term used in reference to the Greek verbal system as well, but I've never fully understood it. Also, I understand your examples in and of themselves, but I don't get the connection to unergative vs unabsolutive. (Ok I know the response wasn't directed at me, but now I want to understand what these terms mean.)
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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby Multiturquoise » 2018-02-26, 20:37

dEhiN wrote:
Multiturquoise wrote: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.

Could you give an example of the present (imperfect) versus the present perfect? Is the present perfect (and I guess past perfect as well) similar to English where it's used to contrast two points in time?


The Greek tenses are generally similar to their English equivalents.

Past Cont: Πήγαινα σπίτι. = I was going home. (I-was-going house)
Past Simp: Πήγα σπίτι. = I went home. (I-went home)

Present Imperf: Πηγαίνω/Πάω σπίτι. = I go home. / I am going home. (I-go home)
Present Perf: Έχω πάει σπίτι. = I have gone home. (I-have it-go home)
Past Perf: Είχα πάει σπίτι. = I had gone home. (I-had it-go home)

The verb after "have" must be in 3rd person subjunctive (Υποτακτική) but without the "να".
native: (tr)
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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby linguoboy » 2018-02-26, 20:41

Multiturquoise wrote:Past Cont: Πήγαινα σπίτι. = I was going home. (I-was-going house)
Past Simp: Πήγα σπίτι. = I went home. (I-went home)

I wonder if this might be more similar to the contrast between imperfect and preterite in the Romance languages. Would you use it to express a past habitual (English "I used to go home") or is there another tense you'd use there?
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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby Multiturquoise » 2018-02-26, 20:45

linguoboy wrote:
Multiturquoise wrote:Past Cont: Πήγαινα σπίτι. = I was going home. (I-was-going house)
Past Simp: Πήγα σπίτι. = I went home. (I-went home)

I wonder if this might be more similar to the contrast between imperfect and preterite in the Romance languages. Would you use it to express a past habitual (English "I used to go home") or is there another tense you'd use there?


The past habitual would be expressed using the past continuous tense (Παρατατικός).
Πήγαινα σπίτι.
native: (tr)
advanced: (en) (el)
intermediate: (fr) (ka)
focus: (de) (sl) (hr)

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-02-26, 21:37

dEhiN wrote:What is the aorist tense? If I remember correctly, I've seen this term used in reference to the Greek verbal system as well, but I've never fully understood it.

That's okay; I don't think anyone fully understands it because "aorist" is a weird term whose definition seems to vary by language. :P I think it's usually considered an aspect rather than a tense, but I might be wrong. Wikipedia says it "usually express[es] perfective aspect and refer[ s ] to past events, similar to a preterite," and that's probably the way it's being used in Bats, too.
Also, I understand your examples in and of themselves, but I don't get the connection to unergative vs unabsolutive unaccusative. (Ok I know the response wasn't directed at me, but now I want to understand what these terms mean.)

Well...basically, Wikipedia says that unergative verbs are intransitive verbs that treat "the argument like the ergative argument of a transitive verb." However, AFAICT, this only makes sense for languages like Bats where the subjects of some verbs are in ergative case and the subjects of other verbs are in absolutive case.

Judging from one of my syntax books (my favorite one, actually), this whole unergative vs. unaccusative thing actually seems a lot more complicated than Wikipedia makes it out to be.

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby aaakknu » 2018-04-05, 9:11

What is the difference between formative and morpheme?
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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby linguoboy » 2018-04-05, 12:51

Do you have an example of the substantive usage of "formative"?

ETA: I liked the explanation here: https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/4112/what-do-the-terms-exponent-and-formative-mean-in-linguistics

(tl;dr: "formative" is a term you use to avoid arguments about what is and isn't a "morpheme".)
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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby razlem » 2018-04-10, 4:46

I'm really disappointed that most universities offer so little on sociolinguistics. Some of my coworkers are only familiar with ooooold Labovian models, with no clue about modern methods and theories :/
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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby IpseDixit » 2018-04-12, 22:41

I was reading the Italian wiki page about pidgins and had to read this:

Nella maggior parte dei casi non si può parlare di vere e proprie lingue, mancando una qualsiasi tradizione letteraria e avendo strutture non codificate e fortemente semplificate


Translated:
<<Most pidgins aren't real languages since they have no literary tradition and a structure which is not codified and extremely simplified.>>

Oy vey...

(Also, why does it say most pidgins? Isn't it true of all pidgins that they're not real, full-fledged languages? Otherwise they'd be creoles, wouldn't they?)

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-04-12, 23:49

IpseDixit wrote:Also, why does it say most pidgins? Isn't it true of all pidgins that they're not real, full-fledged languages? Otherwise they'd be creoles, wouldn't they?

The problem is (perhaps - I haven't read the Italian Wikipedia article in more detail to be sure of what they're talking about :P) what the definition of a pidgin is, which AFAIK is not a settled question. My understanding is that some linguists consider the difference between a pidgin and a creole to be that a creole has native speakers and a pidgin does not, in which case it isn't true of all pidgins because there are full-fledged, stabilized pidgins (by this definition) that nevertheless have no native speakers.

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby IpseDixit » 2018-04-15, 10:38

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI8JwVw_B_I

What the hell is wrong with Merriam-Webster? Why is this guy conflating the schwa and [ʌ]?

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-04-15, 15:11

IpseDixit wrote:Why is this guy conflating the schwa and [ʌ]?

Because according to some linguists, they're the same thing?

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby IpseDixit » 2018-04-15, 16:32

:O Didn't know that. And how mainstream is this view?

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-04-15, 16:43

I don't know. One of my professors (the one who I took Intro to Linguistics with) held this view, and I'm inclined to agree. I don't see the difference either.

EDIT: In general, there's a lot more internal disagreement among linguists than you'd probably expect. :P

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby md0 » 2018-04-15, 17:46

In English, isn't what is usually described as /ʌ/ actually an [ɐ]?
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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-04-15, 18:06

Maybe. He didn't want to overcomplicate these things for his undergrads, though, so he basically just considered them all schwa. :silly:

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby md0 » 2018-04-15, 19:23

Well, English is essentially Dutch with all vowels turned into schwas anyway :lol:
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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-04-15, 19:28

[ʔəf jə ləjk jəɹ kʰləːs st͡ʃɹək̚t͡ʃəɹ], [jə kʰən kʰəːp̚ jəɹ kʰləːs st͡ʃɹək̚t͡ʃəɹ].

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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby mōdgethanc » 2018-05-07, 17:03

[ə] and [ʌ] are different vowels in the IPA. They are arguably allophones in English though.
md0 wrote:In English, isn't what is usually described as /ʌ/ actually an [ɐ]?
In some dialects. To me that sounds very posh and British.
Well, English is essentially Dutch with all vowels turned into schwas anyway :lol:
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Re: Linguistics thread

Postby IpseDixit » 2018-05-12, 12:44

Something that really makes me curious is how people perceive phones that don't exist in their native language and how exactly the brain "decides" which phone in the native language is the closest to the foreign one.

Ok, I know this explanation is pretty crappy so I'd better give an example of what I mean:

[ʌ] is perceived as kind of an [a] by Italians (indeed all English loanwords with it are pronounced with [a]) which is kind of weird when you think about it because we have [ɔ] which shares both height and backness with [ʌ] whereas [a] only shares non-roundedness with [ʌ]. Nonetheless, I'd be the first one to say that [ɔ] and [ʌ] sound way more different than [a] and [ʌ]. So apparently roundedness (or lack thereof) is more important than the other two characteristics.

Has someone ever studied this phenomenon? I don't mean my specific example, but like, in general.


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