Zompist Bboard Again

Ryan of Tinellb wrote: ↑Sat Aug 17, 2019 11:15 am I don't know what they're called in the literature, but I coined "degunative number" to refer to those numbers able to be intuited at a glance.

That sort of intuiting is called subitising. I don't know if there's an established term for the numbers involved.

Vædty Qyṣ (phonology) vædty qyṣ væˑˈθtɨˑ ˈqɨʂ is Vædty Qyṣ for unnamed conlang . (Not really.) I've got no particular plans for this language. Maybe it'll be a source for vocabulary borrowed into Akiatu's ancestors. Consonants m n t ʈ <ṭ> k kʷ <kw> q qʷ <qw> s ʂ <ṣ> h v ð <d> ɣ <g> ɾ <r> r~l <rr, l...

Scratch intro

It's about time I had one of these.

Things I post here will mostly be a step or two past raw notes and brainstorming, but I won't try to keep things either focused or cumulative.

I've been browsing A Grammar of Komnzo by Christian Döhler, and came upon this (pp.16-17): For many of the customs described above, it is important to record the exact quantity of tubers. For the counting ritual a special base-six numeral system is used... The counting procedure involves two men who...

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Mon Aug 12, 2019 10:16 am

akam chinjir wrote: ↑Mon Aug 12, 2019 10:11 amCome to think of it, classical Chinese has no number distinctions in pronouns.

I didn't think Classical Chinese even had 3P subject pronouns.

It doesn't, but there's always 之. (Plus I already managed to forget we were just talking about 3p.)

According to Wikipedia, Burmese has a plural particle (တို့ tui., colloquial ဒို့ dui) appended to personal pronouns. (This is part of the reason why I don't trust WALS in these matters.) I suspect in practice it's like other SEA and EA languages that avoid 3P pronouns in favour of honorifics/names...

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Mon Aug 12, 2019 9:17 am A friend of mine is looking for examples of languages with no number distinction in 3P personal pronouns. I feel dumb that I can't think of any.

WALS lists Burmese, Canela-Krahô, Cocopa, Imonda, Kiowa, Maricopa, Oneida, Pirahã, and Qawasqar.

Can anyone recommend any reading on tone systems where a large number (perhaps the majority) of syllables are neutral tone? I i think /i such systems exist. I'm particularly curious how the neutral tones interact with tone persistence, if present. You've already looked at Moira Yip's book Tone , I ...

Ser wrote: ↑Thu Aug 08, 2019 4:08 pm I think there are two differences between adjectives and verbs in Mandarin:

Do these criteria distinguish adjectives from a verb (assuming it's really a verb) like xǐhuān 喜歡 like?

Incidentally, the unicode description of the first one is "Latin letter inverted glottal stop with stroke," not "inverted ts."

True, but it was originally derived from a t-s ligature, and it was used for the affricative /t͡s/.
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Oh, cool!

I see them both too. (I'd be stunned if someone could see ƾ but not ϛ. Incidentally, the unicode description of the first one is "Latin letter inverted glottal stop with stroke," not "inverted ts.")

On the other hand, if you saw a (as you say, meaningless) phrase like "take insurance" in isolation, you would assume it means "to take out an insurance policy." This was what I meant about the combination "take insurance" as an insurance policy on a share not being po...

Akangka wrote: ↑Thu Aug 01, 2019 9:09 am Also, while I don't know whether dental /n̪/ is realistic, why don't you palatize /n/ to /ɲ/ and simply not touching it in later sound changes?

Hmm. No reason that I can think of, actually. I'll do that. Thanks!

Interestingly enough, the Index Diachronica says that something similar can happen for vowels; that is, it seems that V > 0 / _# is attested. Do you have any ideas on why this one is natural, whereas Akangka’s change isn’t? The tautological answer is that vowels form a natural class more easily tha...

After I read this article , it says that this change is not natural: *C > 0 / _# But why? It sounds like the issue is that word-final lenition tends to target particular classes of segments, and tends to involve a series of changes. Like, plosives might debuccalise to glottal stops, which are later...

I'm with those with variable palatalisation. I have (roughly) dʒrink and trink(et), but druck and tʃruck. (The examples I've come up with so far make this seem like it might be a frequency effect?)

Thanks Akganka, that's good to know!

In both cases this is dental [t̪j] and not alveolar [tj] though, which could be relevant: dentals tend to resist palatalization better than alveolars. Thanks Tropylium, that's good to know! I wonder---could it make any sense to have dental t̪ and n̪ alongside alveolar d and s ? (I want sj to end up...

My recent reading suggests that (H) is available in all footing schemes (iambic, syllabic trochaic, moraic trochaic)---though I think you've got to be right that it's most at home in a system with moraic trochees, and it makes sense that in an iambic language there'd be resistance to losing the weak...

Suppose a language has rhythmic stress, and unfooted syllables are fairly common. Is there any tendency for vowels in the weak syllable of a foot to reduce more than do vowels in unfooted syllables? To reduce less? Could foot-type make a difference? (My thought is that with iambic feet you relativel...

For classical, there's also Pulleyblank's Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar, which is maybe easier to consult than a textbook.

The Eno has the advantage of being available free online, here.

I'd be curious, though, what resources there are for actual Middle Chinese.