Zompist Bboard Again

So what's the difference in vowel then between the pairs? I'm not good at IPA so here's a clip: "fort" then "fault" . Bear in mind this is me intentionally trying to emulate casual speech - if I was enunciating, "thought" would have a th sound and would definitely rhym...

This is all very curious to me, because I have no idea how this outcome could come to be, much the less in an East London variety (Estuary!) rather than some obscure dialect in some corner of the UK. The idea that the -ought in thought would not be identical to the -ought in fought is really interes...

Even though the basic word order of Fad'ami is VSO, it also permits VOS, SVO, and OVS word orders in main clauses, along with fronting of adverbs and applicative arguments, for the purposes of topicalization and emphasis. Note that only one argument or adverb other than vocative arguments may be pla...

I am now going to reuse ha * as a relative pronoun. It will not be used when the relativized argument is the subject or object of the immediately relativized verb, because that will be unambiguous in most cases (because it will have the greatest personhood of any core verb argument except for 1st an...

I have decided to get rid of complementizers; now subordinate and quoted clauses are to be referred to without ha before them. Conversely, though, relative clauses will have their verbs receive a relativizing prefix yi - (or if the verb starts with a vowel, y -). I have also changed my mind on what ...

TomHChappell wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 4:40 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 10:23 am What really is the meaning of we guys? I have caught myself using this, and just noticed my boss using it today. Is this explicit 1+2 clusivity?

I don’t know!

But In my estimation it could also be 1+2+2 or 1+2+3.

From second thought, it sounds like 1+2+2 clusivity to me.

Frication of initial *j is pretty universal in Romance, even though it had different outcomes in different parts, e.g. [dʒ] in Old French versus [ʝ~j] in Old Spanish, so I would presume it was pretty early. (It was early enough in Old Spanish that Latinate words were borrowed into it with [dʒ], whic...

I suspect that there might have been a somewhat larger-than-usual generational divide about music between the last generations that grew up before music started to explore the new technological possibilities in music-making that appeared in the mid-to-late 20th century, and the first generations th...

Also do we have any dating on *j → /ʒ/ word initially? Cause it'd make sense if they correlated, that /ʒ/ is the regular reflex of *j in French when not preceded by a vowel. IIRC this was [dʒ] up to Middle French, e.g. only relatively recent French loans in English, such as garage , were borrowed w...

I just realized that I don't have raising of /æ/ to /eɪ/ before /ŋ/ in Vancouver , as I pronounce it with [ɛ̃] rather than the expected [ẽ̞]. Perhaps relevantly, I don't have /ŋ/ at all there, but /n/. I have [n] before velar consonants in very few words e.g. nightingale (IMD historical /n/ assimil...

Are you not horse - hoarse merged? Horse and hoarse are homophones for me. So what's the difference in vowel then between the pairs? I'm not good at IPA so here's a clip: "fort" then "fault" . Bear in mind this is me intentionally trying to emulate casual speech - if I was enunc...

All other parameters being the same, is it attested to unambiguously contrast the perfective and imperfective aspects and have a three-way tense contrast among past, present, and future in the imperfective aspect but only a two-way contrast between one of past/nonpast or future/nonfuture in the per...

My friends and I called ourselves "the weirdos" when we were in elementary school, specifically with the positive sense of "weird".

What really is the meaning of we guys? I have caught myself using this, and just noticed my boss using it today. Is this explicit 1+2 clusivity?

It's hard to analyse it because thinking about it changes it, but I'm pretty sure, for me, in casual speech: fought = fort thought = fault And neither pair matches the other. I have no idea why this would be the case, because fought and thought definitely look like they should rhyme, and f and th m...

Why did Latin cavea 'cage, etc' become French cage 'i.d.' and not *cae or something to that effect? Was it w → gʷ? I thought that only occurred in Old Latin. According to Peter Boyd-Bowman, VY regularly goes to /ʒ/: SALVIA > sauge, LEVIARIU > léger, SERVIENTE > sergent; DILUVIU > déluge. Also BY: R...

Why did Latin cavea 'cage, etc' become French cage 'i.d.' and not *cae or something to that effect? Was it w → gʷ? I thought that only occurred in Old Latin. What is interesting is that it did not undergo /w/ > /β/ as was typical of Latin /w/. Note that /w/ > /gʷ/ was typical of later borrowings in...

I just realized that I don't have raising of /æ/ to /eɪ/ before /ŋ/ in Vancouver, as I pronounce it with [ɛ̃] rather than the expected [ẽ̞].

I change my mind again. These will actually retain tense, aspect, and evidential marking.

I was born in 1984 and still love '70s and '80s music. Metallica was -- and is -- very popular among my age group, though most of their hits were released when we were toddlers. Same exact thing here. When I was in middle and high school kids loved Metallica, even though most of Metallica's hits we...