Zompist Bboard Again

believe, hiib'u random, jomme stream, qaana bits (coll.), bit Yaaludinit'a mu nayad hiib'udat ha ta qo fad'a mut'. /jaːludinitʼa mu najad xiːɓudatʰ xa tʰa qʰɔ faɗa mutʼ/ give-DAT-AGT.2.S-NEG 1.P reason believe-ACTION-GEN COMP COP PROX.S.INAN language real You gave us no reason to believe that it wa...

One thing I have decided is that if a verb is intransitive, whether inherently or due to its voice (e.g. antipassive), and an applicative is attached to it, the verb agrees with the applied argument as a patient. Isn’t this simply the definition of an applicative? It’s something which promotes an i...

I did not like the three-way contrast between unaspirated, aspirated, and ejective voiceless plosives so I replaced it with a two-way contrast between aspirated and ejective voiceless plosives.

How did the Scottish Lowlands come to speak Lowlands Scots, given that this apparently happened a while before Scotland started to be governed from London? Old English was spoken in the Scottish Lowlands, and Middle Scots just evolved from Old English there. What I was wondering was how Old English...

I don't get the point of this discussion! Isn't lice just the plural of louse ? But I am not a native speaker of English and may have missed something ;) The proposal in the original post is that, despite being etymologically plural, the form "lice" might be reinterpreted as a grammatical...

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Jun 15, 2024 6:18 am How did the Scottish Lowlands come to speak Lowlands Scots, given that this apparently happened a while before Scotland started to be governed from London?

Old English was spoken in the Scottish Lowlands, and Middle Scots just evolved from Old English there.

Computer science is a source of universal truth in a way that no religion is. For instance the proof that there is a large set of problems that simply cannot be solved in all cases, e.g. anything equivalent to the halting problem.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Fri Jun 14, 2024 11:04 pm Religion is a distraction from the facts of life. It's also one, but only one, way to demonstrate loyalty to a group.

On that count anything that is a "distraction" from teh Cause ought to be deprecated, including things like conlanging.

My view of religion is that people can believe what they want to believe as long as they do not impose their beliefs on anyone else, which is the red line where religion goes from being acceptable to being unacceptable.

no, but I'm not surprised - it seems much more common for people to talk about lice than about a louse When something (or someone) is infested with lice, we say it is lousy; we don’t say it is licy. And if we want to insult someone we might say they are a louse, and be understood. Though I think th...

I'm not surprised, but at the same time treating lice and words derived therefrom as singular w.r.t. verb agreement still feels very unnatural to me. I still would say lice don't float and find *lice doesn't float to be rather odd.

Blaming Muslim immigrants for encouraging Islamism is essentially a self-fulfilling prophecy, because marginalized people are more likely to adopt ideologies such as, well, Islamism. Conversely, here in the US I don't see nearly as many issues with Islamism amongst Muslim immigrants, which is likely...

The big thing to me is that in Israeli apologetics they have made "Palestinian" and "Hamas terrorist" practically synonymous, so whenever the IDF massacres a whole bunch of Palestinians, they fall back upon the rhetoric that it was justified because some of them must have been Ha...

I learned recently that there's an event in Irish history called the Battle of the Yellow Ford. Does anyone else think that that should be an event from Chinese history? To avoid misunderstandings: I asked that question because, somehow, a place name like "Yellow Ford" has a "ring&qu...

|əʷ-ə-tə-e-mpə-am-punī-tən, Kantal rəʷ-sə-nu-nə-tham-kəŋ, wə-riaʷ-maⁿ-əʷ-tha-e-yo-kizəm-ic-isa| display (trans.), nih block (n.), akha human, sooru fake, false, gaw Nihtaleeye qo niina akhatam. display-PASS-INST-PRES PROX.S.INAN many block-GEN-P That looks like lots of blocks. Gadiya xacakam yohlaa...

I have always heard that "Canadian goose" is considered wrong and one should instead say "Canada goose". Why don't other animals follow the same convention, though? Nobody says "Persia cat" or "Ireland setter" or "Africa elephant" after all. Because...

One thing I have decided is that if a verb is intransitive, whether inherently or due to its voice (e.g. antipassive), and an applicative is attached to it, the verb agrees with the applied argument as a patient.

tell (trans.), fah display (trans.), nih block (n.), aka human, sooru fake, false, gaw believe, hiib'u random, jomme stream, qaana bits (coll.), bit sleep (intr.), k'owwi day, faaya cool, neat, cille inspire, yokki Romanian, romana money (mass), fiika case, kas genitive, jenitif Romance, romanca fo...

Tell me, where is Gandalf, for I much desire to speak with him. - Celeborn, The Fellowship of the Ring tell (trans.), fah Fahibi thod'a gac'am Gandalfa qo ma ha sime ha laxanamefa. /faxibi tʰɔɗa ɣatsʼam ɣandalfa qɔ ma xa simɛ xa laχanamɛfa/ tell-DAT-ABL place exist-LOC-INV Gandalf PROX.S.INAN 1.S C...

today, these days, hib'a focus on (trans.), liddu program, code (n., coll.), nammeq place. thod'a Lidduc'amu xacayadaa nammeq gac'a thod'a khaytayadaa fad'am hib'a. focus_on-LOC-AGT.1.S-HAB write-PATH.3.P.INAN-ACTION code exist-LOC place create-PAT.3.P.INAN-ACTION language-P today These days I focu...