Zompist Bboard Again

What about "MadudofoW", or "Mandarin dumbed down for Westerners"? Start with Mandarin, remove the tones, replace them with additional syllables, and write it all down in some derivative of Pinyin.

I've skimmed the Sound Change Quickie Thread, and now I wonder: Are there any good introductory resources on what kind of sound changes tend to happen? The LCK and ALC mainly seem to explain that sound changes are usually regular, and provide a few examples, but that's about it. If you're completel...

Salmoneus wrote: ↑Sat Jan 26, 2019 8:51 am Politico:
Dems press agency head for White House plan on Fannie, Freddie


So many things...

Is the person in question someone like The Head from Against Peace and Freedom?

I don't remember much of last night's dreams, but I do remember that part of it involved trying to get something done in a spreadsheet. Looks like all the word I've done with wordlists in spreadsheets recently is starting to seep into my dreams.

I dreamed that I was carefully brushing my teeth. Then I woke up and felt kind of disappointed to discover that they weren't freshly brushed.

I've skimmed the Sound Change Quickie Thread, and now I wonder: Are there any good introductory resources on what kind of sound changes tend to happen? The LCK and ALC mainly seem to explain that sound changes are usually regular, and provide a few examples, but that's about it. If you're completely...

And here are the last three, very rudimentary, a priori naming languages:

https://guessishouldputthisupsomewhere. ... c3-and-d6/

Now on to sound changes!

Thank you! I've fixed the /eɪ/ issue. I have three more a priori simple languages to go - one protolang and two standalone modern languages - before I can start on sound changes. But thankfully, these three languages all have very small vocabularies, so it shouldn't take too long.

Done.

Two more Proto-languages, though with a lot fewer words than Proto-1, are up:

https://guessishouldputthisupsomewhere. ... d-proto-3/

Salmoneus wrote: ↑Tue Jan 22, 2019 6:42 amwhereas I'll bet you now, thirty years from now we will not see Dominic Raab or Chris Grayling being asked for their opinions on anything.

Either you're being very optimistic, or British political discussion programmes are a good deal more intelligent than those in other countries.

the Supreme Court is viewed as the ultimate way for common citizens to overrule the legislative and executive branches What? US federal courts (with the highest being the Supreme Court) can overturn laws and executive orders on basis of them not being constitutional/violating federal statutes. Trum...

Frislander wrote: ↑Mon Jan 21, 2019 8:16 am That happened weeks ago, that's old news.

Oh wow. Thank you for the information. Although, to be honest, I don't really like the idea of something as obviously disqualifying as that ever becoming "old news".

Serious question: Earlier today, I saw someone on Twitter claiming that the Northern Ireland Secretary supposedly announced that she had just discovered that Unionists don't vote Sinn Féin. Was that person being snarky, or is it actually true? I find it hard to imagine even a member of Theresa May's...

Vijay wrote: ↑Sat Jan 19, 2019 7:07 am Okay, then I guess I did understand the question. Sandra is the possessor, and the computer is the possessum.

Thank you!

The possessor? I'm not sure whether I understood the question. Suppose there's an isolating language that doesn't even mark possessive the way English does, but relies entirely on word order to indicate possessive relations. (To be honest, I don't know enough about linguistics yet to know whether s...

Another stupid newbie question: what do you call a noun that would be in genitive in a language that has genitive, if you're talking about a language that doesn't have genitive?

Raphael wrote: ↑Fri Jan 18, 2019 6:13 am

Akangka wrote: ↑Thu Jan 17, 2019 5:37 pm

Raphael wrote: ↑Thu Jan 17, 2019 12:51 pm To be honest, at the moment I don't know yet what a verbal slot table is.

It is a table that describes how to order an affix. Like

-3	-2	-1	0
Person	Number	TAM	Root

Thank you, I'll try to do that.

Update: Done!

"Finite" verbs are verbs limited to a specific referent, like Latin "amant" or English "loves," while verb forms that are not limited in this way are in- finite, like "amare" or "to love." It makes less sense when you apply it to other languages (Do...

Another silly question: what's infinite about infinitives?