Zompist Bboard Again

Richard W

¹ That's not entirely fair any more, as courts can issue a strongly worded polite request for parliament to fix a law that's incompatible with the Human Rights act, but that's still not real constitution review A UK statute may override the Human Rights Act, so long as it states that does so. This ...

Richard W

Torco wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2026 9:58 am there is no thing-that-is-six out there in the land of math,

I think there is:

Code: Select all

0 = {}
1 = {0}
2 = {0, 1}
3 = {0, 1, 2}
4 = {0, 1, 2, 3}
5 = {0, 1, 2, 3, 4}
6 = {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5}

Richard W

I would say that 'stride' is defective to me; I had never even heard of 'stridden' before this thread. That was my thought when I first considered the matter, over fifty years ago. On the other hand, bestridden from bestride gives me no problem. I do have a problem inventing an ordinary example wit...

Richard W

Are you saying that write , wrote and written have but a single morpheme between them, or are you saying they're three different morphemes? Three different ones. They cannot, syncronically, be analyzed otherwise. HERESY! Also false. I'm pretty sure I successfully analysed the past form brung the fi...

Richard W

How do you express the analyses of wrote and written into morphemes? They're their own, free, morphemes. Words with an ablaut ("wrote") or a synchronically unanalyzable form ("written") do not have morphemes other than the main one. Are you saying that write , wrote and written ...

Richard W

In short, yes, although noöne will care what you call [verbform x], as long as the name doesn't actively create confusion. This is really the key to most terminological debates. The function of a morpheme is about its syntactic and semantic distribution, not the term you happen to choose to summari...

Richard W

And then there's <-en>, which marks the past participle, and some would say in weak verbs generally has the same form as <-ed>. The past participle is marked by -ed, just like the past tense. -en isn't synchronically a past participle morpheme, I consider forms like "written" to be suplet...

Richard W

Terminological question: Does a tense have a morpheme? It feels hard to say that the English simple past has a morpheme, and this is not an isolated example - good examples can be found in all of the 3 classical IE languages. Let's first get clear what a morpheme is : it's the smallest bearer of in...

Richard W

This might come down to the semantics of 'have a morpheme'. Pretty much, yes. In English I would say that <-ed> is a morpheme whose sole function is as a past tense; other languages may have different arrangements with more complicated form-to-function correspondences. And then there's <-en>, which...

Richard W

In short, yes, although noöne will care what you call [verbform x], as long as the name doesn't actively create confusion. This is really the key to most terminological debates. The function of a morpheme is about its syntactic and semantic distribution, not the term you happen to choose to summari...

Richard W

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2026 5:24 pm Maybe the Right Honourable Member for the Falkland Islands can teleconference from there to the House of Commons, or conversely teleconference with constituents from London.

The latter's what's done for Clacton.

Richard W

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sun Apr 26, 2026 6:03 pm Does anyone really care that someone tried to assassinate Trump? No one really cared the last two times, why would they care now?

Perhaps it's a feeling that the world would be better off if the US presidency were under the direction of Peter Thiel rather than Donald Trump.

Richard W

Condolences to the American people on the failed attempt to assassinate Trump, if that be what it was.

Richard W

Richard W wrote: ↑Sat Apr 18, 2026 5:35 pm Given what you say, it seems that Jal used 'P' for transitive object. In some sense, 'S' makes sense as an abbreviation for 'sole'.

And now I've just been served with a Youtube video on ergativity using SAP in tis labelling. The 'S' was expanded to 'single'.

Richard W

If you are really convinced that the cause isn't a “primary argument”¹, then it's a quirky subject in the accusative⁵, and again just like the German examples, but with an extra oblique argument in the genitive. ¹ I wouldn't be so sure. The genitive without a possesseum feels quite like a core argu...

Richard W

At this point, I fail to understand 'S=O is mandatory'. I presume it does not refer to Latin impersonal verbs with accusative of person, e.g. Me civitatis morum piget taedet que ' I am sick and weary of the morals of the state'. I know just enough Latin to be confused by this, so let me have a go t...

Richard W

2) Does the language have a grammatical voice that is used to detransitivize a transitive that marks the former A as S? If so, it's ergative. I think Classical Sanskrit can delete the patient of a transitive verb expressed using the past participle by switching to a conventional finite verb, namely...

Richard W

It pains me to say that I am now being confused by the notation. I had understood: 'S' = subject (a purely grammatical aspect)) 'O' = object (a purely grammatical aspect) 'A' = agent (semantic, though languages can be idiosyncratic in what is the agent and what is the patient) 'P' = patient (semant...

Richard W

A passive is typically marked on the verb, while in split ergativity the ergativity is either marked on the noun or the verb (note that there's a difference in marking preference between split-S and fluid-S, where split-S has a tendency to be marked on the verb, while fluid-S has to be marked on th...

Richard W

A passive is typically marked on the verb, while in split ergativity the ergativity is either marked on the noun or the verb (note that there's a difference in marking preference between split-S and fluid-S, where split-S has a tendency to be marked on the verb, while fluid-S has to be marked on th...

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