Zompist Bboard Again

Given that tater tots are a thing I can read that two ways .... From drudge report: Impact of Trump tweets on decline ( https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/the-impact-of-trump-tweets-is-on-the-decline ) Turns out it's headlinese and omits the "is" after "tweets" I stopped rea...

Gu gen weayeam duma anha? Idyarne oh arirged? N'oi yeamora edougoer moureuruhyo moumodonegaar moumanri? INF Q INC-FUT.ID tree NZI-what | wood PART PAT-build | POL:SBJ FUT.ID-plt.pl and-door or-gate or-furniture or-NZP-other What do you suppose the pines will become? Structural timber? Might it be d...

How does NP (> ⁿB) > B look? edit: oh wait, doesn't Greek have this? yes. the nasals are still there in intervocalic position. however, Japanese has done the complete shift .... http://enwp.org/Rendaku is the shift of /mp nt ns nk/ > /b d z g/, with some analogical forms later appearing where there...

You could arguably get by without polar questions at least .... "I think you want a cookie!" .... but in a normal situation this would prob develop into a question particle even so.

I don't like using <y> for /j/ in general, and I prefer writing about diphthongs as a series of vowels instead of of vowels and semivowels whenever possible. I also tend to use <v> for /w/ if the language has no /v/-like sounds in order to save space and because I feel an alphabet with <w> but no <...

na ke kotlem kipeha 1sg O pine-PL favor-AUG Pines are my favorite. Pipiabo šavo. have.a.favorite-TR-1P also-1P Mine too! This is distinguished from "I have a favorite, too!" by adding a transitivity marker, even though the transitivity marker does not explicitly specify the object. And th...

How do you feel about using apostrophes as syllable breaks, as in Pinyin? I'm kind of hesitating between two possible romanizations, one using i and u for syllable-final /j/ and /w/, and apostrophes to disambiguate where needed, the other just using y and w. Apostrophes have a long history of negat...

Tú is not used much. We're familiar with it because much of the media and the Internet uses it, since much of it is made in Mexico or Colombia and other such tú-using countries, or is dubbed in Peru or the like. As far as things made in El Salvador go, you can hear it and see it in advertisements a...

Right, but if fortis/lenis is analyzed as gemination, we would only be putting singletons in final position anyway. /naltak/=nalttak, etc. Thus the consonant inventory of old Basque can be simplified to only 9 consonants.

Consonants come in fortis-lenis pairs which contrast only medially.

I dont understand why this isnt just analyzed as gemination. sure, you have pairs like /ld/ vs /lt/ in Old Basque, but thats no problem because there are languages that have contrasts between /lt/ and /ltt/, such as Finnish.

And now, for something new. Very good reading as always, thank you. I have a few questions, I hope not too many. Since I seemed to have bumped the thread, Im just pointing out the up-arrow above links to the entire previous post for anyone who's not familiar with the new format. Proto-Icemannic Pho...

Come on guys, it was peer reviewed. Peer review means it's right. Besides, he checked his work. It took him an entire two weeks, even. Theres no question about it..... the elusive Voynich manuscript has been finally really truly definitely absolutely positively deciphered, and we are among the very ...

A little linguistic curiosity, from an article in Slate comparing war with Iran with war in Iraq: Its terrain is rougher and more mountainous; Iraq’s was flat and mostly clear desert. The curiosity is the word was . Iraq's terrain hasn't changed since the invasion. In a past narrative, it's fine to...

Pweppopos, vontaftamembi twofas pilži. march-in.the.woods-1P-GEN, trunk-pick-agent-PL-LOC-1P.past pine-ACC-FINAL-3p-GEN towards-walk-1P.past While I was hiking, I ran into some loggers working with pines. the FINAL morpheme is a modifier that changes the accusative ending from /p/ to /f/ when it ap...

I mean the origin of "olive-skinned ",... that cite is for red. I don't think we would coin a term based on olives for a New World people, so I suspect it goes back even further than 1684.

Apparently, native Americans were themselves described as olive-skinned (in French) in 1684: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redskin_(slang) The origin of the term may not be in English. I wouldnt think that the term would be invented just for the Natives, so we should expect to see even older cites...

Lithuanian has some cases that are derived from other cases plus a suffix. Hungarian might do this too. I like option 3.

given that we still call Native Americans "redskins" I find no trouble believing that the term "olive-skinned" comes from olives. but just as we dont know the true etymology of "redskin", i dont think we can ever find out the true origin of the olive term. i wrote much ...

It's a re-stressed weak form: unstressed [fɹʷəm] -> stressed [fɹʷɜm] since STRUT and schwa are very close in many American accents. Ditto for was, of, because and possibly what . Hence casual spellings 'cuz or LOL WUT . Ive picked up the /kɔz/ in "because" in emphatic speech (/bi::::::kɔ:...

ok thanks. I left my comment vague on purpose ... ive heard that a rectangular map is often derived from an earlier "map" of the writer's bedroom .