Zompist Bboard Again

For stop assimilation, pʰəɢəwa first changes to pʰɢəwa as expected, but the stop assimilation rule doesn't turn pʰ to b , rather it gives me � . To solve this problem, you need to change the stop assimilation rules to the following: ;stop assimilation [Svcd Svla Svca] / [Svcl Svcl Svcl] / _ Svcl [S...

Something which, of course, only occurred to me when I switched my computer off: we depend on oil for a lot more things than just petrol; where would we get our plastics from, for example? And I hear a lot about how much essential fertilizer comes from the Middle East; would this trigger a change i...

I just wanted to say, I've been enjoying seeing you gradually work out how to make this family work, and replacing and moving bits between revisions, and this installment is no exception.

So if -en isn’t a morpheme, then what is it? A syllable, part of a single morpheme. I don't see much difference between "sleep" / "slept" or "go" / "went" on the one hand, and "write" / "written" on the other, with regards to phonemic anal...

Regarding the recent supreme court ruling, my understanding is that most countries do not allow the courts to nullify laws, only to rule whether they've been followed or violated. It seems like the US is unusual in giving greater weight to court rulings than decisions of the legislature. Is that an...

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. Wait, Nigel Farage has enough interest in his constituents to speak to them, albeit rem...

Man in Space wrote: ↑Tue Apr 28, 2026 7:44 pm

Ooh, very nice. I always like a nice explanatory Twin Aster post.

Twice, surely? There on Sunday and back on Thursday. No, because in return for representing such a remote location the Member would be given special SoopaPowaz to teleport back. Maybe the Right Honourable Member for the Falkland Islands can teleconference from there to the House of Commons, or conv...

I'm not sure why they can't be regularised into devolved nations with representation in parliament I'd love to see the Right Honourable Member for the Falkland Islands flying 100 degrees of latitude once a week to attend Parliament. Twice, surely? There on Sunday and back on Thursday. (And yes, thi...

(Talking only about Britain here because it's what I know best) Yeah, the Chagos islands case is frustrating¹, but there is definitely some surprise in certain quarters that the Commonwealth doesn't want to do whatever we say, despite our wonderful shared history, and are even asking for reparations...

Thanks everyone who replied! While people have been good at explaining what a (past) imperfect ive is, the specific term ‘imperfect’¹ is a lot more confusing. It was originally used for a specific Latin tense that happened to mostly match a past imperfective, and then got borrowed across Europe for...

I know the West is allied with some dictators. Is Nayib Bukele one of them or not? Trump seems allied with him. What about Europe? I think European support for minor Third World dictators is more a matter of things like Françafrique , which itself is/was mostly a French thing (hence the name) even ...

þeprussianfrog wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2026 11:51 am At least for me it doesn't run properly on older Windows.

What went wrong?

I know the West is allied with some dictators. Is Nayib Bukele one of them or not? Trump seems allied with him. What about Europe? I believe the answer is ‘couldn't care that much about what the leader of a tiny Central American country is doing.’ Given his reputation, approval will depend on wheth...

Travis B. wrote: ↑Thu Apr 23, 2026 1:14 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Thu Apr 23, 2026 12:44 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Thu Apr 23, 2026 12:37 pm
I think it's also available for Linux (you may have to install GHC and compile it yourself, I onno, though).

Indeed, for Linux there’s an AppImage available.

Tis true; not all people are up to the task of installing and using GHC.

Yeah, that was a slog.

Didn't all the Democrats run away to deny them quorum? I definitely remember reading about that. And California succeeded in its gerrymandering, which roughly balances Texas. Don't worry about it too much, and just hope it puts an end to this whole irritating process¹. No, they gave up and returned...

Unfortunately a judge just blocked the new congressional map for Virginia, making the whole vote pointless and giving the GOP quite an advantage in House seats. I must say, it baffles me that red states can just change their maps at will while blue states must pass changed maps with referenda and f...

I chose this example because the usual case for direct objects in Latin is being used for the primary argument, the person affected. I don't see the cause being a primary argument. In this respect, it differs from the German example, which uses an oblique case for the person affected. Some Latin im...

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...

þeprussianfrog wrote: ↑Fri Apr 17, 2026 6:52 am Sorry for interrupting with a question but is challenge restricted to Latin alphabet only or other writing systems like Cyrillic, Greek etc allowed?

I haven't known anyone to police it, so you with what appeals to you most.