Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[Richard W]

This probably sounds dumb, but perhaps because the heart is considered the source of emotion and emotions are mercurial, prone to change at a moment's notice. That would be my guess anyway.

... but in its cousin Biblical Hebrew the kidneys were the seat of emotion.

But the heart was the seat of thought - bᵉlibbō 'in his heart' is an extremely common phrase.

The PAA root *lb often means some visceral organ, and I've seen it connected to the PIE and Germanic words for 'liver'.

[Zaarin]

This probably sounds dumb, but perhaps because the heart is considered the source of emotion and emotions are mercurial, prone to change at a moment's notice. That would be my guess anyway.

... but in its cousin Biblical Hebrew the kidneys were the seat of emotion.

But the heart was the seat of thought - bᵉlibbō 'in his heart' is an extremely common phrase.

Yep, and the liver of courage/honor.

[Pabappa]

I thought I remembered reading that liver was just live + er, but neither wiktionary nor etymonline gives that, though wikt says they at least might be cogs.

[Moose-tache]

I thought I remembered reading that liver was just live + er, but neither wiktionary nor etymonline gives that, though wikt says they at least might be cogs.

I love the idea of naming a vital organ something like the "stay alive-inator." It has a lovely, Germanic literalness to it.

Also, I would add "intestinal fortitude" to the list of organ-emotion imagery. I wonder if there are any organs associated specifically with cowardice. Perhaps some conlang might have an expression like "You could never fight in battle. Your spleen is huge."

[mèþru]

"lack guts"
"lilly-livered"

[Linguoboy]

I wonder if there are any organs associated specifically with cowardice. Perhaps some conlang might have an expression like "You could never fight in battle. Your spleen is huge."

All the metaphorical expressions I know for cowardice refer to a lack of something, not an overabundance of something else. There are lots of references to the act of defecating from fear, but even that concerns the lack of something (i.e. the control over one's bowels).

[mèþru]

Well, at least it can be done as an original thing in a conlang if no natlang does it.

[Salmoneus]

I wonder if there are any organs associated specifically with cowardice. Perhaps some conlang might have an expression like "You could never fight in battle. Your spleen is huge."

All the metaphorical expressions I know for cowardice refer to a lack of something, not an overabundance of something else. There are lots of references to the act of defecating from fear, but even that concerns the lack of something (i.e. the control over one's bowels).

In my experience, most cultures have what one might call a fairly optimistic view of biology: the healthy body is good. The parts of a healthy body are therefore good, and must be there for some useful purpose, even if it's not immediately clear what that might be. The idea that some idiot god put an organ into the body that's simply malevolent even when physically healthy (that is, not an organ that can cause disease if it goes wrong, but that causes dysfunction even when physically un-diseased) is probably pretty counterintuitive to most cultures.

It's not impossible, since Aristotelian seems to open the way for such an organ. In Aristotle, dysfunction comes not from absolute flaws, but from relative departures from moderation. Cowardice, in that sense, could be seen as an excess of prudence overwhelming an insufficient will. If prudence were to be associated with a particular organ, then accusing someone of having a big prudence-organ could indeed be a way of accusing them of being a coward - but even then, it would only be a cause of cowardice when paired with an insufficient will-organ. And since prudence (and its organ) are still inherently good, it would make more sense to call cowards people with weak wills than to call them people with strong prudence. [also, it's rhetorically more effective to accuse people of lacks (which are inherently at least partly bad) than of surfeits (which are easier to reframe as positives)].

The closest I can think of in real life is the theory of humours. I suppose cowardice could be associated with phlegmatism - but I suspect it would be more often attacked simply as a lack of choler.

[Xwtek]

How does Nahuatl handle sentence like: "I am a brave soldier." or "You are a smart girl"

[Linguoboy]

How does Nahuatl handle sentence like: "I am a brave soldier." or "You are a smart girl"

Generally with compounding, i.e. "1sg-brave-soldier", "2sg-smart-girl". It's also possible to have two predicates, i.e. "1sg-brave 1sg.-soldier", "2sg-smart 2sg-girl".

At least, that's how it works for Classical Nahuatl. I'm not familiar with any contemporary varieties.

[Xwtek]

How does Nahuatl handle sentence like: "I am a brave soldier." or "You are a smart girl"

Generally with compounding, i.e. "1sg-brave-soldier", "2sg-smart-girl". It's also possible to have two predicates, i.e. "1sg-brave 1sg.-soldier", "2sg-smart 2sg-girl".

At least, that's how it works for Classical Nahuatl. I'm not familiar with any contemporary varieties.

Thank you. In my conlang, noun is declined into free singular, free plural, bound, and copular. And if the noun is declined as copular, it can then receive verbal affixes. Example: fkhød (girl) = a-fkhør-és (3SG-girl-be) (she is a girl) The problem is how to translate sentence like that. So I think: how about fkhød sa-syk'óo (girl REL-good) (good girl) becomes a-fkhør-és a-syk'óo (3SG-girl-be 3SG-good)

[Linguoboy]

Thank you. In my conlang, noun is declined into free singular, free plural, bound, and copular. And if the noun is declined as copular, it can then receive verbal affixes. Example: fkhød (girl) = a-fkhør-és (3SG-girl-be) (she is a girl) The problem is how to translate sentence like that. So I think: how about fkhød sa-syk'óo (girl REL-good) (good girl) becomes a-fkhør-és a-syk'óo (3SG-girl-be 3SG-good)

I don't see why it couldn't also be 3sg-girl-be REL-good (a-fkhør-és sa-syk'óo?). Or maybe both could exist with some contrast, e.g. restrictive vs unrestrictive.

[Xwtek]

Thank you. In my conlang, noun is declined into free singular, free plural, bound, and copular. And if the noun is declined as copular, it can then receive verbal affixes. Example: fkhød (girl) = a-fkhør-és (3SG-girl-be) (she is a girl) The problem is how to translate sentence like that. So I think: how about fkhød sa-syk'óo (girl REL-good) (good girl) becomes a-fkhør-és a-syk'óo (3SG-girl-be 3SG-good)

I don't see why it couldn't also be 3sg-girl-be REL-good (a-fkhør-és sa-syk'óo?). Or maybe both could exist with some contrast, e.g. restrictive vs unrestrictive.

Initially, "*a-fkhør-és sa-syk'óo" is ungrammatical, because sa-syk'óo has to modify a free noun, not a bound or copular noun. Now that you mention it, I probably lenite the rules to allow that.

[Whimemsz]

Don't know where else to put this, but the connection of Arabic qalb 'heart' with the homophonous verbal noun from qalaba 'turn, change' just doesn't make semantic sense to me. And from what I can see on wikipedia a lot of Mehri forms, including the word for 'heart', have some kind of ḥa- prefix. Why couldn't qalb be some kind of fossilized formation like this from the more well-attested *lib word?

Alternatively, if someone has other clear examples of 'thing that turns/changes' > 'heart' then that would remove any problem, so that's good too.

I know I'm getting here late, but for what it's worth, Alexander Militarev and Leonid Kogan suggest a connection -- via metathesis -- with Akkadian qablu "middle, center, middle part; hips, loin, waist." (I agree that the homophony with Q-L-B is probably just a coincidence, at any rate.)

[Pabappa]

Does semic have LB for ❤ or is it LBB?

[Richard W]

Does semic have LB for ❤ or is it LBB?

From what little I know, it is LB always occurring with a triconsonantal template, e.g. Biblical Hebrew <lēḇ> That one should be a segholate CiCC in Hebrew, but if the last two consonants are the same (even if only after assimilation), one doesn't get the eponymous anaptyctic vowel. I'm not sure that a root BCC is genuinely different to a root BC.

[Whimemsz]

It was *libb- in Proto-Semitic, but IMO there isn't any particular reason to assign the Proto-Semitic noun to a "root," since it was a primary noun -- not derived from anything else and with an unpredictable and meaningless vowel. In those daughter languages which have derived verbs from it you could say it is part of a L-B-B root.

[Pabappa]

I'm curious where the line is drawn between animals that have genders and those that do not.. e g in Russian all rabbits are a male and all mice are females, but in spanish the gender distinction persists down to animals like these. Are there languages which mark gender on parasitic nematode worms?

[Linguoboy]

I'm curious where the line is drawn between animals that have genders and those that do not.. e g in Russian all rabbits are a male and all mice are females,

What is a крольчиха then? Or a мышонок?

[Space60]

Do you ever shorten "air conditioner" to "air con"? I don't use "air con". It is "AC" or "air" for me.