Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Unless I'm very much mistaken, that's still primarily a spoken language.

Primarily, yes, but you can see a range of representations, from mere nods to the vernacular to ad hoc attempts to represent it directly. Rap lyrics are generally written with AAVE syntax but standard spelling. (With some variants to be cool.)

I've encountered these, but not in longform text where it wasn't eye-dialect in something narrated in some form of standard English. Apparently some "pulp" fiction fully in AAVE has been self-published, though, which is interesting to know.

[FlamyobatRudki]

you forget hiberno english, is another esxception to generality someone made about written anglic varieties.

[Linguoboy]

Unless I'm very much mistaken, that's still primarily a spoken language.

And Scots isn't?

I considered mentioning Hiberno-English but I don't really recall seeing it much written outside of Synge's œuvre.

[anteallach]

What about Caribbean varieties? Or do you count the more divergent varieties there as not "Anglic", because they're creoles?

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Unless I'm very much mistaken, that's still primarily a spoken language.

And Scots isn't?

I believe there was a pre-Union tradition of Scots Literature.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

What about Caribbean varieties? Or do you count the more divergent varieties there as not "Anglic", because they're creoles?

I think I would consider them Anglic.

[dɮ the phoneme]

Can someone explain how inflection of derived Arabic verbs works? Wikipedia only gives inflectional charts for Form I verbs, and I'm struggling to see how the inflection patterns could be generalized to other verb forms.

[Kuchigakatai]

Can someone explain how inflection of derived Arabic verbs works? Wikipedia only gives inflectional charts for Form I verbs, and I'm struggling to see how the inflection patterns could be generalized to other verb forms.

They work in the same way. Okay, sometimes there's a different vowel in the prefixes of the prefix conjugation (a.k.a. the imperfect a.k.a. the present), but no matter.

form I active: qatal-a, qatal-ta, qatal-at, qatal-ti... present indicative ya-qtul-u, ta-qtul-u, ta-qtul-iina, ya-qtul-na...
form I passive: qutil-a, qutil-ta... pres. indic. yu-qtal-u, tu-qtal-u...

form II active: qattal-a, qattal-ta... pres. indic. yu-qattil-u, tu-qattil-u...
form II passive: quttil-a, quttil-ta... pres. indic. yu-qattal-u, tu-qattal-u...

form IV active: ʔaqtal-a, ʔaqtal-ta... pres. indic. yu-qtil-u, tu-qtil-u...
...and so on...

You can check inflection patterns with romanizations on Wiktionary these days. Just go to Appendix: Arabic verbs and click on the example verbs, then on the collapsible conjugation tables inside.

[dɮ the phoneme]

They work in the same way.

I'm sorry but I'm still not sure I get it, even after looking at the relevant Wiktionary pages.

So form II is derived from form I by doubling the middle consonant of the root, I get that. But how would I know that the form II present tenses are

yu-qattil-u, tu-qattil-u...

from the fact that the form I present tenses of the same root are

ya-qtul-u, ta-qtul-u

?

Or is the -qattil- part simply also something that has to be memorized? Does learning the rules for forming each form require memorizing the past and present stems (is that what they're called?) separately?

[bradrn]

They work in the same way.

I'm sorry but I'm still not sure I get it, even after looking at the relevant Wiktionary pages.

Arabic, like all Semitic languages, uses triconsonantal roots. The root here is √qtl; it is being inflected in templates yu-C₁aC₂C₂iC₃-u, t-uC₁aC₂C₂iC₃-u, ya-C₁C₂uC₃-u, ta-C₁C₂uC₃-u etc. (Disclaimer: I know no Arabic, but I know some Hebrew, which works basically the same way.)

[Kuchigakatai]

I'm sorry but I'm still not sure I get it, even after looking at the relevant Wiktionary pages.

So form II is derived from form I by doubling the middle consonant of the root, I get that. But how would I know that the form II present tenses are

yu-qattil-u, tu-qattil-u...

from the fact that the form I present tenses of the same root are

ya-qtul-u, ta-qtul-u

?

Or is the -qattil- part simply also something that has to be memorized? Does learning the rules for forming each form require memorizing the past and present stems (is that what they're called?) separately?

You memorize that the present active of form II has the stem -(u)CaC:iC-, and then apply the relevant inflectional prefixes and suffixes to the stem. So yes. Note that vowels are completely predictable in derived stems (after you've memorized the stem patterns); it's just the form I stem vowels that you have to watch out for. A form I past active can be CaC{a,i,u}Ca, but a form II past active is always CaC:aCa, a form VI past active is always taCaaCaCa, and so on.

[Zju]

Why did Portuguese merge /ão õe ãe/ to /ão/ in open final syllables, but preserved them in closed final syllables? I'd expect that nucleuses of codaless syllables would be more prone to preserving contrasts.

[dɮ the phoneme]

You memorize that the present active of form II has the stem -(u)CaC:iC-, and then apply the relevant inflectional prefixes and suffixes to the stem. So yes. Note that vowels are completely predictable in derived stems (after you've memorized the stem patterns); it's just the form I stem vowels that you have to watch out for. A form I past active can be CaC{a,i,u}Ca, but a form II past active is always CaC:aCa, a form VI past active is always taCaaCaCa, and so on.

Ah, ok. So basically you have to memorize 30 stem shapes: the shapes for form I through XV stems in past and present active. And the rest of the inflectional categories can be derived agglutinatively from there. This is not including the various nominalized forms and so on.

[Kuchigakatai]

And the passive stems.

(I don't think forms IX and XI have an available passive, maybe along with the later uncommon forms...)

[Kuchigakatai]

In Ge'ez, Amharic and Tigrinya, human nouns are gendered (masculine or feminine), so adjectives, determiners and verbs agree in gender with them, but most inanimate nouns don't have a fixed gender, being able to be either masculine or feminine at the speaker's whim. (I don't know what animal nouns do.) I find this is an interesting approach to the question of how to deal with inanimates in a two-gender system...

[Travis B.]

Here's a little thing I've noticed in the speech of some other individuals here (seemingly not myself though): sporadically realizing /uː/ as the diphthong [i̯y] or [i̯ʉ] after coronals. I wonder if anyone else has noticed this in any other English-speakers' speech.

[Estav]

Here's a little thing I've noticed in the speech of some other individuals here (seemingly not myself though): sporadically realizing /uː/ as the diphthong [i̯y] or [i̯ʉ] after coronals. I wonder if anyone else has noticed this in any other English-speakers' speech.

Fronting of /u/ is documented to be most common after coronals in North American English. I have not heard or heard of the result being [i̯y].

[Travis B.]

Here's a little thing I've noticed in the speech of some other individuals here (seemingly not myself though): sporadically realizing /uː/ as the diphthong [i̯y] or [i̯ʉ] after coronals. I wonder if anyone else has noticed this in any other English-speakers' speech.

Fronting of /u/ is documented to be most common after coronals in North American English. I have not heard or heard of the result being [i̯y].

Yes, strong front-back allophony of /u/ depending on preceding and, to a lesser extent, following consonants is very much present in the dialect here, and the same seems to my ears to be true of many other NAE varieties. /u/ in my own speech can vary all the way from true [u], as in kook or poop, to [y], as in toot.

[Travis B.]

Does anyone else have or is aware of anyone they know having a generic multipurpose particle /ɑː/ (for me [aː]), which I shall write as ah from here on, that contrasts with both oh /oʊ/ (for me [o̞ː]~[o̞ːw]) and uh /ə/ (for me [əː])? For instance, I frequently put ah at the start of speaking with a number of functions, including vocative usages where it is followed by someone's name, usages where it acknowledges what someone else has said (and especially is used to indicate that one understand what has been said) and begins a response to it, usages where it serves solely to get someone's attention or simply introduces what follows, and in the form ah yah [ˌaːˈjaː], akin to oh yeah or oh yes. (Interestingly enough I am not familiar with *oh yah; I do hear ah yeah and ah yes, though.)

To me ah is not interchangeable with oh or uh. (Disclaimer: I presume the native English-speakers here know the following.) Oh has a number of different meanings that do not overlap, such as indicating that something important follows that the listener ought to particularly pay attention to, or, when following something someone else has said, indicating surprise. Uh introduces speech, or may be used by itself, indicating doubt or uncertainty, either of what one oneself is saying or of what someone else has said or thinks. Consequently, I do not consider ah to be a reduced version of oh or a fortis version of uh.

I am aware of some usages of ah in Standard English, but they seem to be limited to indicating understanding of what has been said, and as a result in forms like ah yes; it does not seem to be used nearly as broadly in Standard English.

[Moose-tache]

ah: "I am surprised to learn this new thing or be reminded of a learned thing. But the world still makes sense."
oh: "I am surprised to witness this new event or receive this new information. Things are no longer going according to plan."