Bhögetan questions

[zompist]

It's not automatic, but it's easy enough, as I wrote a Javascript program to create the HTML tables. I'll do it once my book is out.

(The imagemaps tho... ugh. Anything in that area requires updating a lot of pages. I suppose I should try using some post-2000 HTML this time!)

[bradrn]

(The imagemaps tho... ugh. Anything in that area requires updating a lot of pages. I suppose I should try using some post-2000 HTML this time!)

You shouldn’t need any fancy HTML, just a simple templating solution should do the trick. Simply replace the imagemaps by a unique placeholder text (like {IMAGEMAP} or similar), then use sed or an equivalent to replace it with the appropriate HTML. And sure, this introduces an extra compilation step, but it’s better than copying out imagemaps to every webpage by hand!

[Atom]

Zomp, how does Bhögetan borrow new verbs? in particular, how does Bhögetan descendants divide up the semantic space of new transitive verbs? So like, say you are a Bhögetanic speaker living under Verdurian rule and want to borrow duisir - "to drive" to discuss moving a car (you learned duisir from some Verdurian who ran over your neighbor in his car or whatever). Do you borrow it as something like

duyisir cita nisen (I drive, the car goes)
or maybe
krutoka duyisir nisen (I "push" the pedal, then the car is driven)?
or maybe you would use an instrumental
cita ñar nisen

but ok there are other verbs where the prepositional could be tough
celmetan, ñibhña befelec (I compile, the program is ready)
or
krutoka, celmetanña befelec (I push [the key], the program compiles)

[zompist]

Zomp, how does Bhögetan borrow new verbs? in particular, how does Bhögetan descendants divide up the semantic space of new transitive verbs? So like, say you are a Bhögetanic speaker living under Verdurian rule and want to borrow duisir - "to drive" to discuss moving a car (you learned duisir from some Verdurian who ran over your neighbor in his car or whatever). Do you borrow it as something like

duyisir cita nisen (I drive, the car goes)
or maybe
krutoka duyisir nisen (I "push" the pedal, then the car is driven)?
or maybe you would use an instrumental
cita ñar nisen

Both solutions are good. In this case there's no need for a new verb for what the car does— it goes— so "duisir" would be borrowed to say what the driver is doing.

(About to go to the store, so I'm not looking at the morphology here!)

but ok there are other verbs where the prepositional could be tough
celmetan, ñibhña befelec (I compile, the program is ready)
or
krutoka, celmetanña befelec (I push [the key], the program compiles)

I like the first one— a verb for "be ready" would be useful for all sorts of machinery. And contrast with "fail" when the damn thing refuses to work.

I don't think I mentioned it in the grammar, but you can also do a lot with implied objects. Maybe you just say "I compiled"... context makes it clear that it's a program. For that matter, we can say "I drove".

[Atom]

Good that you're not looking at the morphology, it's very bad!
Hmm, so basically you think that Bhögetan's will probably try and divide the semantic space up to limit the number of borrowings? A sort of minimization principle.

Do later Bhögetan descendants borrow transitive verbs under the influence of Verdurian or Kebreni?

[zompist]

Good that you're not looking at the morphology, it's very bad!
Hmm, so basically you think that Bhögetan's will probably try and divide the semantic space up to limit the number of borrowings? A sort of minimization principle.

Well, the easy bit is that new words will be used for new things. Languages differ in how readily they borrow new words for concepts they already have.

Do later Bhögetan descendants borrow transitive verbs under the influence of Verdurian or Kebreni?

Some probably do! Syntactic borrowing is pretty easy, and the language contact situation here is pretty intense.