Conlang Random Thread

[zompist]

One point which maybe hasn’t been made sufficiently clear yet is that phonological and grammatical constituents do not in general coincide. [...]

Phonologically, the intonational structure is something like this:

[The man] [who I saw yesterday] [had a car] [with a flat tyre]

Whereas the syntactic structure is quite different:

[The man who [I saw yesterday]] [had [a car [with a flat tyre]]]

First, I'd say this is really

[The man [who I saw yesterday]] [had [a car [with a flat tyre]]]

This actually does align with your intonational structure, except for "had a car".

What strikes me is that each speech group is a constituent except that one. However, "had a car" is a valid constituent in a simpler sentence. It would be far more challenging if phonologically we set off "yesterday had".

I'd also note that there are transformations (e.g. Extraposition from NP, Heavy NP Backing) which move parts of an NP. It's as if some bits of the syntactic tree are attached with far less glue than others. So "a car [with a flat tire]" is not as closely tied together as "flat [tire]" is.

[bradrn]

One point which maybe hasn’t been made sufficiently clear yet is that phonological and grammatical constituents do not in general coincide. [...]

Phonologically, the intonational structure is something like this:

[The man] [who I saw yesterday] [had a car] [with a flat tyre]

Whereas the syntactic structure is quite different:

[The man who [I saw yesterday]] [had [a car [with a flat tyre]]]

First, I'd say this is really

[The man [who I saw yesterday]] [had [a car [with a flat tyre]]]

This actually does align with your intonational structure, except for "had a car".

Fair enough.

What strikes me is that each speech group is a constituent except that one. However, "had a car" is a valid constituent in a simpler sentence. It would be far more challenging if phonologically we set off "yesterday had".

Also “the man”: in other sentences it could be a constituent, but in this one it isn’t. Either way, the phonology and syntax still don’t quite align.

[chris_notts]

I thought it might be amusing to create a cover page for a conlang grammar that looks a bit like it was published as part of a series by a linguistics institute / publisher. The format of this draft is based on some old SIL grammars I have, but with the series name, publisher name, logo etc. all changed.

The logo is a Twitter joke / reference generated using Midjourney, with some editing in Inkscape and Gimp afterwards.

Hopefully none of these things are real, otherwise I'll have to change it again... I don't think there's a constructed language institute, is there?



EDIT: actually the format wasn't SIL, it was from this series:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Linguistics

[Raphael]

Looks impressive. Can't think of more to say for now.

[hwhatting]

I like it.

[bradrn]

I thought it might be amusing to create a cover page for a conlang grammar that looks a bit like it was published as part of a series by a linguistics institute / publisher.

Very nice! Now you just need to typeset the text with a typewriter on grainy paper which has been lumpily scanned to a PDF…

[chris_notts]

I thought it might be amusing to create a cover page for a conlang grammar that looks a bit like it was published as part of a series by a linguistics institute / publisher.

Very nice! Now you just need to typeset the text with a typewriter on grainy paper which has been lumpily scanned to a PDF…

Getting the production quality low enough to convince people sounds like hard work

[Travis B.]

I thought it might be amusing to create a cover page for a conlang grammar that looks a bit like it was published as part of a series by a linguistics institute / publisher.

Very nice! Now you just need to typeset the text with a typewriter on grainy paper which has been lumpily scanned to a PDF…

You also need to have hand-written diacritics on letters and IPA too.

[bradrn]

I thought it might be amusing to create a cover page for a conlang grammar that looks a bit like it was published as part of a series by a linguistics institute / publisher.

Very nice! Now you just need to typeset the text with a typewriter on grainy paper which has been lumpily scanned to a PDF…

You also need to have hand-written diacritics on letters and IPA too.

Oh, true! I don’t know how I could have forgotten the hand-written diacritics.

Admittedly, now that I think of it, some of the more recent ones are typeset in Times New Roman, which might be easier. In that case the main thing would be to make sure to replicate the italic (and bold italic!) headings.

[Emily]

villiana hyde's introduction to the luiseño language (1971) was clearly "typeset" via typewriter, and made choices that today seem striking: stress is indicated nót by diacrítics but by underlining the stressed vowel, and one character (which according to wikipedia indicates /ʂ/) is just the letter "s" with a slash typed over it. fun things to consider if you go farther than the title page!

the same book also includes, as either a reading or translation exercise, a letter to someone involved in the occupation of alcatraz, which would have likely still been ongoing during the writing of the book (it was published in 1971, the same year the occupation ended). interesting reminder as you work on material that the history and politics of your culture can come up in areas you might not expect them

[bradrn]

villiana hyde's introduction to the luiseño language (1971) was clearly "typeset" via typewriter, and made choices that today seem striking: stress is indicated nót by diacrítics but by underlining the stressed vowel, and one character (which according to wikipedia indicates /ʂ/) is just the letter "s" with a slash typed over it. fun things to consider if you go farther than the title page!

Oh, slashes (and similar) were very common in the typewriter era. Bruce’s grammar of Alamblak has all of ⟨p̵ b̵ g̵̣⟩, plus ⟨č š x̣ ṛ̌ Ṛ̌ ṛ̌ʸ Ṛ̌ʸ⟩ for good measure!

[jal]

Oh, slashes (and similar) were very common in the typewriter era. Bruce’s grammar of Alamblak has all of ⟨p̵ b̵ g̵̣⟩

Except those are dashes, not slashes :).


JAL

[bradrn]

Oh, slashes (and similar) were very common in the typewriter era. Bruce’s grammar of Alamblak has all of ⟨p̵ b̵ g̵̣⟩

Except those are dashes, nog slashes .

Same difference… practically no orthography contrasts them.

(Except SENĆOŦEN, of course. Speaking of which, if you really want to talk about typewriter orthographies…)

[Man in Space]

Today in weird example sentences…

Áge ḫu în tó ahgor iglí ma dún tó

áge

COP

ḫu

stable

în

follow

tó

TOP

/kagor

PL/rocket.engine

igli

any.of.these.PROX

ma

DET

dún

one

tó

this.DIST

'that rocket engine isn't as reliable as any of these'

It's impressive how dissimilar the English is in terms of which NP is actually marked…my brain wants to read it like inside-out.

[chris_notts]

I'm recreating the vocabulary for Qummin as part of the reworking, and starting a spreadsheet dictionary that I'll probably eventually convert to LaTeX with a custom Python script. The issue is that given that Qummin has productive interacting vowel deletion and consonant assimilation processes, I need to decide what to do about the variants of each form at some point.

I could list them, but it would be a pain / a lot of work unless I automated it, and it would also really pad the dictionary, sometimes with really obvious / low value alternate form entries. On the other hand, not listing them might make parsing and looking up some forms harder....

I guess I need to check what e.g. dictionaries of Ojibwe do. Do they list syncopated alternate forms separately?

[keenir]

I've got a two-part question:

1. Serial Noun Phrases are plausible, right - at least in terms of syntax trees?
ie, (...(1(fish(breaded))) (3(chicken(BBQed))) and so on...)

2. I'm thinking of having something that I'm tenatively calling a Destination - the reason why I'm giving it its own name in my paper notes, is that, unlike Subjects and Objects, a Destination can just be (bowl)...no numbers or description (1(breaded)) or anything else need go with it. The only requirement it has, is that everything else is heading there. Is there already a word for this?
ie,
(bowl (into (1(fish(breaded))) (3(chicken(BBQed))) (1/2cup(peas(warm))) ))

yes, i was slightly hungry when i wrote the idea down.

thank you.

[bradrn]

1. Serial Noun Phrases are plausible, right - at least in terms of syntax trees?
ie, (...(1(fish(breaded))) (3(chicken(BBQed))) and so on...)

Those would be more commonly known as ‘noun compounds’.

2. I'm thinking of having something that I'm tenatively calling a Destination - the reason why I'm giving it its own name in my paper notes, is that, unlike Subjects and Objects, a Destination can just be (bowl)...no numbers or description (1(breaded)) or anything else need go with it. The only requirement it has, is that everything else is heading there. Is there already a word for this?
ie,
(bowl (into (1(fish(breaded))) (3(chicken(BBQed))) (1/2cup(peas(warm))) ))

I have absolutely no idea what you mean by this. What is ‘1(breaded)’ supposed to mean?

[foxcatdog]

I think the second one would be referred to as a lative as in lative case. In languages with less refined case distinction it could be referred to as a dative.

[keenir]

ie,
(bowl (into (1(fish(breaded))) (3(chicken(BBQed))) (1/2cup(peas(warm))) ))

I have absolutely no idea what you mean by this. What is ‘1(breaded)’ supposed to mean?

its one fish (or filet of fish) thats been breaded

[keenir]

I think the second one would be referred to as a lative as in lative case. In languages with less refined case distinction it could be referred to as a dative.

Thank you.