NEWSGROUP LINGUISTICO INTERNET sci.lang
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From: stevemac@bud.indirect.com (Pascal MacProgrammer)
Subject: translation help
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Not so very long ago, te_hui@pnl.gov (Silkworm) said…"esse quam videri" = ??? in English Litterally, "to-be than to-be-seen".
Reinserting the ellipisis, "To be is more important than to seem".
Rephrasing, "Essence, rather than appearance".
Common proverb, "Don’t judge a book by its cover".
Steve MacGregor
Help stamp out, eliminate, and abolish redundancy!
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From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Subject: Re: One point against Esperanto
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Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
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In article <D4y7Jv.C7M@cwi.nl> dik@cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter) writes:
In article <D4wsoy.7y3@indirect.com> stevemac@bud.indirect.com (Stefano MacGregor) writes:
"vasta" looks a lot like "vast". "vastajn" looks less like "vast".
This is a good example of your objection, and also of my reply. A non-Esperantist sees the entire inflected word, and doesn’t recognize it. You see this as a bad thing; I see it as irrelevant.
[…] When I was 13 I started with Esperanto, but dropped it for a few reasons. One of those was that I did not enjoy learning it.
This may be strange, but at that age I enjoyed the irregular French verbs, seeing what variation was possible.
When I was 14, I enjoyed FORTRAN IV, especially the GO TO statement and the arithmetic IF. You’re not the only one who had his priorities
backwards in his early teens.
Also learning the different declinations and conjugations of Latin, and the irregularities, gave more substance to the language than the dead-looking complete regularity of Esperanto.
I’d be interested to hear your opinion of the nearly complete regularity of Hindi, Turkish, Japanese and (I’m told) Aymara.
Do you consider it as dead-looking as the regularity of Esperanto?
Remember, not all natural languages have as many different declensions, conjugations, irregularities and the like as Latin, and very many are much closer to Esperanto than to Latin in that respect.
Esperanto is an agglutinative language and should be judged as such.
Someone who has actually studied Esperanto for a few hours begins to see the parts that the words are constructed from — in this case vast/a/j/n, and recognizes that the root of the word, ‘vast, is the only part that he should attempt to recognize in other languages.
I can’t help being amazed by the suggestion that one would have to *study* Esperanto for *a few hours* in order to become acquainted with its morphology. I’m at a loss to imagine what kind of retarded idiot would need more than 15 minutes to commit the whole thing to memory (3 minutes for inflexion and 12 minutes for derivation).
"Na, na … ah mean, *no wey*, wi aw due respect, ma lady," stammers Joe.’
Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk) (J Stuart, _Auld Testament Tales_)
* Centre for Cognitive Science, 2 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LW, UK
* Cowan House E113, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Pk Rd, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
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From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Subject: Re: Robots
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Not that this kind of thing really belongs here (alt.usage.english
would’ve been more appropriate). But.
In article <D4xt5t.GDC@indirect.com> stevemac@bud.indirect.com (Pascal MacProgrammer) writes:
[_robot_] was coined by Karel Capek [inverted circumflex over the "C"] in a play that he wrote, called "R.U.R." (which stood for "Rossum’s Universal Robots"). He no doubt based it on a word in his native language (Czech, I believe), for "worker" […]
Actually, the story goes that the word was coined by his brother. KC was telling him about his work on the play and was complaining that he couldn’t think of a good name for the universal creatures in question. His best attempt had been _labor_ (from Latin), but he wasn’t quite satisfied with it. His brother suggested _robot_ (from Czech), KC liked it, and the rest, as they say, is history.
"Na, na … ah mean, *no wey*, wi aw due respect, ma lady," stammers Joe.’Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk) (J Stuart, _Auld Testament Tales_)
* Centre for Cognitive Science, 2 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LW, UK * Cowan House E113, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Pk Rd, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
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From: Tevfik Erdun <yavuz@mango.aloha.com>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Is Turkish a new language?
Date: Sat, 4 Mar 1995 00:57:57 -1000
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On Fri, 3 Mar 1995, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
In article <3j54nl$ssm@newsbf02.news.aol.com> mithat@aol.com (MITHAT) writes:
I visited Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and also attended function of Azeris. I had no trouble in communicating with them in Turkish. As a matter of fact, they themselves called the language they spoke as Turkish.
You mean the language they spoke with you, or the also language they spoke among themselves? I suppose they were not doing their best to speak "standard" Turkish just for the sake of communicating with you? I wonder how the education situation was in these countries until recently, was Turkish used is schools, or was it all Russian?
It doesn’t actually matter whether they were speaking to Mithat or among themselves as Turkish is their language. If they would speak so in order to please Mithat, how would they know the difference between their language and the one spoken in Turkey? Even though there are certain different terms in their own dialect, fundamentally both languages are the same. Even though the official instuctional language was Russian, you can not expect the minorities not to talk their own language in their spare time. I used to travel to Moscow almost every month for business and I had no trouble communicating with the merchants who were predominantly of Turkish origins even though their dialect was certainly different then mine.
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From: smryan@netcom.com (Artie Choke)
Subject: Re: duplication?
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What groups of languages do use duplication? Is it often used to refer to something mystical, or maybe abstract? Is there anything in common between cultures that use word-duplication apart from a common ancestry?
Proto-Indo-European used it (called reduplication), but I don’t know of any descendants that used it. It was sometimes used to indicate "formed from or of" the base word.
The pair depart upon a horse | smryan@netcom.com PO Box 1563
and fare to face their future’s course. | Cupertino, California
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Away! the wealth and worried throne! | What happened to little Artie?
Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: alderson@netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III)
Subject: Re: original Indo-European words
In-Reply-To: fgao@interaccess.com‘s message of Wed, 01 Mar 1995 00:30:10 -0600
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In article <fgao-0103950030100001@nb-dyna107.interaccess.com>
fgao@interaccess.com (ab113) writes:
If I recall correctly, linguists have possibly identified where proto-IE was spoken by the appearance of several geographically words in most Indo-European languages. Without getting into too much detail, I think one of these is a words for salmon, which we carry down into English as "lox". Another is a word for "birch". From these clues, linguists can make a reasonable guess as to where proto-IE was spoken.
This methodology, known as linguistic palaeontology, is not much used since a number of its assumptions have been challenged. For example, fossil pollen studies show us that the birch had a much wider area of occurrence at the time of the hypothesized breakup of the Indo-European community.
More damning, to my mind, is a paper I read (20 years ago, so I don’t have the reference off-hand) which collected all the Indo-European cognates for all the Salmonidae and showed that there is no good reason for assuming that the proto referent is a particular North Sea salmon.
My question is, what are some of the other words that fall into this list?
I think one was a word for "turtle" or "tortoise"; certainly other tree names came into play as well.
Rich Alderson [Tolkien quote temporarily removed in favour of alderson@netcom.com proselytizing comment below –rma]
Please support the creation of the humanities hierarchy of newsgroups!
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From: Andre@shappski.demon.co.uk (Andre Shapps)
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Subject: Re: Children and languages
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In article: <1995Feb28.141959.1@ctdvx5.priv.ornl.gov> s25@ctdvx5.priv.ornl.gov
writes:
Presumably there is no experimental way of testing for this, so the theory (hypothesis?) must have been arrived at theoretically, but no one has been able to show me how.
Unless I am misunderstanding you, there is a very easy way of testing the theory: determine whether there is any difference in the rate at which children acquire language skills among the various languages of the world.
You might define "acquires language skills" by way of certain milestones, such as the age at which the child speaks its first word, age at which it is able to speak in complete sentences, etc. From everything I’ve read (and if you insist, I will post a reference) the average age at which these milestones are reached for spoken language are constant across all languages and cultures.
John
Yes I thought of that kind of thing, but I would have thought that cultural differences would have such a big effect that any differences in the learning difficulties of the language itself would be rendered insignificant.
Sorry if this point’s already been made by now. My newsreader’s a bit ropey and I think I missed a couple of days while I figured a way around a bug.
Andre Shapps
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From: olivier@austin.ibm.com (Olivier Cremel)
Subject: Re: duplication?
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In article <3j4pjn$ct@amhux3.amherst.edu>, damastro@unix.amherst.edu (David A. Mastroianni) writes:
(…)
Anyway, I was interested by the concept of duplication. It seems
to me that it must be a factor in many African and Polynesian languages, just from my casual contact with them. It’s interesting, doubling a word to refer to something…well, related to the original word but somehow…"higher" than it, I guess, in a sort of mystical sense. But then, I’m generalizing from this one instance of duplication.
This does not see, like something that would work in English.
English likes compound words, but duplication I think would sound kind of like baby-talk. Would that go for related languages? (…)
Not compounds, but the French equivalent :
La creme de la creme
La fleur de la fleur
L’essence de l’essence
Le saint des saints
It’s meanly used as a superlative.
Olivier.
"Tel se cuide chauffer qui s’art"
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From: gokturk@seas.gwu.edu (Mehmet Gokturk)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Is Turkish a new language?
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Sever Hayri (hxs9268@ucs.usl.edu) wrote:
….
Although I am not sure exactly what you meant by the statement that all the suffixes go on in a fixed order, but I think it is wrong. Look at following two words gel+mis+sin and gel+sin+mis. I just switched the order of two sufixes, "mis" and "sin", and got two semantically similar words from the same root, which is "gel".
Hayri ? Hayrola ? are they equal semantically? How long have you been outside of TR.
Do not mix syntax and semantics. you can grammatically say
gel sin mis sin where second sin is the equivalent of sin in gel mis sin Its a pity that some of you guys still include xxx misiniz as a whole word.
In terms of parsing an generation , turkish is "i believe" a fairly easy to implement . (With my little knowledge from Automata and languages courses) Anybody worked with APL ? It may seem difficult at first, but later ?
Selam – lar -imi sun-ar-im
Mehmet Gokturk
I do agree with you that Turkish is a regular (or harmonic) lang., but there is no mechanical regularity in Turkish.
Hayri
Daniel "Da" von Brighoff / Dilettanten
(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu) /__ erhebt Euch
> /____ gegen die Kunst!
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From: jardar@nvg.unit.no (Jardar Eggesboe Abrahamsen)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: non-linguists
Date: 5 Mar 1995 19:09:46 GMT
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There are so many non-linguists on this news group. Imagine the reactions if I wrote nonsense on sci.chem, insisting that I knew everything about chemistry because I consist of atoms.
This group is called "sci.lang", not "alt.chat.about.lang" or "alt.i.pretend.to.be.a.linguist".
Jardar Eggesbø Abrahamsen jardar@nvg.unit.no
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From: kelley@ede.sanders.lockheed.com (Sean V. Kelley)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: We don’t speak no Irish (was Re: Vanishing languages
Date: 1 Mar 1995 17:03:39 GMT
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Daniel von Brighoff (deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu) wrote:
In article <Fcostllo-280295143536@fcostllo.cs.tcd.ie>,
Fintan Costello <Fcostllo@cs.tcd.ie> wrote:
I really think its too late for Irish to be returned to its place as the first language in Ireland. All that can be hoped for is that it survives as a languge of songs, poetry, history etc. I know that the poems in Irish that I read in school really moved me, a lot more than the english ones. Does anybody know of cases like this?
A language being used only in particular areas of thought, I mean?
Textbook case: Hebrew in the pre-Zionist days. Not only was it a sacred language, used for services and prayers (several languges can claim that distinction, like Coptic and Pali), but pretty much all medieval Jewish philosophy was written either in it or Aramic, even though it ceased to be the language of daily intercourse before the Diaspora.
Note that the success of the Hebrew revival doesn’t give me much hope for Irish. Their situations are really very different; I can’t ever see the Irish finding the drive and energy necessary to restore Irish as Ireland’s first language. Maybe if the English were to invade them again…
Thanks for pointing out the political reasons. I knew Irish was associated with Catholicism and nationalism, but I didn’t know that those reasons were helping to turn youg people away from it.
I agree with both Daniel’s and Fintan’s comments on the Irish language.
Very few in Ireland actually bear ill will towards the language. It is more a case of benign indifference and irritation for having been forced to study it through school.
There is really no parallel to Hebrew for the Irish Language. When there are no more native speakers, and that day is coming, the Gaeltachts will lose their special appeal and the enthusiasm the language movement seems to draw from the Gaeltachts will surely collapse.
It is interesting to note, that when you actually visit a so called Gaeltacht, there are no markers or signs letting you know you have somehow crossed into an Irish speaking community. The reason this is not the case is because to actually draw a line in the sand and say on this side Irish is spoken habitually would be laughable to the communities on both sides, and those left out will surely complain that what some thought was a ‘true’ Gaeltacht is no more different than the rest of the area, a majority of habitual English speakers.
A case in point is the so called Gaeltacht around Gleann Cholm Cille in West Donegal. Yes, there are native speakers in the area. But those you meet are far and few between. The everyday language there and in the surrounding towns is English. Even the local Catholic church uses primarily English, and Irish only for prayer and song, which harkens back to what Fintan mentioned about the place Irish seems to still hold in Ireland today.
When you spend time in the Gaeltachts to actually speak with native speakers, you will find that the Irish spoken is *very* different than what is taught in the schools and supported by the folks in Merrion Square —-It’s definitely not Dub’ Irish. But in fact is filled with English words. One fellow I met bounced back and forth between Irish and English so much I wasn’t sure in which we were talking. Some words would be in Irish, others in English.
That is a sign of a still living language taking on words; but I’m afraid it is also a sign of the last stages of a language loss.
Sean
Sean V. Kelley B’aite liom féin bheith ar Lockheed Sanders, Inc., thaoibh mhalaí shléibhe, kelley@ede.sanders.lockheed.com (*)/ (*) Agus cailín gaelach <std. disclaimer a bheith ‘mo chomhair .
Newsgroups: sci.lang
In article <3iuf62$4is$1@mhadg.production.compuserve.com> Jacques Thuéry <75107.2170@CompuServe.COM> wrote: "Chier" comes from Latin "cacare" that also gave, e.g., "cagar" in Spanish, and, of course, Fr. "caca"="poo-poo". It was widely modified by the palatalization process of French, just the same as Lat. Capra (goat) > chevre, Vacca > vache, and Castellum chateau.
The phonetic similarity with "shit" – a Saxon word – is just a coincidence, it seems to me.
Jacques.
This is amusing. "cacare" and others have undergone such a great shift in pronunciation in the languages of the same group.
An yet, some them ‘on loan’ to other groups are still pronounced almost as they were in the Roman times.
eg Czech "kakat" – to poo (child expr. ‘almost polite’)
"kaka’" – he/she poos, etc….
Paul JK
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: PBS is at it again—so are the Linguists
Date: 4 Mar 1995 14:38:15 GMT
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In article <3j7qfj$gcn@newsbf02.news.aol.com> perotean@aol.com (Perotean) writes:
In a different vein, djohns@grove.ufl.edu (David A. Johns) writes:
Oh, you mean speech antedates writing.
>OK.<
Speech is functionally the same thing as language—unless one consider’s baby’s babble an example of speech (which I do); the physical utterance of vocal sounds. Wherever one encounters tongue-modulated vocal sounds to convey semantics, one will find
a legitimate language of one sort or another.
Oh, my. Am I going to have to deal with your imprecise use of words again?
Your original statement was "As if any system of writing antedates any language!!!"
Now, you may have noticed that the word _language_ can be either _language[1]_, an abstract mass noun, which means roughly "the ability to speak", or _language[2]_, a countable noun meaning a particular instantiation of _language[1]_ such as English or French.
Your use of the quantifier _any_ in your exclamation identified your _language_ as _language[2]_. Your defenses indicate that you intended to say _language[1]_. Why not say what you mean and mean what you say?
Where is Edwin Newman when we really need him?
David Johns
.
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt)
Subject: Re: Esperanto? I thought this is sci.lang
Distribution: world
References: <Ibelgaufts-010395080823@ganymed.lmb.uni-muenchen.de>
Reply-To: philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk
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In article <Ibelgaufts-010395080823@ganymed.lmb.uni-muenchen.de> Ibelgaufts@vms.biochem.mpg.de "" writes:
> Goodness, my newsreader does not allow kill files, otherwise I would have killed the esperanto threads long time ago.
If this artificial gibberish is so great why dont you guys form a news group of your own and leave this group to real languages.
If you want to form a new group I suggest you do.
It is possible for to people who know Esperanto, but have no other languages in common, to communicate with each other in Esperanto. If that doesn’t make Esperanto a language, I don’t know what does.
Phil Hunt…philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk
Majority rule for Britain!
From: — (Hasan Bercan)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Is Turkish a new language?
Followup-To: soc.culture.turkish,sci.lang
Date: 3 Mar 1995 01:20:39 GMT
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Interesting discussion. I have another question that me and a friend in Germany thought much about last year. She gave the example:
"Araba carpan cocugu hastaneye goturduler."
Now the underlined part is really very interesting. It translates: The kid who was hit by a car (was taken to the hospital).
Now, we have a very similar sentence:
"Cuzdan carpan cocugu hapisaneye goturduler."
Which translates as:
The kid who stole wallets (was taken to the police station).
(carpmak= to hit or to steal in slang usage)
We have the same sentence structure, but in the first one, the boy is hit BY the car, ie he is passive, and in the second one he steals the wallets, ie he is active. We can infer this from the text because a wallet can’t steal a boy nor a boy can hit a car, but I can’t identify what separates them grammatically.
A more dramatic example: Suppose you want to talk about a boy who bites dogs (could happen). You can say "Kopek isiran cocuk" but doesn’t it also mean the boy who was bitten by a dog? This sentence sounds quite correct:
"Kopek isiran cocugu hastaneye goturduler." and it implies the dog bit the boy.
You can say "kopegi/kopekleri isiran cocuk" but that would best be
translated as "the boy who bites THE dog(s)". A possible soulution might be to say "kopegin isirdigi cocuk" to emphasize that the dog bit the boy, but it still doesn’t decrease the ambiguity of the initial sentence "kopek isiran cocuk".
How would you explain this grammatically? We couldn’t answer it. Anyone dare a shot…
Lines: 78
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe,sci.lang,cl.frauen.allgemein,soc.culture.german
Message-ID: <5hKGc15yoOB@diana.access.owl.de>
From: DIANA@ACCESS.owl.de
Subject: Re: Gratulojn okaze de (feminismo)
Date: Sun, 05 Mar 1995 23:00:00 +0000
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Xref: venere.inet.it soc.culture.europe:3177 sci.lang:4293 soc.culture.german:9784
*nikst* meinte im Brett /SOC/CULTURE/ESPERANTO
am : *03.03.95* um *01:29*
zum Thema : *Gratulojn okaze de la 8-an de mart*
n tia ‘simetrio’ estis kaj oportuna kaj utila – ekzemple, en la lando gxis nun mankas la "feminismo", pri kies grimacoj en angloparolantaj landoj ni fojfoje povas legi en gazetaro. Kaj mi opinias, ke la tradicio ne permesos, ke tiuforma "malsano" ankaux enradikigxu en nialanda grundo.
Fi, fi, fi! Chu vi ne pensas ke estas malsane, se la malplimulto de loghantaro decidas super la plimulto? Kaj chu vi ne pensas ke estas malsane kiam viroj batas kaj perfortas siajn edzinojn? Sen tielnomata feminismo kiu lau vi estas "malsano"(!) virinoj akorau ne rajtus studi, kaj vochdoni. Kaj fakte kiu avantajho estas la vochdonebleco, se oni nur povas elekti virajn politikistojn?
Pardonu, sed de pluraj amikinoj mi konas la virinan situacion en orienta Europo, kaj kvankam ili lau la leghoj estas egalrajtaj, oni nepre bezonus plifortigan instruadon por virinoj . Mi scias kaj agnoskas ke estas diferencoj inter viroj kaj virinoj, tio estas tre bona afero, char en bone funkcianta rilato, chiu parto aldonas siajn fortajn traitojn.
Gravaj projektoj pli bone funkcias se ambau seksoj kunlaboras por ghi.
Oni kutime gratulas cxiujn virinojn (patrinoj, fratinoj, filinoj, edzinoj, amatinoj ktp.) okaze de la festo kaj deziras al ili cxion la plej bonan. Ankaux mi volus gratuli cxiujn niajn retaninojn (Diana, Yvonne, fiera patrino de Josh) kaj pere de ili
Dankon al vi, kaj kiel rekompenso mi volas skribi belajn vortojn el granda afisho kiun mi posedas. Ghi respegulas mian revon pri la rilato inter viroj kaj virinoj.
Don’t walk in front of me – Ne iru antau mi – I may not follow. eble mi ne sekvas.
Don’t walk behind me -Ne iru malantau mi – I may not lead. eble mi ne gvidas. Walk beside me – Iru apud mi – and just be my friend. kaj nur estu mia amiko.
deziri al ili fortan sanon, amon, amikecon, belecon, sunon, lumon, varmon, florojn, ridetojn kaj ridegon, novajn sukcesojn en laboro kaj en persona vivo! Kaj antaux cxio – grandegan felicxon!
Dankon, same al vi.
Okaze de la dato mi sendas al ili cxiuj versojn de Kalomano Kalocsay L A A M O
Dankon, kaj mi resendas al vi kaj al la geamikoj en diversaj novaj grupoj jenon:
HEBELO Frederiko (1813-1863)
Mi kaj vi Ich und du Ni songhis pri ni ambau, Wir traeumten voneinader Vekighis el la songh’. Und sind davon erwacht. Ni vivas por nin ami, Wir leben um uns zu lieben, Resinkas en nokta replongh’. Und sinken zurueck in die Nacht.
El mia songh’ vi venis, Du tratst aus meinem Traume, El via venis mi. Aus deinem trat ich hervor, Ni mortos se perdighos Wir sterben, wenn sich eines En mi vi, mi en vi. Im anderen ganz verlor.
Tremetas sur lilio Auf einer Lilie zitternd Du gutoj apud profund’. Zwei Tropfen, rein und rund, Kunfluas kaj ekrulighas Zerfliessen in eins und rollen Ghis en la kalika grund’. Hinab in des Kelches Grund.
(el "La muzino" de SHULCO Rikardo)
Korajn salutojn al vi chiuj,
Diana, Soest, Germanio
diana@access.owl.de
From: hughett@heifer.lbl.gov (Paul Hughett)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Opposite of Diminutive
Date: 3 Mar 1995 01:58:42 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
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References: <3ctqg6$q2b@mother.usf.edu> <D0y4I8.1uv@actrix.gen.nz> <gek655.106.000A2AA0@cscgpo.anu.edu.au>
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In article <gek655.106.000A2AA0@cscgpo.anu.edu.au> gek655@cscgpo.anu.edu.au
(Graham Kelly) writes:
millert@grad.csee.usf.edu (Timothy Miller) wrote:
Does anyone have an antonym for Diminutive? For some reason, such a word has not been easy for me to find.
Superlative is the term.
Graham Kelly
Sorry, but that’s not quite right, Graham. The antonym of "diminutive" is "augmentative." Some examples in English: "booklet", "rivulet" are diminutives in English; "supermarket" and "superman" are augmentatives.
For adjectives, consider "substandard," "super-friendly", or "supersonic."
(There are probably other augmenting and diminutizing affixes, but those are the ones that come immediately to mind.)
"Superlative" belongs instead to the series "positive, comparative, superlative" describing degrees of comparison in adjectives or adverbs.
For example, "good, better, best" or "nice, nicer, nicest."
* Paul Hughett hughett@eecs.berkeley.edu
* EECS Department
* University of California at Berkeley
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: kriha_p@actrix.gen.nz (Paul J. Kriha)
Subject: Re: Opposite of Diminutive
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In article <3jemip$f7r@marble.Britain.EU.net>, Paul Sampson <paul.sampson@octacon.co.uk> wrote: Paul Hughett <hughett@eecs.berkeley.edu> writes: … The antonym of "diminutive" is "augmentative." Some examples in English: "booklet", "rivulet" are diminutives in English; Yup. And ‘-ling’ (earthling), ‘-y’ (Johnny), etc. "supermarket" and "superman" are augmentatives. For adjectives, consider "substandard," "super-friendly", or "supersonic."
I’m not convinced that these are augment(at)ives. They look like compound nouns to me, adjective/noun compounds that is. As such they’re merely examples of what the ancients called dvandva, tatpurusa or something like that – I forget the appropriate term, maybe someone can remind me?
I mean the compound ‘blackbird’ wouldn’t be given as an example of some hypothetical technical term like ‘melanicism’ would it? Or maybe it would. Good grief, I don’t know. I’m only here for the fun of it. Now I’m filled with self doubt, see what you’ve gone and done now?;
In fact I’m not at all sure that english *has* any augmentatives in the same sense as does, say, italian. None spring to mind but that may simply be due to my lack of imagination of course.
I used to think that English did not have augmentatives.
The earlier discussant made me believe I was wrong, but, 24 hours later you put me right again, thank you.
Regarding the grammar meaning of augmentative, my Collins says: a. denoting an affix that may be added to a word to convey the meaning ‘large’ or ‘great’; for example the suffix -ote in Spanish, where ‘hombre’ means man and ‘hombrote’ big man.
b. denoting a word formed by the addition of an augmentative affix.
…Compare diminutive….
Why would CED use a Spanish example, if it could use an English one, hm?
I know, CED is not infallible. Is it wrong?
BTW, I failed to find augmentive. I miss that, I like short words.
Paul JK
From: JAREA@ukcc.uky.edu
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Prussians (Re: Good Finn is a dead and buried one?)
Date: Tue, 07 Mar 95 15:40:36 EST
Organization: The University of Kentucky
Lines: 17
Message-ID: <1735ADC7AS86.JAREA@ukcc.uky.edu>
References: <EDP.95Feb24135630@lotka.psc.lsa.umich.edu> <3ip017$71n@decaxp.harvard.edu> <26Feb95.053556.18546@granite.ciw.edu> <3ip64m$7rr@decaxp.harvard.edu> <3it3p3$ck2@ss1.cam.nist.gov>
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In article <3it3p3$ck2@ss1.cam.nist.gov>
koontz@cam.nist.gov (John E Koontz) writes:
… the Prussians objected militarily to the process of conquest, and as far as I know, so did all the Baltic ethnic groups. But in the case of the Prussians, the process of assimilation was so complete that the Prussians essentially became Germans and/or Poles.
John E. Koontz (koontz@bldr.nist.gov)
Except in, perhaps, Koenigsberg/Kaliningrad, where they seem to have become Russians — albeit a tad isolated from the main!
Ki semenat ispinaza, non andet iskultsu!
J. A. Rea jarea@ukcc.uky.edu Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: venere.inet.it!nic.tip.net!sunic!sunic.sunet.se!doc.news.pipex.net!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!math.ohio-state.edu!jussieu.fr!univ-lyon1.fr!swidir.switch.ch!news.unige.ch!NewsWatcher!user
From: bottani@cmu.unige.ch (Armand Bottani)
Subject: INDO-EUROPEAN LINGUISTICS
Message-ID: <bottani-0303951228320001@129.194.99.70>
Sender: usenet@news.unige.ch
Organization: Division of Medical Genetics, University of Geneva
Date: Fri, 3 Mar 1995 11:28:31 GMT
Lines: 38
A friend of mine, who has spent part of his life doing field research and accumulated a HUGE body of data, has asked me to post the following for him, as he doesn’t have access to Internet:
"COLLABORATOR WANTED for work on origins of Romance languages !
– if your avocation is the study of Indo-Europeans languages
– if you are OPEN TO NEW IDEAS
– if you are UNSATISFIED WITH ORTHODOX THEORIES on the identity of Celts and the origins of Romance languages then YOUR CAPACITIES AND MY RESEARCH = solid base to challenge the received ideas!!!
Please contact him, either by mail or phone, at the following:
Michel DESFAYES
Prevan
CH-1926 FULLY
Switerland
Phone (+41)-26-46 23 08
If desired, you can email me and I’ll forward your message to my friend.
Armand BOTTANI
Armand Bottani, MD Division of Medical Genetics
9, Av. de Champel CH – 1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland
Tel. (+41) – 22 – 702 5709
Fax. (+41) – 22 – 702 5706
Email bottani@cmu.unige.ch
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: alderson@netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III)
Subject: Re: books on history of language?
In-Reply-To: damastro@unix.amherst.edu‘s message of 7 Mar 1995 11:05:34 -0500
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Date: Wed, 8 Mar 1995 21:29:10 GMT
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In article <3ji08e$6u2@amhux3.amherst.edu> damastro@unix.amherst.edu
(David A. Mastroianni) writes:
I’ve tried looking in my library recently for books on the development of language, but the books usually seem to be about the development of language ability in babies. I’m trying to find speculation on the development of language over the course of human development, ideas about how complex the earliest languages might have been, research on the ancestry of modern languages, you know? Can anyone recommend any good titles?
The reason that you have trouble finding books on the topic of the origin of language is that it is an area linguists have shied away from, for what seem good reasons:
Language arose long before any writing system, so that all writing systems show languages at essentially a modern stage of development with respect to original or "primitive" states of hominid development. It is now thought by many that language may have originated more than 200,000 years ago.
With no non-modern hominids to provide a check on hypotheses, any arguments set forth on the question of language origin will in essence be the beliefs of the author alone.
That said, two authors who have tackled the question are Derek Bickerton (who uses the term "protolanguage" in a way other than its definition in historical comparative linguistics, so beware confusion), and Morris Swadesh. They should be easy enough to find in a reasonable university library.
Unfortunately, I don’t have ready to hand references to two papers which discussed some issues of early hominid language ability. One was by Hockett (and a second author whose name escapes me), discussing the opening of primate call systems into full language; the other was a discussion of Neandertal laryngeal anatomy, which concluded that Neandertals would not have been able to produce language like modern H. sap. This latter claim is discussed by Trinkhaus & Shipman in their book _The Neandertals_, with the conclusion that the reconstruction of the N. vocal tract proposed was incorrect.
Aside from that, you should pick up a book or two on historical linguistics, such as Bynon, or Jeffers & Lehiste, or Hock, or Anttila. (I found the second edition of the last very hard to read, but the first edition was quite usable.)
These will acquaint you with what we *can* do.
(NB: I did not say "all that we can do." That’s a matter of controversy in the field. Take positive statements at face value; take negative statements with the proverbial grain.)
Rich Alderson [Tolkien quote temporarily removed in favour of alderson@netcom.com proselytizing comment below –rma]
Please support the creation of the humanities hierarchy of newsgroups!
From: a2319659@athena.rrz.uni-koeln.de (Eduard Friesen)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: CYRILLIC fonts sought
Date: 7 Mar 1995 15:01:50 GMT
Organization: Regional Computing Center, University of Cologne
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Anyone know where cyrillic fonts may be obtained for Windows use? I know that something called ERARC, ERARI and ERKOI and so on exists, but haven’t been able to track it down.
Response by e-mail much appreciated.
Eduard Friesen thanks you
a2319659@smail.rrz.uni-koeln.de
From: dd@djh.dk (David Dellinger)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Grammer question: "theoretical" vs "theoretically"
Date: Wed, 08 Mar 1995 01:04:46 +0100
Organization: The Danish School of Journalism
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Hello!
My wife and I have been trying to figure out the following sentence from one of her english papers she’s grading…
"… the theoretical maximum perfomance of the computer…" Some of her students say: "… the theoretically maximum performance of the computer…" Does anyone know which is grammatically correct? Hopefully with a reason behind the answer.
I rarely look at this newsgroup, so could you please respond via e-mail. Thanks in advance!
David & Marianne Dellinger
dd@djh.dk
Dellinger, Macintosh/Network Manager
The Danish School of Journalism voice: +45 8616 1122 Olof Palmes Alle 11 fax: +45 8616 8910 DK-8200 Aarhus N Internet: dd@djh.dk
DANMARKS JOURNALISTHOJSKOLE
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: alderson@netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III)
Subject: Re: PBS is at it again—so are the Linguists
In-Reply-To: philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk‘s message of Wed, 1 Mar 1995 22:49:32 +0000
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Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <3ituro$gd7@newsbf02.news.aol.com> <D4q8Jx.E9n@midway.uchicago.edu>
<794098172snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 3 Mar 1995 02:12:10 GMT
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Sender: alderson@netcom20.netcom.com
In article <794098172snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk> philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk
(Phil Hunt) writes:
In article <D4q8Jx.E9n@midway.uchicago.edu> need@bloomfield.uchicago.edu
"Barbara Need" writes:
There is good evidence that Old English was strongly Germanic to the end of the period (and you should read Thomason and Kaufamn (Language Contact, creolization and genetic lingustics) re the influence of Norse on English mostly negligible).
It was strong enough that some function-words in modern English come from Norse (eg "they").
But borrowing, even of "function words," does not a creole make.
English can be regarded as a creole based on OE and Norman French.
No, it can’t. Read the book cited by Barbara Need for details.
Rich Alderson [Tolkien quote temporarily removed in favour of
alderson@netcom.com proselytizing comment below –rma]
Please support the creation of the humanities hierarchy of newsgroups!
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Date: Wed, 1 Mar 1995 04:58:27 GMT
Lines: 31
In article <Fcostllo-280295143536@fcostllo.cs.tcd.ie>,
Fintan Costello <Fcostllo@cs.tcd.ie> wrote:
I really think its too late for Irish to be returned to its place as the first language in Ireland. All that can be hoped for is that it survives as a languge of songs, poetry, history etc. I know that the poems in Irish that I read in school really moved me, a lot more than the english ones. Does anybody know of cases like this?
A language being used only in particular areas of thought, I mean?
Textbook case: Hebrew in the pre-Zionist days. Not only was it a sacred language, used for services and prayers (several languges can claim that distinction, like Coptic and Pali), but pretty much all medieval Jewish philosophy was written either in it or Aramic, even though it ceased to be the language of daily intercourse before the Diaspora.
Note that the success of the Hebrew revival doesn’t give me much
hope for Irish. Their situations are really very different; I can’t ever see the Irish finding the drive and energy necessary to restore Irish as Ireland’s first language. Maybe if the English were to invade them again…
Thanks for pointing out the political reasons. I knew Irish was associated with Catholicism and nationalism, but I didn’t know that those reasons were helping to turn youg people away from it.
Dohmnall
Daniel "Da" von Brighoff / Dilettanten
(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu) /__ erhebt Euch
/____ gegen die Kunst!
Message-ID: <184440Z04031995@anon.penet.fi>
Newsgroups: rec.travel.asia,rec.travel.air,rec.travel.europe,sci.lang
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From: donald@srd.bt.co.uk (Donald Fisk)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Cornish
Date: 3 Mar 1995 13:12:04 GMT
Organization: BT Labs, Martlesham Heath, Ipswich, UK
Lines: 41
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Jacques Thuéry (75107.2170@CompuServe.COM) wrote:
Andre Shapps wrote:
I may be wrong, but i’m sure I distinctly remember that there were a few Cornish speakers left even in my lifetime. I recall a news item, probably in the 70’s that spoke about the "only two remaining Cornish speakers". It must have been a lonely life!
Dolly Pentreath of Mousehole, dead in 1777, is widely believed to have been the last "real" Cornish speaker.
There seems to have been a few people able to speak some Cornish during the XIXth century, but by the end of the century, Cornish was entirely extinct, beyond any doubt.
I was told that the last native speaker was called John Nancarrow and that he died in 1820. This was told to me by a descendant of his. He was aware of Dolly Pentreath.
Revival efforts really started in the 1920’s and there has been since a small quantity of people speaking Cornish.
There are articles regularly published in revived Cornish in
the Celtic League’s magazine Carn.
I would like to mention an excellent booklet on Cornish: "The story of the Cornish language" by P. Berresford Ellis, TOR MARK Press, Truro, Cornwall. "Pysk, Sten ha Cober!"
At a guess, "Fish, Tin and Copper!" Jacques Thuery
Le Hibou (mo bheachd fhe/in:my own opinion) Email: donald@info.bt.co.uk
"Well, I have an English father and a Scottish mother. Which means I’m both stuck-up *and* mean." — Angus Deayton
From: be404@yfn.ysu.edu (Adalbert Goertz)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: books 4sale
Date: 7 Mar 1995 22:33:52 GMT
Organization: Youngstown State/Youngstown Free-Net
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Sale
Dr.Adalbert Goertz,12934 Buch.Trail E.,Waynesboro PA 17268-9329 USA.
Shipping extra.ph 717-762-7378 internet email: adalbert.goertz@bbs.serve.org
Allen,James T:The first Year of Greek,Macmillan, NY 1931,383pp.
5.00 Atlas:Shepherd,W.R.:Historical Atlas,xlibr NY
1956,340pp. 15.00
Baxter,A.:In search of your German Roots, Geneal.Publ.Co., Baltimore MD 1991,116pp. 8.00
Bible:Vetus testamentum graecum uxta septuaginta interpretes, Lipsiae cais-Dictionaire enimages, BI Duden-Verlag Mannheim 1962,400pp. 6.00 Society:Germany-Finding Aids to…German Collection Salt Lake City 1979,580pp. 20.00
Genealogical Society:Major Genealogical Record Sources in the Netherlands Salt Lake City 1968,4pp. 1.00
Kirkpatrick,F.A.:Latin America-a brief history, xlibr, NY 1939,456pp. 6.00
Knaplund,P.:The British Empire 1815-1939, Harper: NY-London 1941,850pp. 20.00
Knickerbocker,Diedrich:A history of New York,slightly disbound, NY 1864,528pp. 15.00
Pei,Mario:Language for everybody-what it is and how to master it MY 1956,340pp. 5.00
Probst,R.:Catalogue illustre des monnaies luxembourgeoises (984-1973) 1974 3.00
Robertson,W.:History of the reign of emperor Charles V,vol.1, NY 1804,328pp. 150.00
Rosenberger,H.T: The Enigma-how shall history be written? Waynesboro PA 1979,453pp. 12.00
Screvelius,Corn.:Lexicon Manuale Graeco-Latinum/Latino-Graecum,Leather,NY
1818 60.00
********************** Adalbert Goertz **************************
================== retired in Waynesboro PA =====================
Mennonite genealogy; insect studies; selling/trading nature books
Would someone trade my PA home for home in CO, NM, or AZ or ?????
From: djohns@grove.ufl.edu (David A. Johns)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: PBS is at it again—so are the Linguists
Date: 7 Mar 1995 23:00:08 GMT
Organization: University of Florida
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Message-ID: <3jioho$rpo@no-names.nerdc.ufl.edu>
References: <3j7qfj$gcn@newsbf02.news.aol.com> <3j9u0n$lli@no-names.nerdc.ufl.edu> <D52vAs.1yC@swcp.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: grove.ufl.edu
In article <D52vAs.1yC@swcp.com> pete@swcp.com (Pete Humphrey) writes:
Are you saying _any_ only modifies count nouns?
No, of course not. "Do you have any decent beer?" But it seems that many abstract mass nouns don’t suffer division lightly. "Do chimpanzees have any language at all?" Hmmm. Maybe. I can even get a partitive meaning in "The domestication of the dog antedates any use of iron."
But can you really make sense of "As if any writing system could
antedate any language" where "language" means "language facility"? I can’t.
David Johns
From: blukoff@u.washington.edu (Benjamin D Lukoff)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Top Graduate Schools?
Date: 7 Mar 1995 22:01:37 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
Lines: 11
Message-ID: <3jil41$4o8@nntp3.u.washington.edu>
References: <1995Mar2.115042.1@ug.eds.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: stein1.u.washington.edu
sandy@ug.eds.com (Wayne Sanders-Unrein) writes:
Is there a list of the top graduate schools for studying linguistics? Both US and abroad.
Thanks
Check the FAQ on soc.college.gradinfo.
BDL
From: Jacques Thuéry <75107.2170@CompuServe.COM>
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Scatology in spanish
Date: 7 Mar 1995 05:39:34 GMT
Organization: via CompuServe Information Service
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References: <3jff5v$lg4$3@mhade.production.compuserve.com>
I have gotten my message chopped off. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Of course, neither "mierda" nor "caca" are of Quechua origin, "guano" is.
What a shame for a neo-Latin speaker…"Bordel de merde, nom de Dieu!"
Jacques.
Jacques Thuery
From: ez012445@dale.ucdavis.edu (Adam Greene)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: fe/male speech in English??
Date: 5 Mar 1995 07:18:33 GMT
Organization: University of California, Davis
Lines: 44
Message-ID: <3jbok9$7s7@mark.ucdavis.edu>
References: <D4H9E6.ErE@info.bris.ac.uk> <edb-ht.793886931@find2.denet.dk> <D4oKJF.DM8@world.std.com>
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Joseph C Fineman (jcf@world.std.com) wrote:
One m-f difference in English that is part of folklore (jokes on the radio, etc.) is that women know more color words than men. I, for example, do not know what mauve & puce mean. But I suspect that this difference, even if real, is confined to some classes.
Joe Fineman jcf@world.std.com
239 Clinton Road (617) 731-9190
Brookline, MA 02146
I took a course called Language, Gender, and Society, which dealt with gender-based differences in communication. Though the focus was on English, it also looked at many other languages and cultures. Anyway, I found it interesting that on the day the professor was lecturing on vocabulary differences, she referred to the "salmon" hand-out. To most men, it would’ve no doubt been "orange". Even if men know what the color terms mean, they are less apt to use them. Some of this may stem from clothing/fashion…? That’s where I notice the greatest number of these terms popping up.
As for other differences, English lacks many of the lexical or
grammatical dichotomies found in languages such as Japanese or, say, Guugu Yimidhirr. Most of the gender-based differences are related to the strategies of discourse (e.g. interruptions, tag questions, minimal responses, etc.). Men tend to interrupt a LOT more, and are pretty adept at the minimal response . As for tag questions, it has been said that women use more of them (according to Lakoff, 1975) but other studies have shown that men actually use more (Dubois, 1975).
In the U.S., there is also a high premium placed on low voices for men – mimicking a man in a high pitch is one of the worst insults there is. Men will also restrict their vocal range…it is the variation in the English-speaking woman’s pitch that marks it as feminine, not the absolute pitch level.
There are other differences, but they tend to be more restricted in their scope of applicability. (Socioeconomic status is a BIG factor)
Adam Greene "Evolution:
asgreene@bullwinkle.ucdavis.edu Adapt, Migrate, or
asgreene@vnet.ibm.com Die."
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: rharmsen@knoware.nl (Ruud Harmsen)
Subject: Re: how many phonemes?
Sender: news@knoware.nl (News Account)
Message-ID: <rharmsen.329.0016D69B@knoware.nl>
Date: Wed, 8 Mar 1995 03:50:08 GMT
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References: <3jatog$8ll@amhux3.amherst.edu>
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In article <3jatog$8ll@amhux3.amherst.edu> damastro@news.amherst.edu (David A. Mastroianni) writes:
About how many phonemes does any individual language recognize? Is there a wide variation between languages?
Yes, there is wide variation. A problem is to agree upon what exactly are the separate phonemes in a given language. But that aside: Some European languages have rather a lot of phonemes, around 50, think of German, English, Dutch, Hungarian. Some others have fewer, like Spanish, Greek, etc. I believe Hawaiian has very few, around 20?
I think there is a tendency that languages with few phonemes are spoken faster (or make that impression to non-native speakers?), apparent if you compare English and Spanish, and understandable if you realize that to convey the same amount of info with fewer symbols, you need more symbols per second.
From: Jacques Thuéry <75107.2170@CompuServe.COM>
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: "Je t’aime" en Breton??? SVP aidez-moi!
Date: 7
