Zompist Bboard Again

Hey, thanks! About the question word "hasai": it feels like one of those things that could develop from an overly contracted phrase meaning something like "is it that...". Not sure if that was the goal, but a nice turn none the less To be honest, I just picked a word form I liked...

din wrote: ↑Mon Sep 17, 2018 10:41 am Moi non. J'aimerais bien savoir parler toutes les langues, mais je ne veux pas les apprendre toutes.
I don't. I'd love to be able to speak all languages, but I don't want to learn them all.

哈哈
Haha

kjatikwai hakjaaru ajja. men's.house to.burn away(PRF) 廄焚 The men's house burned down. ki wapanai hanamakwai marukwai. KI elder to.return.home at.home(PFV) 子退朝 Our elder went home. kwasu, hasai janaaki=wati kwiita saimuhi saimu? QUOT Q person=DIST(FOC) CAUSE to.be.injured REDUP(PRF) 曰傷人乎 He said, D...

jal wrote: ↑Sun Sep 16, 2018 2:38 pm

akamchinjir wrote: ↑Sun Sep 16, 2018 7:34 amBut it is calming down now.

Mi sapos oriken Mangkhut pas af gel optu 117 mayl pa owa?
I though hurricane Mangkhut passed with wind speeds up to 117 miles per hour?

iti ki-muuki=wati
AFF DET-way=DIST
Yes.

huuɲu kuuɲu Hong Kong sati huuɲu kuuɲu ma kwaasu, ki=miika=su wamiika pumuuki hatau with Hong Kong come QUOT, the=CL:air=PROX air current big This wind is very strong for Hong Kong. hikwa kja tiija ijau suwaasu waasu but COMP now IPFV:to.sit to.sleep INC:sleep But it is calming down now.

suuwiwati huwa ipajatuu
hereabouts very be.blowing
It's very windy.

Yeah, good advice, I was getting carried away.

Clause types (matrix clauses) Oops, not aspect after all. Before anything else I'll mention that pre-verbal subjects and topics must be definite. Noun predicates Noun predicates need not be marked at all: kipajja isaunaki Kipajja healer Kipajja is a healer The particle iti can be used, however: kip...

Updates I forgot some things. I've edited the previous posts (and also added titles), but here are the new things: Unstressed heavy syllables get a grave accent on their first vowel (when I remember) Function words often occur with no stress; monomoraic ones cannot be stressed. Some words have dist...

Pronouns and ki Before going on there are a couple of things I can mention quickly that will give useful background. Here are the personal pronouns; the singular forms have reduced variants that occur when the pronouns are not stressed (e.g., most of the time): Sing S.Red. Plural 1 hau àu hawi 2 sa...

Word formation Akiatu might have no active, productive processes of derivation; I'm not sure yet. But there are various signs that things were more fluid in the past. Here are some examples. -kwa , -kuwa seem to have a possessive significance in many stative verbs: japikuwa "be charismatic, po...

Phonology One early decision was to make the phonology simple, largely so I wouldn't get bogged down in it (which is something that I do). But it couldn't be so simple that nothing interesting could come of it. I settled on the inventory that I'll give in a moment, and a tendency towards longish wo...

( Aside: I'll be changing the title of this post to reflect the latest entry, you can use the links below to find the promised content. ) Latest posts: questions . Table of Contents Phonology Word formation Pronouns and ki Clause types (matrix clauses) Resultatives More about resultatives perfective...

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Wed Sep 12, 2018 12:34 pm

Qwynegold wrote: ↑Mon Sep 10, 2018 2:29 pm言語を全部習いたいぜ！
Gengo wo zembu naraitai ze!
I want to learn all the languages!

I au!
Fi hefyd!
Mise chomh maith!
Moi itou!
나도!
Me too!

我也是
吾亦然
Ben de
Me too

WALS ( https://wals.info/chapter/68 ) implies that's a fairly normal use of a perfect, actually. I have some vague memory of reading or learning somehow that the way English can combine the perfect with the continuous is distinctive, though. (But for my money not as distinctive as Mandarin's two le ...

itajja na jiraaci ki mutaañi titaika, hau wai miwwa itajja
be.possible DS words DET fall broken, 1s TOP NEG.IMPRF be.possible
The language might break, I won't

awwa au waañi mwi ki jaani su makjai itu kjai
PRT 1s think SS DET activity PROX try one try
I guess I'll give this a try

What nouns did you test? I got 130K for "my cat isn't" but just 6.3K for "my cat's not." (I figured the internets talk a lot about cats.)

Turkish has some fun patterns. Stress normally goes on a root's final syllable. (One common sort of exception: place names have a separate stress regimen all their own.) Some suffixes are stressable; when a stressable syllable is added to a word with final stress, the stress will move onto the suffi...

Ladefoged and Maddieson, The Sounds of the World's Languages (25-28), distinguish between subapical palatals (which they seem to think are the true retroflexes) and apical postalveolars, though they say they don't know of any language that contrasts them. They mention Toda, Tamil, and Telugu (all Dr...