Zompist Bboard Again

Was this by any chance inspired by the conversation with Ahzoh over on the Conlang Random Thread?

Yeah, so its single function is ‘object marking’. And similarly the single function of your nominative and ergative cases are ‘subject marking’. It just so happens that an intransitive argument can align as either ‘subject’ or ‘object’, depending on animacy. That is, what you have here is a split-i...

Here’s a really interesting English sentence I was presented with recently: 1. If I hadn’t’ve had that cake, it would’ve gone mouldy. Neat find, and your initial syntactic analysis is good work. Not actually my find — it was someone else on Discord who presented me with it. Most of the syntactic an...

This seems to actually be an area where my own dialect is syntactically distinct from Standard English, as when approximating Standard English I would never say anything resembling either version of mine, but rather would say: I would have never gotten my system cryptolocked if I had not downloaded...

Other fun in this sort of department are things like: I'd've never've gotten my box cryptolocked if I hadn't've downloaded that "antivirus" program from that site. To me, this feels almost like aspectual agreement! It doesn’t work in my dialect, though: it feels very much like a feature o...

As far as syntax goes, I remember reading that some linguists have proposed that the stigmatized use of "of" spellings in contexts like "You shouldn't of had that cake" represents an actual reinterpretation of the word, where it no longer functions synchronically as a reduced pr...

What? VSO is equally as head-initial as VOS, just that the object in VSO is decoupled from the verb. You are correct here. VSO and VOS are equally ‘head-initial’. I disagree, though I may well be in disagreement with current linguistic theory. In my opinion, verb + object = predicate, and a predica...

Here’s a really interesting English sentence I was presented with recently: 1. If I hadn’t’ve had that cake, it would’ve gone mouldy. This flagrantly disobeys the English prohibition on modal stacking… but yet, it still seems acceptable to me (at least colloquially). Others seem to agree that it’s a...

When Lithuanians sort lists in Lithuanian alphabetically, do they use the same order as dictionaries? I ask because I've seen evidence that some at least consider 'e' and 'ė' as as different as 's' and 'š' (definitely different letters when the brain is engaged), while happily disregarding ogoneks ...

- Again, thanks to Janko, Proto-Macro-Jädewan : *¢órl ('(single) thing') *¢óst ( lit. 'two * ¢órl s') *erka̋ða̋ *êyor *ław *ḱälḱa̋ *¢órli¢óst *¢ósti¢óst *erka̋ða̋y¢óst *êyori¢óst Holy cent-signs batman! Strictly speaking, the correct Unicode character for the letter is ⟨ȼ⟩, with ⟨¢⟩ being reserved ...

The solution to the Middle East conflict will not be found on Threads, or TikTok, or in the streets of any city that isn’t within a 2-hour car ride from downtown Jerusalem. street protests and popular disapproval of the whole thing were important in the dissolution of the south african apartheid re...

What’s more confusing is giving two names to what is essentially a single case with a single function. But it doesn't have a single function. In animate nouns, it marks only an object of a transitive, not a subject of a transitive or instransitive. In inanimate nouns, it marks both the object of a ...

The verb is the head of the phrase, not the subject. So, VSO or VOS word order. Yes, but the object is closer to the verb than the subject, so VOS makes it more head-initial than VSO. "Eating a peach" vs. "(Eating a peach) by me" (where "by" is the ergative). What? VSO...

Lower Xumi Consonants: /p pʰ b t tʰ d k kʰ g q qʰ ɢʁ/ ⟨p ph b t th d k kh g q qh ǥ⟩ /ts tsʰ dz (tʂʰ tʂ dʐ) tʃ tʃʰ dʒ tɕ tɕʰ dʑ/ ⟨ts tsh dz (tŝh tŝ dẑ) c ch j c(i) ch(i) j(i)⟩ /m̥ m n̥ n ɲ̥ ɲ ŋ̥ ŋ/ ⟨mh m nh n ñh ñ ŋh ŋ⟩ /s z ʃ ʒ ɕ ʑ x ɣ ʁ h ɦ/ ⟨s z ŝ ẑ ś ź x gh rh h f⟩ /w ɹ j/ ⟨w r y⟩ /l̥ l ʎ̥ ʎ/ ⟨l...

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2024 4:55 am To me as a non-native English speaker, math are sounds wrong, but maths is is odd, too. Maths sounds like a plural to me, but math is definitely singular.

To me, maths is is the only acceptable form. ‘Maths’ behaves like a mass noun, and ‘math’ does not exist as a word.

almost rigidly head-initial ... animate nouns are placed before inanimate nouns, even if the animate noun is the syntactic object. That kinda contradict each other :D. No, it makes perfect sense to me. The verb is the head. eat\REAL-3sg Sam-NOM orange-ABS (VSO) fall_on\REAL-3sg mouse-ACC pillar-ERG...

Pronouns Personal pronouns I’ve mentioned the personal pronouns a few times now. Here’s a full table: Focus (positive) Focus (negative) Subject Interrogative Object Accusative 1s ba- bo- b- bi- -ban rban 1p be- bo- ba- babi- -ben rben 2s ndi- ndi- n- mbi- -din ndin 2p nda- ndo- d- mbi- -den nden 3s...

I was linked to this wonderfully refreshing view of the whole situation: 50 Completely True Things (by a Palestinian American). (Re the last few posts: the main reason I haven’t responded is because I’m starting to lose track of who said what. That makes it difficult to have any rational discussion,...

After four years, foxcatdog reminded me that this thread existed. So, let me have a go at solving my own challenge of four years ago: ⟨a e o⟩ /a e o/ ⟨aa ee oo⟩ /aː eː oː/ ⟨ã ẽ õ⟩ /ã ẽ õ/ ⟨ãã ẽẽ õõ⟩ /ãː ẽː õː/ ⟨V Vˉ Vˍ⟩ /V˥ V˧ V˩/ ⟨m n ɲ ŋ ñ⟩ /m n ɲ ŋ ɴ/ ⟨b d j g q⟩ /b d d͡ʒ ɡ ɢ/ ⟨t c k ꝁ⟩ /t t͡ʃ k ...

There’s already a thread for this: viewtopic.php?t=56. It’s hard to find because the topic title has a typo.

(And thanks for reminding me about it! It was fun.)