Zompist Bboard Again

I grasp the concept of [n̩] - but how do you articulate [jn̩] without it being realised as say [j ə n̩] or [j ɪ n̩]? If there's no adjacent vowel, is [j] really a [j] anymore? At the phonetic level, [j] and [ĭ] are really two different notations for the same things. It’s trivial to articulate [jn] ...

fusijui wrote: ↑Sun Mar 24, 2024 12:00 am Seems like you're going to have a more satisfying argument with the fusijui in your head, so I'll leave you to it.

You do realize you were being a jerk?

Regarding the second syllable of "onion", what seems relevant to me is that whether pronounced slowly or quickly, in isolation or in context, there's a change in articulation between the "schwa-ish" part and "n-ish" part. At some point there's closure of the oral cavit...

Now I wanna hear a recording of 'onion' pronounced with a syllabic [n̩]. ([ˈʌn.jn̩]?.. [ˈʌn.n̩]??) [ˈʌn.jn̩]. "Nation" and "onion" end in the same sound. ([n̩], I mean— the [j] is just in onion.) I got what the transcription would be, but what does it sound like? How acousticall...

[ˈʌn.jn̩]. "Nation" and "onion" end in the same sound. ([n̩], I mean— the [j] is just in onion.) [jn̩] is a weird syllable, sonority-wise. Why is it any odder than "cure"? Or for that matter "strike"? Perhaps this is a stupid question, but how do you know it’...

Zju wrote: ↑Fri Mar 22, 2024 8:38 am Now I wanna hear a recording of 'onion' pronounced with a syllabic [n̩]. ([ˈʌn.jn̩]?.. [ˈʌn.n̩]??)

[ˈʌn.jn̩]. "Nation" and "onion" end in the same sound. ([n̩], I mean— the [j] is just in onion.)

One of my pet peeves is when people treat the word "schwa" as an alternate name for the STRUT vowel https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/schwa.png I'm not sure I can out-pedant you, but I can sure try. I count five separate vowels in xkcd's text: ə in was, a, of, obs- ʌ in up, Doug, stuck, etc. s...

Incidentally, I feel this example also highlights the weakness of Construction Grammar, which is that it ignores compositionality. ‘A doesn’t X like B’ may has a strong implication, but its basic meaning is predictable purely from its structure as a clause with an adverbial. That’s something which,...

So here's an interesting pair of sentences: "You don't kiss like him." "He doesn't kiss like you." Formally, these should be equivalent: You and him both kiss differently. But without further context, the former strongly implies "He kisses better than you" and the latt...

Before you, there were programmers who wrote optimal assembly code for every application and regarded higher level programming as an abdication of the duties of wizards. But quantity beats quality for many applications. Otherwise, JavaScript would never have taken off. This is getting off-topic, bu...

I've looked at a lot of grammars searching for numbers. The absolute worst (I forget what language, it was from the Americas) was an SIL grammar which used tagmemics, the theory invented by SIL's president, Kenneth Pike. It was absolutely baffling-- the terminology was unrecognizable and simply find...

When you side with $100,000 a year programmers like yourself (and their millionaire techbro owners) If we're playing the Oppression Olympics, I was never paid 100k as a software engineer. I had that job in India, the place management sends jobs to lower cost. (Indians were ChatGPT before ChatGPT.) ...

People who need small-scale art and can't draw— portraits of their D&D characters, visualizations of their fantasy worlds, very specific fetish porn, whatever— should pay a damn human artist instead of techbros. There are plenty of artists who would will do something for $50 or $300. Using free...

-- and not because they're in need of labor saving devices. Notice how this argument implicitly defines "artist" as someone who has already made it big in the art world rather than novices who are still struggling to find their voice. Among the latter, you will find lots of people who are...

I'm looking over the long mid mergers in English (pane-pain/ toe-tow), and wondering if any language has a stable contrast between /e:/ and /ej/ and/or /o:/ and /ow/. Does [ɛ] count? French -eille- is pronounced [ɛj], and produces minimal pairs like réveil [rɛvɛj] and rêvait [rɛvɛ]. (At least, that...

1. Almea began as a Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting when zompist was in high school, which explains some things. For instance, the player character races of 1970s D&D are still recognizable though they are altered in many points: Elcari are essentially Dwarves, Flaids are essentially Ha...

Interesting, in terms of the nomadic people I imagine you mean mostly after 3480 or were Caizurans a minority in their kingdom from its inception? Also I did not know there are still Arašei around that didn't subscribe to Eled'át, very cool. Ah no, I meant way before 3480. :) The Caizurans and Curi...

Do you actually know the Hermits or you're just wishing you did? :) (I wish I did myself!) The Minecraft-centered vocabulary sounds like fun, and I think you should lean into that more. E.g. spiders and sheep produce the same sort of thing (string > wool). My big suggestion would be to think more ab...

Yes, but I don't have a list right now. :) I've already mentioned groups of Lácaturans and Arašei, as well as migrating Ismaîn and Kebreni in the cities. The most likely source are nomadic remnants— Caizuran, Eluye-Makši, or Somoyi— left over from their various sweeps of the Plain. It's also likely ...

One question I have is how did Czech survive intact being essentially entirely displaced by German for the period of the from essentially the start of the Thirty Years' War to the start of the Czech National Revival, whereas Irish and Scottish Gaelic are severely marginalized today despite the best...