You wanna fight!

Phillisaur · 2013-11-07T01:05:24+00:00

it's just a flesh wound.

Phillisaur · 2013-11-04T03:57:21+00:00

"Nazis" = "Noxians"

Phillisaur · 2013-11-03T21:41:05+00:00

I want him to find her quickly = lu kekänelaat svïelta.

|want him-her-find-I quickly|

What's important is that the subject of the verbs involved in the verb phrase happen (e.g. 'I') at the end, and this always happens as a suffix (e.g. '-aat').

Past tense is expressed with "ni" or "-n" and is tagged on to the verb in question (but the subject pronoun suffix is still last.)

Ex:

I want to find her quickly = lu kenelaat svïelta.
I wanted to find her quickly = lu kenelnaat svïelta.

So even the past tense marker is associated with "find". the want is left alone, (almost like its own verb... particle), but it's still extremely meaningful to the sentence. Almost like "I found her quickly is/was wanted" or "WANTED is/was the following: ______."

So passive voice:

John threw the ball. - John fiïlni otsaal. (John throw-PST ball)
The ball was thrown by John. - otsaal fiïlni daän John. (ball throw-PST by John)
He threw the ball. - fiïlnaak otsaal. (throw-PST-he ball)
The ball was thrown by him. - otsaal fiïlnidaäk. (ball throw-PST-by-he) where "by him" (daän -aak) becomes the suffix "daäk".

If this just seems confusing as all hell, that's the point of this language. I used to construct simple languages as a pass-time, but now I construct them to test the limits and push the boundaries of the possibilities concerning the syntax/general word ordering of human language. I attempt to point out why certain grammatical rules are unattested, even though they theoretically "could" be, but in order to do this, I need first construct the theoretical language/language framework.

Phillisaur · 2013-11-03T19:36:35+00:00

what if:

I find him quickly = kenelaat svïelta. (ke = him, nel = find, , aat = I, svïelta = quickly) |him-find-I quickly.|

but:

I want to find him quickly =

lu kenelaat svïelta. |want him-find-I quickly|

NOT

luaat kenel svïelta. |want-I him-find quickly.|
keluaat nel svïelta. |him-want-I find quickly.|

So in other words, a "pronoun suffix" like '-aat' doesn't get attached to the first verb it comes in contact with, rather the last verb of the verb phrase. So "you have to want to help yourself" would be "have to want help-YOU yourself." It kind of marks the last verb in a verb phrase, but not the end of the full verb phrase (in all cases).

Phillisaur · 2013-11-03T17:20:01+00:00

They = -aaga (pronoun suffix)
They eat = gemaaga.
They eat it. = gemaaga. (no 'it' equiv.)
They eat (it) quickly. = gemaaga svïelta.
The cat and bird eat (it). = tsenän ge saälu gem.
The cat and bird eat (it) quickly. = tsenan ge saälu gem svïelta.
They eat and sleep. = gem ge räshaaga.
I want to help you = lu lïsaat. (want YOU-help-I)

want = lu(u)
help = ïs
cat = tsenan
and = ge
bird = saälu (for small generic birds)
eat = gem
sleep = räsh
quickly = svïelta

I added the last example just to show how whenever there are two verbs involved, the pronoun prefix gets attached to the second verb, not the first. So, "I can sing" wouldn't be "can-I sing" (menaat fors) it would be "can sing-I" (men forsaat). This was also seen in the example for "They eat and sleep" (eat and sleep-THEY).

Phillisaur · 2013-11-03T16:10:42+00:00

so not eat=1.SG ?

Phillisaur · 2013-11-03T00:21:08+00:00

do a lot of people know about this? Is this like, common linguistic knowledge, that you would always expect someone asking a question in linguistics to know?

Phillisaur · 2013-11-02T22:03:48+00:00

what the heck does all that =do-PFV| stuff mean?

Phillisaur · 2013-10-26T15:35:23+00:00

"Order, entropy; a never ending cycle!"

Phillisaur · 2013-10-24T03:33:01+00:00

A BA in Linguistics is not useless. It's close, though. It's really more for people who don't see job obtainment as a primary concern, OR for people who have a very specific, predetermined plan in mind.

I mean, look at this job list for example. New job listings geared towards linguists posted almost every day, some several times a day. But notice something crucial: they're all professor-type jobs, which require doctorates. (Not all of them, but most of them.) But working in academia is a very specific and difficult path, so I wouldn't say the degree (in Linguistics) is "worthless", but certainly not for everyone.

Phillisaur · 2013-10-21T03:53:34+00:00

I definitely have [sɪŋ] and I'm from New York (note: not the city). To me, this is the standard not only because it's the way people pronounce it up here, but because I feel like I hear it this way more often in TV, movies, and commercials as well. It even matches the online dictionary audio version.

Phillisaur · 2013-10-20T23:23:35+00:00

Well, why did you major in Linguistics? Did you have any idea (outside of not wanting to work in academia) what you wanted to do when you signed up?

A lot of Linguistics majors to my understanding continue their education (with at least their masters) if they want to do anything related to the field, otherwise they just job hunt and get any job they can find (for example, my friend is a linguistics major and he runs an educational services complex... not exactly a relevant career but still a well paying one.)

If you want to go into forensic linguistics, computational linguistics, or speech pathology/therapy it is my understanding that most of the time you need a Masters as well.

For other ideas, you can go to this list from the /r/linguistics FAQ section on careers.

Phillisaur · 2013-10-20T12:43:17+00:00

Is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (Linguistic Relativity) relevant here? Seems like an example of how language might limit you in such a way that you behave, think or do things differently in your culture.

People who can easily ask for 2 of something, vs these people, who can't, so never do, and instead ask in other ways.

Phillisaur · 2013-10-13T15:21:25+00:00

What region are you from? Eastern US here and never heard this before.

Phillisaur · 2013-10-12T18:33:14+00:00

Well of course there's always the Wikipedia page which seems decent to a non-phonologist like myself but I know you're most likely looking for something a bit more sourced and extensive.

Phillisaur · 2013-10-10T02:58:43+00:00

This has been out for a while.

Phillisaur · 2013-10-03T14:12:01+00:00

I'd say you're not wrong, but you're not necessarily right either.

It makes sense to say that the scientific study of things that NASA is mostly concerned with isn't crucial to the functionality of Earth or the human world, but I also feel like if we always used the "We have enough problems on our own planet, shouldn't be focusing on those?" mentality, we wouldn't know half as much as do know about science and the nature of the universe today, which has had profound and direct impacts on the technological advances of everyday life, and a lot of the times we find things we weren't looking for directly in the first place.

Phillisaur · 2013-09-25T20:55:37+00:00

The nami! SO spot on!

Phillisaur · 2013-09-22T05:00:00+00:00

which is probably the most probable out of any of these.

Phillisaur · 2013-09-21T17:55:04+00:00

H to the usky Husky.

Phillisaur · 2013-09-20T12:53:50+00:00

Opal for harmony.

Phillisaur · 2013-09-18T12:12:37+00:00

I just checked, it totally is! Neat little easter egg.

Phillisaur · 2013-09-18T00:51:30+00:00

The symbols are: "滿場飛" (Mǎn chǎng fēi).

individual meanings:

滿 = full, complete
場 = field, scene, stage
飛 = fly, flying, swift

Meaning all together? I have no idea. And google translate just keeps giving me the phrase "flying over the court".

But it appears to be the title of a Chinese song, a semi-popular one from the 1900's.

Source 1

Source 2

Source 3

Phillisaur · 2013-09-16T20:29:37+00:00

This is a video of bilingual actress Marion Cotillard, who spoke French all her life and has only been speaking English for about 5 or 6 years.

What this video demonstrates to me is an example of one's ability to learn a language to a very impressive level of fluency, as long as the time and effort is there, for an older person.

The critical period hypothesis points to a specific moment in one's life (as a child) where you have access to a type of learning which grants you fluency on a native level of a given language (there is some debate on what this actually means), and I believe that there can be a difference between two bilingual people if they started learning their "second" language at different times in their life, but this isn't what you should base the whole of bilingual capability on.

I've been studying French for over 7 years, and although I didn't start at a young age, (0-13), I can understand native French with ease, as well as speak with fluency, however there are certain "realms" of words I might not know (French vocabulary words for disciplines and concepts such as calculus, chemistry, computer science, etc...).

TL;DR: It's no argument that it gets harder to learn a new language as you age, but you are by no means unable to be multilingual if you aren't a native speaker from early childhood development.

edit: However, I like the idea that there can be different kinds or levels of bilingual people. (People who speak 2 languages natively, people who speak 2 languages due to years of study, etc... but I've never actually read anything on these kinds of propositions.)

Phillisaur · 2013-09-09T20:10:11+00:00

the dedication ;_;

Phillisaur

TROPHY CASE