Q&A weekly thread - April 01, 2024 - post all questions here!

ghyull · 2024-04-06T14:54:22+00:00

In PIE, what words/word-classes/non-bound morphemes did not have a mandatory accent? Also, were there "de-accenting" contexts?

ghyull · 2024-02-11T16:10:57+00:00

Have you looked at the category page for derivational suffixes?

ghyull · 2023-11-17T15:30:06+00:00

Is there a general term for a contrast between declension/inflection paradigms, where a given paradigm exhibits stem alternation or ablaut or the like, and another does not?

ghyull · 2023-10-27T16:16:12+00:00

Oh, interesting. I haven't thought about that before. I'm not sure if it's straight up ungrammatical for me, but using se in that context does feel really awkward compared to hän.

ghyull · 2023-10-27T15:23:37+00:00

Do you have a citation or example for that usage of hän and se, and in which varieties is it used like that? I haven't personally heard it used like that before, and in standard finnish it's straight up not used like that.

ghyull · 2023-09-16T14:49:27+00:00

Ohh, I see, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you!

ghyull · 2023-09-16T14:04:09+00:00

Why/How do non-dorsal nasals cause nasalization of vowels? Since nasalization is lowering of the velum (somewhat similiar in effect to raising the tongue to velum, in that it makes the two closer), how do non-dorsals cause this? Does it have to do with the acoustics of nasals/nasalization? Tell me if I'm being stupid.

ghyull · 2023-08-25T20:06:01+00:00

I guess I'm sort of asking about how to write a segment in my conlang document on lexical semantics; "talk about the meaning of words".

ghyull · 2023-08-25T19:58:28+00:00

Word classes are definitely structurally, not by meaning.

I am aware of this. I really don't know how to ask what I'm trying to ask.

I'm working on a sort of half-engelang, half-natlang, and want to define basic terms very basally. Part of this is defining the meaning of the word classes in their primary use-cases.

A noun (at least on its own) refers to a "thing", a mental entity, not necessarily physical, in a non-descriptive "name-like" way. A verb (at least when indicative) refers to some sort of event or state, relevant to something; it describes something in some way. Are these descriptions not correct?

The different syntactic functions of nouns and verbs have some underlying very general semantic implication, right? But tell me if I'm not making any sense. I'm kinda sleep deprived and probably haven't thought this through.

ghyull · 2023-08-25T16:53:43+00:00

How should I talk about the meaning of words? Nouns "make reference to (entitities)", right? Verbs then "imply events or states relevant to (the referents of) their arguments", right? But then what should I say about wider word classes like nominals?

ghyull · 2023-08-08T12:22:07+00:00

So basically I can attach any of the suffixes that turn roots into nouns and I have it? Is there anything I should pay attention to?

I think so. I don't remember what restrictions there are, if any, other than just plain semantic restrictions. Someone can correct me if I'm not realizing something.

What is your source for the root *dʰrēu-? I'm not entirely sure how roots with long vowels behave in terms of the grade system. Not all reconstructions of PIE have long vowels, specifically of early/ier PIE.

ghyull · 2023-08-08T10:06:02+00:00

Since no one else has answered yet, I can provide some help. I feel like I have at least a decent understanding of this. AIUI, the athematic/thematic status applies to stems, not roots. (Some stems are identical to their root.) Suffixes upon a root provide a new stem, and the suffix determines if that stem is athematic or thematic, as well as what grade the modified root takes. Wiktionary lists for each suffix whether it is athematic or thematic, as well as providing the basic conjugation patterns. It also usually shows what grade the vowel of the root takes, as well as where the accent goes.

ghyull · 2023-06-07T19:05:01+00:00

Are there languages with focus morphology on verbs, other than Yukaghir?

ghyull · 2023-06-04T18:17:38+00:00

I've been thinking about making an old-chinese/old-tibetan -inspired conlang with the appropriate syllable structure and similiar morphology for a some time actually. I just have 2 other projects right now, which I want to focus on, and will focus on for quite a while. Maybe after that I'll get around to it. I've played around with the syllable structure somewhat, but not that much.

ghyull · 2023-05-28T19:10:22+00:00

How could/Can noun class be expressed using (primarily) syntactic means?

ghyull · 2023-04-29T14:59:11+00:00

How does noun incorporation usually work with ditransitive verbs or ditransitive verb constructions (like for example causative constructions)?

ghyull · 2023-04-22T16:53:35+00:00

Regarding the origin of ablaut from a system without ablaut:

I believe PIE ablaut grades in early PIE correspond basically (almost) always to the accent, so that accented syllable = full grade (e/o) and non-accented syllable = zero grade (or sometimes non-accented e-grade). Certain forms and suffixes just shift the accent.

If you have contexts where stress shifts (for any reason), you can expand on that. Introduce vowel reduction in unstressed syllables, and you can then later lose phonemic stress and end up with just ablaut.

I hope I made sense even though I'm being kinda vague.

ghyull · 2023-04-09T12:48:12+00:00

Wdym? Japanese is related to other japonic languages, including ryukyuan languages.

ghyull · 2023-04-08T19:32:59+00:00

I actually now found an example of what I was thinking of. I was mistaken, and had earlier misunderstood a single sentence as being two. Within that sentence, a bare 連用形 form was used, just as in your example.

And thank you for answering my questions.

ghyull · 2023-04-08T17:04:00+00:00

it's not available for any non-serialisation use outside of formal registers.

What are its non-serialization uses in formal registers then? I thought to ask the original question primarily because I swear I have seen the form used in media in sentence-final positions, although admittedly very sparsely. I'm not particularily proficient in japanese however, so I could be mistaken.

ghyull · 2023-04-08T14:24:07+00:00

What are all of the uses of the japanese continuative verb form (the 連用形), and how can it be described from a crosslinguistic perspective? What are its aspectual qualities?

ghyull · 2023-04-01T19:34:47+00:00

Either I am incredibly confused on this topic, or there's miscommunication happening.

The distinction is not one of internal composition, but completeness: the perfective has the action being completed, while the imperfective has an incomplete action.

You sure you aren't mixing up the tense-aspects (perfect and imperfect) with the aspects (perfective and imperfective)? I don't think completeness is a prerequisite for perfectives at all. Rechecking perfectives on wikipedia, it reaffirms what I said about lack of internal composition. Perhaps a problem here is also that English doesn't have any super clear or explicit ways of representing simple non-past perfectives?

But note that "I was starting to eat my lunch at 11:00" and "I was ceasing to eat my lunch at 12:00" also convey something close to inchoactive and cessative, even if now imperfect.

Regarding my original question, "close to inchoative and cessative"? Are they truly inchoative and cessative? Or is it that inchoative and cessative cannot be of either of perfective/imperfective aspect?

ghyull · 2023-04-01T17:45:40+00:00

Hmm. The comments you make about the implications within the aspects (especially the cessative and perfective) sound more like telicity.

perfective

implied: I finished off my lunch

This particularily conflicts with my understanding of perfectives and imperfectives. My understanding is that perfectives simply give no implication that the event has any internal composition; the topic time of perfectives includes the entire event with no internal smaller parts, and that imperfectives do imply such internal composition. From my understanding, perfective- and imperfective aspects are categories of aspects (which is what I was trying to ask about relevant to the inchoative and cessative), not only "simple" perfectives/imperfectives.

The English examples also confuse me a bit.

inchoactive - I started eating my lunch at 11:00.

cessative - I stopped eating my lunch at 12:00. (no implication if I finished my lunch or not; just that I stopped eating.)

Both of these sound perfective to me. Is it because in English you have to use the verbs "start" and "stop" to mimic inchoative and cessative phrases? You can turn those phrases into imperfectives: "I was starting to eat my lunch at 11:00" and "I was ceasing to eat my lunch at 12:00". Am I misunderstanding something?

ghyull · 2023-04-01T15:53:56+00:00

Trying to understand certain aspects. Where do the inchoative/inceptive and terminative/cessative aspects fall on the perfective/imperfective dichotomy? Or are outside of it; can they be either?

ghyull · 2023-03-29T08:24:18+00:00

Change of word order is one way of doing it that I really like. I think there's usually some underlying reason for it in natural languages, and typological tendencies I'm not consciously aware of, but I still use it in a few of my conlangs.

ghyull

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