tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post567471080654823367..comments2024-02-19T12:11:32.695+01:00Comments on Language Evolution: A Normally Weird LanguagePiotr Gąsiorowskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-45436441163567781612022-03-28T14:07:26.750+02:002022-03-28T14:07:26.750+02:00United Arab Emirates, Cabinet Resolution No. (9) o...<a href="https://communicationdubai.com/laws/united-arab-emirates-cabinet-resolution-no-9-of-2021-56338" rel="nofollow"> United Arab Emirates, Cabinet Resolution No. (9) of 2021 </a><br /><a href="https://communicationdubai.com/laws/united-arab-emirates-cabinet-resolution-no-89-of-2020-56337" rel="nofollow"> United Arab Emirates, Cabinet Resolution No. (89) of 2020 </a><br /><a href="https://communicationdubai.com/laws/united-arab-emirates-resolution-of-the-chairman-of-the-board-of-directors-of-the-united-arab-emirates-central-bank-no-03-of-2020-54529" rel="nofollow"> United Arab Emirates, Resolution of the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the United Arab Emirates Central Bank No. (03) of 2020 </a><br /><a href="https://communicationdubai.com/laws/united-arab-emirates-central-bank-board-chairman-resolution-no-57-3-96-issued-on-14-4-1996-50951" rel="nofollow"> United Arab Emirates, Central Bank Board Chairman Resolution No. (57/3/96) Issued On 14 - 4 - 1996 </a>Legal Translation Company in Dubaihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12100134093346014583noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-65659212708865849302015-12-17T11:20:35.828+01:002015-12-17T11:20:35.828+01:00I find it a little amusing that some aspects of Eu...<i>I find it a little amusing that some aspects of Euphratic look vaguely "Italoid".</i><br /><br />I suspect Latin happens to be the ancient IE language Whittaker is most familiar with. :-) But now I'll read the paper!David Marjanovićhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00233722577300632805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-33472686949861173762015-12-16T12:27:14.315+01:002015-12-16T12:27:14.315+01:00The Chinese logographic writing system and its der...The Chinese logographic writing system and its derivatives are applied to several other languages, to be sure, and there have been other logographic scripts in the <i>history</i> of language, but you are absolutely right: Chinese is wonderfully weird in many interesting ways :)Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-51702328122386682202015-12-16T07:06:52.920+01:002015-12-16T07:06:52.920+01:00Although I can see the point about English being w...Although I can see the point about English being weird, and in a European countext I think there is truth to it, at a global level there are even weirder languages. For instance let's take Chinese, the only language in the world not to use a phonetic writing system. Now that's weird for real.Ji Xianghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03406727999722525339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-418662430355655622015-12-15T23:37:41.936+01:002015-12-15T23:37:41.936+01:00The 2008 paper is a developed version of what Whit...The 2008 paper is a developed version of what Whittaker presented at an IE conference in Copenhagen in 2000 (published 2004 as "Word formation in Euphratic"). He gave another paper at another Copenhagen conference in 2009. It appeared in 2012 as "Euphratic: A phonological sketch", in B. N. Whitehead et al., <i>The sound of Indo-European...</i>, Museum Tusculanum Press, 577-606 (we met at that conference, and I have a paper in the same volume). His theory has evolved, and in the 2012 article he goes to great lengths to lay out a detailed pattern of regular correspondences between IE and Sumerian. Some of the equations seem rather far-fetched to me, and of course a good number of chance resemblances can be expected, given the limitations of the Sumerian writing system and the philological uncertainties. I find it a little amusing that some aspects of Euphratic look vaguely "Italoid". I'm impressed by several individual correspondences rather than the sheer bulk of the material. I'm quite sure much of it is random noise, but it seems as if quite a few real IE loans and Wanderwörter were lurking there.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-88685256850165325992015-12-15T22:39:32.166+01:002015-12-15T22:39:32.166+01:00I just read the (same?) 2008 paper, "The Case...I just read the (same?) 2008 paper, "The Case for Euphratic".<br /><br />Has he published a systematic account of proposed correspondences between 'Euphratic' words and loans in Sumerian and Akkadian? The correspondences are on the face of it impressive, and as Piotr says, it certainly looks like serious and honest scholarship.<br /><br />But in a limited time it's hard to fathom how much leeway he's allowing himself. Given that there are often various different Sumerian versions, plus Akkadian, plus hypothetical alterations inferred from other correspondences, plus occasional variation in reconstructed IE forms, of which different nominal cases are available, plus scope for semantic drift... one would predict an awful lot of coincidental similarities.<br /><br />On the other hand, if he's right, it would be among other things spectacular confirmation of the laryngeal theory - knocking the Anatolian languages right out the water!<br />Boinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07484266186870195043noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-47478812557363404312015-12-13T00:25:12.209+01:002015-12-13T00:25:12.209+01:00I like the presentation! Lezgian becomes more awes...I like the presentation! Lezgian becomes more awesome every time I look at it. :-)<br /><br /><i>In short, they fell into the same trap in using the reconstructed "PIE" as a measure of the supposed "IE-ness" of these languages.</i><br /><br />If you really think that's the biggest problem with Čašule's publications on Burushaski...<br /><br /><i>He is very open to criticism and has refined his analyses as a result of discussion.</i><br /><br />Case in point: I just read a critique from 1999 which takes issue with lots of things that simply aren't in the 2008 version anymore.<br /><br /><i>the shortness, simple structure and uncertain semantics of Sumerian morphemes</i><br /><br />Also uncertain phonology, let alone phonetics!David Marjanovićhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00233722577300632805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-2359360300856749712015-12-11T10:24:49.738+01:002015-12-11T10:24:49.738+01:00Oh, yeah, limba rumînească > limba română. I...Oh, yeah, <i>limba rumînească</i> > <i>limba română</i>. I'm not sure to what extent the massive import of French and Italian vocabulary has affected the declensional system. I suspect that the evolution of features like the <i>-uri</i> plurals was independent of "Latinisation", and that nouns were attracted into that class based on synchronic formal and semantic factors, <i>not</i> based on their etymology. Of course any highly productive pattern is likely to grow even more productive when thousands of new loans enter the language. For example, nearly all verbs borrowed into English during the past 1500 years (with a few isolated exceptions) have joined the "regular" <i>-ed</i> declension (and many originally strong verbs have migrated there too).Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-45469532683290774832015-12-11T00:14:49.474+01:002015-12-11T00:14:49.474+01:00Thanks, I will definitely check those papers out.
...Thanks, I will definitely check those papers out.<br /><br />What I meant about the latinising programme is the frequent claim that Romanian is an 'invented language' - relatinised in the 18thnand 19th century more comprehensively than the other Romance languages.Boinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07484266186870195043noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-83264606754495860182015-12-10T19:53:54.396+01:002015-12-10T19:53:54.396+01:00The grammars of many languages (not only Romance o...The grammars of many languages (not only Romance ones) have been shoehorned into the familiar Latin model. Much of the terminology we continue to use shows this traditional Latin-centric bias.<br /><br />There's a good (and quite influential) summary of the "two or three genders" controversy by Nicoleta Bateman and Maria Polinsky (2010). You can download it <a href="http://scholar.harvard.edu/mpolinsky/publications/romanian-two-gender-language" rel="nofollow">here</a> (the authors argue for a two-gender analysis). Their approach has been used by some Romanian computational linguists to test the (machine) learnability of the two-gender model: <a href="http://www.lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2012/pdf/651_Paper.pdf" rel="nofollow">Dinu et al. (2012)</a>. On the other hand, Ruth Kramer (<i>Morphosyntax of gender</i>, published this year by OUP) defends a compromise between the traditional analysis and the two-gender system (three genders for the purpose of noun classification, two genders in terms of morphologically expressed agreement).<br /><br />Im happy if you find my blog series worth rereading :)Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-6864375295190427142015-12-10T19:23:23.115+01:002015-12-10T19:23:23.115+01:00I've met Gordon at a couple of conferences and...I've met Gordon at a couple of conferences and had an opportunity to exchange thoughts with him. My opinion is generally positive. To be sure, comparing <i>anything</i> with Sumerian is relatively easy, given the shortness, simple structure and uncertain semantics of Sumerian morphemes. As a result, Sumerian is one of the favourite targets of the linguistic fringe (not to mention complete kooks). But Gordon's approach is careful. He is very open to criticism and has refined his analyses as a result of discussion. The PIE forms he maps onto Sumerian lexemes are impeccable and represent actual reconstructible words, complete with ablaut grades and derivational and inflectional suffixes, so he isn't just another root-equation maniac. Controversial as Euphratic is, I would say Gordon Whittaker has made a pretty solid case for it.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-72862770030539452762015-12-10T17:36:27.638+01:002015-12-10T17:36:27.638+01:00I still find it hard to get past the -uri. It'...I still find it hard to get past the -uri. It's just so much more marginal a feminine ending than it is a 'neuter' one. It seems a stretch to say that nouns like 'timp' have feminine inflection in the plural. But I do take your point regarding agreement.<br /><br />Online (eg Wikipedia article on Romanian grammar) there's some suggestion that the category might be to some extent artificial, a late Latinising programme. These claims are made a lot about Romanian, but I've been out the game too long to know if it's serious scholarship, or disgruntled Hungarian nationalists trying to strip the language of its still prestigious latinicity... or both.<br /><br />On another note, I've been rereading your 'water' and 'four' series, which are so compulsive they kept me up till, er, four in the morning. Thanks for that.Boinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07484266186870195043noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-40734331596050755912015-12-10T15:21:07.528+01:002015-12-10T15:21:07.528+01:00In my (not humble) opinion, Whittaker's work o...In my (not humble) opinion, Whittaker's work on Sumerian is on the same league than Cašule's on Burushaski. In short, they fell into the same trap in using the reconstructed "PIE" as a measure of the supposed "IE-ness" of these languages. Octavià Alexandrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14569731729402710400noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-72573973977374752212015-12-10T14:06:46.839+01:002015-12-10T14:06:46.839+01:00Oh, that. That's a strange effect, though; why...<i>Oh, that. That's a strange effect, though; why would specifically *<i>o</i> trigger it...?</i><br /><br />Presumably it has something to do with PIE *<b>o</b> being a tense vowel (in comparison with *<b>e</b>). Cf. its tendency to lengthen in Indo-Iranian (Brugmann's Law) and the acrostatic ablaut pattern with "strong" *<b>o</b> alternating with "weak" *<b>e</b>.<br /><br />Strange as it is, the effect is very securely supported by numerous examples found in languages which preserve laryngeal reflexes well (e.g. Greek, Hittite). Andrew Byrd gave an interesting talk about the "crazy" character of the Saussure effect some time ago. As far as I know, he's prepared a forthcoming publication on it in collaboration with Alexander Hansen, but you can find the preliminary presentation at <a href="https://www.academia.edu/2272082/A_Crazy_Rule_in_PIE_A_Closer_Look_at_The_Saussure_Effect" rel="nofollow">Academia.edu</a>Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-42737955532572227262015-12-10T12:17:00.345+01:002015-12-10T12:17:00.345+01:00Oh, that. That's a strange effect, though; why...Oh, that. That's a strange effect, though; why would specifically <b>*o</b> trigger it...?<br /><br /><i>Sumerian <b>urudu</b> 'copper'</i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.science.org.ge/2-3/Gordon%20Whitteker.pdf" rel="nofollow">Well.</a>David Marjanovićhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00233722577300632805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-54973742705132628772015-12-10T10:55:07.701+01:002015-12-10T10:55:07.701+01:00The IE word for 'red' is surely a Wanderwo...The IE word for 'red' is surely a Wanderwort of Middle East origin (cfr. Sumerian <b>urudu</b> 'copper').Octavià Alexandrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14569731729402710400noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-26165739455768254472015-12-10T00:51:09.527+01:002015-12-10T00:51:09.527+01:00Yes, in the root *h₁reudʰ- in general. But in this...Yes, in the root *<b>h₁reudʰ-</b> in general. But in this particular stem the o-grade triggers the so-called Saussure (or Saussure-Hirt) effect. Underlying *<b>HRo</b> and *<b>oRHC</b> sequences lose the laryngeal (or at the very least the laryngeal doesn't produce a vocalised outcome in such derivatives). The [] brackets are intended to mean that the laryngeal is present underlyingly but may have no phonetic realisation.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-67511870946093201012015-12-09T23:36:11.594+01:002015-12-09T23:36:11.594+01:00Blogger (Google Blogs) doesn't even support th...Blogger (Google Blogs) doesn't even support the <blockquote> tag...<br /><br /><i>PIE <b>*[h₁]roudʰ-o-</b></i><br /><br />I thought the reconstruction of <b>*h₁</b> is inevitable because of Greek <i>érythros</i>?David Marjanovićhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00233722577300632805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-72621594702746778642015-12-09T13:46:04.064+01:002015-12-09T13:46:04.064+01:00Sorry, it's Benczes and Tóth-Czifra (2014). T...Sorry, it's Benczes and Tóth-Czifra (2014). The final, published version can be viewed <a href="https://www.academia.edu/7795660/The_Hungarian_color_terms_piros_and_v%C3%B6r%C3%B6s_A_corpus_and_cognitive_linguistic_investigation" rel="nofollow">here</a>. I wish Blogger offered an "Edit" facility.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-26831216148306512392015-12-09T13:41:49.769+01:002015-12-09T13:41:49.769+01:00P.S. It seems that the situation in Hungarian is u...P.S. It seems that the situation in Hungarian is unstable, and that rather than dividing the relevant part of the colour space between them as two distinct, specialised BCTs, <i>piros</i> and <i>vörös</i> are competing for BCT status and the older term (<i>vörös</i>) is already losing: <a href="https://www.academia.edu/7375817/The_Hungarian_color_terms_piros_and_v%C3%B6r%C3%B6s_A_corpus_and_cognitive_linguistic_investigation" rel="nofollow">Benczes (2014)</a>.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-28512819252914214812015-12-09T13:17:09.978+01:002015-12-09T13:17:09.978+01:00So does Polish, for example. The older word rudy (...So does Polish, for example. The older word <i>rudy</i> (of course strictly cognate to <i>red</i> and <i>rua</i>, all of them reflecting PIE *<b>[h₁]roudʰ-o-</b>) refers primarily to red(dish) hair or fur, while the dialectal Slavic innovation <i>czerwony</i> is the standard colour term. But the definition of a "basic colour term" (BCT) -- all controversies aside -- requires that its reference should not be restricted to any particular class of objects, or to things that have an inherent colour (as opposed to being artificially dyed or painted).<br /><br />Which said, the BCT concept <i>is</i> a little fuzzy, which is only to be expected, given that colour-term inventories are historically evolving systems. Before a term becomes established as "basic", it must pass through a stage when its status is uncertain.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-65158293560549958362015-12-09T07:53:43.242+01:002015-12-09T07:53:43.242+01:00Irish also has two terms for "red" (you ...Irish also has two terms for "red" (you mentioned this as a unique/rare feature of Hungarian): <i>dearg</i> and <i>rua</i>. I'm not an expert, but I think that <i>rua</i> tends to refer to a more brownish red (<i>rua</i> is used e.g. for red hair), whereas <i>dearg</i> refers more to the standard paint color red.ml2013https://www.blogger.com/profile/12889610900629616820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-82558920189469057612015-12-09T02:25:14.515+01:002015-12-09T02:25:14.515+01:00It's a very good question, and of course opini...It's a very good question, and of course opinions are divided. I'm more inclined to see Romanian as a two-gender language because grammatical gender is to me primarily a matter of <i>agreement</i> (rather than just inflections). What one sees in the "neuter" class is masculine agreement in the singular and feminine agreement in the plural. Switching gender with number for those nouns seems to me more parsimonious than the traditional three-gender analysis with only two agreement patterns.<br /><br />Membership in the gender-switching class depends to some extent on semantic factors -- no animate nouns belong there. But is this a sufficient reason for distinguishing a separate inanimate/neuter gender? It's quite common for semantics to correlate with inflectional types. English countable nouns with unchanged plurals mostly denote animals -- game or fish (especially in sporting usage), and there's a small but old core of animal names reflecting OE strong neuters (<i>sheep, deer, swine</i>). But it would be wrong to say that in addition to countables and uncountables English has a third category which historically continues the old neuter and is not inflected for number (like uncountable nouns). First, the vast majority of the modern members have no neuter ancestors (not even <i>fish</i> and <i>fowl</i>); most have been drawn into this class by analogy. Secondly, they pattern with ordinary countable nouns in every respect as regards agreement (<i><b>these</b> trout <b>are</b> swimming</i> like <i>these whales are swinmming</i>). <br /><br />Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-23319760189554779782015-12-09T01:01:10.560+01:002015-12-09T01:01:10.560+01:00OK but in Romanian it's far more systematic. I...OK but in Romanian it's far more systematic. It's not just 'some nouns', it's a large and very productive category. <br /><br />And many of them take the "-uri" ending, which is pretty rare among feminine nouns, and looks (to me at any rate) like it results from Latin neuters in -ora like corpus, tempus etc. (with the -i as an additional plural marker analogous to English "children" and "brethren"). But maybe I'm wrong.<br /><br />Also, is there any functional difference between saying "there's a large number of nouns that switch their inflectional class with number", and "there's a third gender which shares its inflexions with the masculine singular and feminine plural".<br /><br />I fully understand if you don't have time for this excursion from the main point of your post, which is spot on!Boinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07484266186870195043noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-32391798492316137342015-12-08T22:34:04.036+01:002015-12-08T22:34:04.036+01:00Yes. Descriptively, some nouns switch their inflec...Yes. Descriptively, some nouns switch their inflectional class with number. Note that adjectives modifying Romanian "neuters" are masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural.<br /><br />The same may happen in Italian: <i>l'uovo</i> 'egg' : <i>le uova</i> 'eggs' (Rom. <i>ou</i> : <i>ouă</i>). There are also quite a few Italian masculines with two plurals, usually distinguished semantically, like <i>il dito</i> 'finger' : <i>i diti</i> (count plural) : <i>le dita</i> (collective plural).<br /><br />Cf. Lat. <i>locus</i> 'place, spot' : <i>loci</i> '(individual) places' : <i>loca</i> 'region, quarters' -- a pattern which goes back to PIE.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.com