Re: CHAT: affricates/grammar help/intransitivity/free word order

On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 14:13:07 -0500, # 1 <salut_vous_autre@...> wrote:
> I've got an idea:
>
> I could invent (as much I know) an other mood wich would be reciprocal
[snip]
> Is that an idea? Did I invent something or is there something like that
> already existing?
It's not a natlang, but Klingon has something similar: the verb suffix
-chuq indicates reciprocal action. It takes a verb prefix indicating a
plural subject and no object; for example, "you and I kill one
another" would me {maHoHchuq} (ma- "subject = we, no object", HoH
"kill", -chuq "one another"), and the Klingon Dictionary gives
"ja'chuq" for "discuss", literally "tell one another" (with zero
subject prefix, indicating -- in this case -- third person plural
subject and no object).

> What do you think of it?
I like it, though I imagine it won't be used very often.


On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 22:10:44 +0100, Steven Williams <feurieaux@...> wrote:
> What about 'Pferd' and 'Pfeil', for two examples? I've
> clearly heard them pronounced with an initial [pf],
> though that may be reduced to [f] in informal
> environments.
*nods* Word-initial /pf)/ is [f] for me in informal speech --
everywhere, I believe. Hence the saying "Ein Pferd heißt 'Pferd', weil
man darauf fährt", since "Pferd" and "fährt" are homophonous for me.
Using [pf] in that position is a mark of careful speech for me. (But I
don't claim to speak standard German, merely a dialect that's
conveniently close to standard German that I don't usually bother to
eliminate the dialect-specific bits of it; another example is my
turning morpheme final |g| into /x/ -- i.e. [C] or [x] -- as in "weg"
[vEC], "Weg" [ve:C], "Flugzeug" [fluxts)oYC].)

> Incidentally, what's with the extreme poverty of
> initial [x] in standard German? The only word I can
> think of is 'Chaos', which can either be [xa.os] or
> [ka.os], the latter pronunciation seeming to be the
> more common.
TTBOMK, [k] is the only "correct" pronunciation in Standard German. I
believe that Swiss German has word-initial [x], though. (OTOH,
"Chemie" and "China" have [C] by standard German standards, though
some pronounce them with [k] -- and others with [S].)

I think "Chuzpe" (chutzpah) has [x], but that's a loanword.

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
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