Rotokas

As far as I've seen, your posts have been informative and informed, and
provide useful information. To me, a constructed or simulated language
requires a basis in linguistics in order to be realistic, or even to
work at all. That's why my current language/proto language is not very
realistic :) : I don't know very much about language; but I'm fascinated
to learn (my current projects are learning Anglo Saxon and further
developing my own language family).

I personally think it would be a mistake for this forum to alienate one
who is knowledgeable of natural language and linguistics, since these
fields contain our sources for inspiration. The way I look at it is, if
I am proven wrong about something I believe, I gain, because I then know
something that is right instead of falsely believing something that is
wrong. Andreas is right, sources may be questioned, but I would try and
avoid doing so, unless I had read the source in question, or its claim
obviously conflicted with something I knew from elsewhere (which could
potentially be specious, in which case the fact will come out and I will
know something new).

Someone who has studied languages and linguistics is in the best
position to prove me wrong on any mistaken assertion I may make, and
that is the reason I'm here in the first place. All this won't stop me
presenting the best arguments for my beliefs that I can, but I hope I
never feel like I will "lose face" if I am incorrect. After all, it's
not like my freedom is at stake in a discussion of linguistics. :)

-Aaron Grahn
ROMANI
 ITE
DOMUM

Mark P. Line wrote:

>Andreas Johansson said:
>
>
>>Quoting "Mark P. Line" <mark@...>:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Thomas R. Wier said:
>>>
>>>
>>>>From:    "Mark P. Line" <mark@...>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>I don't think we have any evidence that Rotokas has ever been
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>analyzed
>>>
>>>
>>>>>with so many syllables. Seeing the number '350' in a single
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>*secondary*
>>>
>>>
>>>>>source is not a good data point when we can find in a primary source
>>>>>that
>>>>>Rotokas has 11 phonemes and that its syllable structure is only (C)V.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>I'm jumping in here, and don't much of anything about Rotokas, but
>>>>how can it have a (C)V syllable structure when the name of the
>>>>language itself has a coda? Is there some constraint allowing word
>>>>final codas but not word internal ones?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I must have been mistaken about Rotokas being (C)V.
>>>
>>>Clearly, those who don't know much of anything about Rotokas are in the
>>>majority here, so I'm outvoted hands-down.
>>>
>>>
>>I'm quite convinced that Mr Wier was asking a honest question.
>>
>>
>
>So you're saying that, knowing not much of anything about a language, it
>makes perfect sense to question primary sources on the basis of a single
>form for which you have no particular reason to believe (due to the
>widespread occurrence of external language names) that that single form is
>even native to the language in question.
>
>Where I come from, that's not how linguistics is practiced. But we all
>know that I come from a different planet. :)
>
>Me, I would have started from the assumption that the primary source
>giving us (C)V syllable structure is probably correct (not knowing any
>different), and asked if anybody knows where the name 'Rotokas' comes
>from, since it's clearly not well-formed phonotactically in Rotokas
>(according to that primary source).
>
>It's one thing to be disbelieved when there's no source in play. What
>astounds me is that I am so often disbelieved (usually by the same handful
>of people) even when there *is* a source and all I'm doing is repeating
>what it says. Something of a gunslinger mentality, I reckon: youngsters
>trying to see who's quicker at the draw than the aging, retired gunslinger
>who's really just in town to visit the saloon. You could say that the
>aging gunslinger brought this upon himself by the choices he's made, and
>you'd be right. New choices are in order, then.
>
>Clearly I've failed to inspire much professional trust from some people
>here, but that's okay. This list is recreational, and otherwise vacuous. I
>just need to remember to treat it that way.
>
>I have my own forum for Empirical Linguistics, so I'll be using that in
>future for discussion of (not purely theoretical) linguistics and natlang
>issues. I'll take purely theoretical discussions to my forum on
>Neurocognitive Linguistics, because any such discussion will have to be
>related to that paradigm somehow or I won't be very interested. Most of my
>work in functional-typological linguistics is empirical, not theoretical,
>so that stuff can be found on the Empirical Linguistics forum. Ontological
>discussions in the functional-typological vein are landing at the
>Semiotics of Complex Systems (SoCS) website. I'll take my part of any
>further discussion of Wittgenstein to the SoCS site.
>
>This list is about conlangs, so now there'll be less intrusion of
>linguistics, philosophy and natlang stuff, at least from me.
>
>Sorry to have been so obviously disruptive to the game as it is played
>here. I just can't get the hang of the rules.
>
>
>-- Mark
>
>
>
>
>