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Re: CHAT: The [+foreign] attribute

From:And Rosta <a.rosta@...>
Date:Thursday, September 5, 2002, 1:25
John Cowan:
> There seems to be some evidence that for speakers of a language, there is > some other specific language that all foreign words are assumed to be in. > For English, it's French.
I have the impression that Americans are more likely than British to apply the [+foreign] feature to a word, too. (Somewhat tangentially, the discussion (& mention of the "empan[y]ada" in the text you posted the url to) prompts me to ask if anyone can suggest additions to the following list of common mispronunciations of nativized foreignisms, which I have collected from many many hours of watching American TV programmes: * coup de gras * chaise lounge * momento * lingeré * marquis/marquee of Queensbury [I only heard this once, so don't know if it's common])
> ObConlang: how do people's conlangs handle foreign words?
Livagian: If it is made to fit the form of a Livagian phonological word, and it is shorter than 4 syllables, it is preceded by a word that marks it as belonging to the section of the lexicon that tolerates homonymy. If it is made to fit the form of a Livagian phonological word, and it is longer than 4 syllables, it is unmarked. If it is made to fit Livagian phonology but is not a single phonological word, it is flanked by bracketing words that mark it as a single lexical item. If it is not made to fit Livagian phonology but is not a single phonological word, it is enclosed within a more complicated bracketing mechanism. The Livagian prototype for [+foreign] would be English -- a Livagian seeing an obviously foreign word would tend to pronounce it as if it were English, especially if it couldn't be pronounced as if it were Livagian.
> Lojban has an elaborate mechanism for borrowing (the Lojban idiom is > "taking" -- they aren't returned)
The Lojban idiom is latterly "copying"... The Livagian idiom would involve a word meaning "x is such that y causes x to spread from z to y". The key thing here is 'spreading' -- x does not cease to be at z, which is different from what 'borrowing' and 'taking' imply. --And.

Replies

John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...>
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
bnathyuw <bnathyuw@...>