Re: CHAT: The [+foreign] attribute
| From: | And Rosta <a.rosta@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, September 5, 2002, 1:25 |
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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.
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