Re: A prioi vs. A posteriori ?

Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> En réponse à Tristan <kesuari@...>:
>
> Opera 6.02 was awful indeed. 7.01 seems quite OK. So far it's as fast
>  as Internet Explorer and it handles encodings and fonts better.
Glad to hear it's improved, but I'm perfectly happy with using Galeon
for the web. (Well, no I'm not, but I got too pissed off with trying to
browse in Mozilla. Great mail client, good rendering engine, horrible
browser.)

>> Unless right and wrong have different meanings in your topsy-turvy
>>  hemisphere, I mean right.
>
> Then you're wrong ;)) .
Only if right and wrong have different meanings in your topsy-turvy
hemisphere. (You know, I've heard that clocks run *clockwise* in the
nothern hemisphere! How odd is that??)

>> The same right which is associated with positive images of
>> left-wing parties like the Greens, not the right associated with
>> negative images of (right-wing) parties like the Liberal Party.
>
> Then you are *really* wrong ;)))) .
Or exaggerating, because even if the Greens aren't particularly good,
they're better than the suck-up-to-America Liberal Party or the
suck-up-to-the-unions Labor Party.

>> You can tell you're French! :P
>
> Nope, just realistic ;))) .
Nope, French.

>> I'm bare-foot at the moment... no special shoes.
>
> You must be young then, I've heard the younger generations have had a
>  genetic mutation that allows them to stick to the ground even
> barefoot ;)))) .
I've seen my maternal grandmother, you know, the one who moved from the
Netherlands to Australia just under fifty years ago do it, too.

> Who says the grass that grows in Australia doesn't have this effect
> already? Afterall Australia has been upside-down for millions of
> years now. It's nature has had time to adapt to this strange
> situation and to develop systems so that nothing falls down ;))) .
How would it advantage grass to stop things from falling off it? And I'm
not sure if grass is native---it looks *incredibly* out of place
wherever there's native plants around, and it's lucky if it survives the
summer (you thought grass was green? Think again!).

(There are bindis, though, which've evolved so that they'll stick to
*you*, which is incredibly painful, but it's probably about as close as
you'll get. And there aren't any bindis in our lawns round here.)

>> Yeah, but I'm sure they had a number of things right: this is one
>> of them.
>
> Prove it!
I'm sure the onus of disproof is on you. Well-known fact: I'm correct
until proven otherwise.

>> Okay Christophe. Little physics lesson here for you: take a ball
>> (one that'll float). Get some playdough or something and stick it
>> to the top half. Put the ball into a bowl of water. Let go of the
>> ball. The old top is now the new bottom.Even if the Nothern
>> hemisphere started out as the top, all that heavy land would've
>> made it spin around so that the top is now the bottom long ago, so
>> up is clearly the southern hemisphere, regardless of what anyone
>> else thinks.
>
> Little lesson of physics: the Earth is *not* floating on water. True
> lesson of physics: take a ball (one with a slightly rough surface).
> Add to it some liquid that sticks by capillarity to it (a very thin
> layer, so that some parts of the ball's surface are above the level
> of the liquid), and hang it. Although the liquid sticks, it will tend
>  to go down, and thus the bottom part will be the one with the most
> liquid, and thus the one with the least surface dry. The top part, on
>  the other hand, will have most dry parts. Since the Northern
> hemisphere is the one with the most land, it must be the top one.
> QED.
Why isn't Antartica covered in water, then? The reason water isn't
covering the Himalayas (or the Alps or even France) is because the land
is above the levels the water wants to get too.

>> If I'm proving your point, your point was faulty. You were on the
>> one hand condemning English for its dodgy selection of incompatible
>>  vowels,
>
> You must have misunderstood me. I never said it had incompatible
> vowels, I just said English was renowned not to use much cardinal
> vowels. That's something else :)) .
Bah. You have a point. That I'm saying you're correct on this count has
*nothing* to do with anything else, though.

>> and now you go off and say that French is *good* for having
>> incompatible vowels? Be consistent!
>
> What is incompatible in nasal vowels? [a~] is as much a cardinal
> vowel as [a]! Whether air goes through your nose or not doesn't
> change that fact! ;)))
But if most languages don't have nasality, they can't borrow nasals
nicely, and replace /A~/ with /O~/ for some incredibly bizarre reason
that I'm yet to work out, but I'll do it one day!

>> Isn't [h] supposed to be a glottal fricative? Well, the choking
>> sounds sound nothing like them. Much more like [R].
>
> Because if you're able to pronounce a glottal fricative, then you
> can't be choking (try to pronounce a glottal fricative when you have
> something in your throat!) Choking sounds are combinations of glottal
>  stops, epiglottal and pharyngeal sounds, but no uvular sound
> anywhere. Uvular sounds are rather comparable to coughing sounds (and
>  only when they are unvoiced, while the French r is voiced). Ergo,
> the French r has nothing to do with choking :)) .
Coughing relates to illness relates to death. Ergo, if I (or anyone
else) start using the French r, we'll cough to death, which doesn't
sound like a nice way to go, but you can you insane frenchman. (Either
in French or in Dutch.)

>> And don't you feel bad, not helping them? Honestly. I'm ashamed at
>> you! :)
>
> Why should I help them? I said the French population was growing. I
> never said it was good for it to do so!
No, but I decided it might be. (What a definite decision on my part...)

>> It's not a handicap if it restricts your ability to do something
>> totally undesirable.
>
> So since you can hear deafening sounds, being deaf is not a handicap?
>  Because you can walk on the street and get bumped into by a car,
> having lost your legs is not a handicap? And *I* am the one with the
> kludgey logic? ;))))
That's hardly what I was saying. Being able to hear offers the advantage
of being able to hear if a car is coming so you can use your legs to run
away rather than be run over by a car (replace car with predator or
woolly mammoth that hasn't seen you if you prefer) coming at you from
behind. Pronouncing ugly-sound codas offers no advantage other than to
be able to pronounce ugly-sounding languages, but we can communicate
perfectly well in nice-sounding languages like Australian English.

>> I'll give you that. Actually, if French got rid of those horrid
>> /R/s, got rid of a few of whatever rhotic replaced them (like any
>> that weren't before a vowel), and I spoke it, it'd almost be a nice
>>  language.
>
> Now that's called arrogance. And only French people are allowed to
> show it! ;)))) There are international laws about that you know!
> ;))))
Where're they published? Same place the law that I'm always right until
proved beyond a shadow of doubt otherwise? (I doubt it, the latter being
a *real* law, but that one about only French being allowed to be
arrogant is bs.

>> Needs long-short distinctions as well, I'd say.
>
> Try to disfigure the most beautiful language of the world?
Disfigure? I never said anything about adding clicks to it.

>> Okay, *maybe* speech-wise I'm conservative, but I'm not
>> conservative in enough ways for you to be able to call me that!
>
> Well, this bit of the conversation was only about your speech, so
> what's wrong with that? ;)) I didn't refer to anything else (I don't
> know enough your opinions to put an etiquette en you, and even if I
> did I wouldn't ;) ).
Yeah, but you said it in such a way that it appeared to refer to me in
all ways.

>> You're suggesting I walk all the way over the tv. and fight it out
>>  with three siblings (I have a fourth, but she's never home, and
>> she doesn't watch tv. much anyway) to watch some dodgy French tv.
>> show that I won't even be able to understand? No thanks: I prefer
>> life.
>
> Well, what you described to me looked pretty lively! ;))))
Liveliness is not equal to life.

> But I thought you were the one who was sick of having too much free
> time?
Yeah, but what's that got to do with whether I have to fight my siblings
for the tv.?

>> Apart from the fact that French has horrible rhotics, useless
>> rhotics, surplus rhotics,
>
> If they were useless and surplus, we would have got rid of them
> already. They are there because they are useful. We're practical
> people you know.
So how come the French don't have a perfect way of, say, disposing of
rubbish? Letting stuff sit in landfills isn't especially practical...

>> French isn't an oft-used language in these parts.
>
> Of course not. French is not for people who can think! ;))) And it's
> well-known that when you're walking on your head it's difficult to
> think properly ;)) .
Now that is irrefutable proof that it is the nothern hemisphere that is
upside-down.

>> If you have a hundred people whose first language is the same
>> dialect of English, why should you try and convince them to learn a
>> totally nother language, which they'll speak with the fluency of
>> someone who's learnt a second language?
>
> Because that's cool?
Doesn't sound especially practical. I would've thought better from you.

>> (Unfortunately, I don't know who José Bové is, so your irony is
>> missed on me. And it probably isn't irony, anyway. People enjoy
>> using the word 'irony' to describe something taht isn't irony.)
>
> I never use a word to mean something else than what it means.
If I could be bothered, I could find dozens of examples of you using
words to mean other than they do.

> I definitely meant irony. The irony here is that I wouldn't advise
> anyone to listen to José Bové more than 2 minutes.
Unless we've got rid of the most horrible misdefinition of 'irony' from
the Australian tongue, or the British added a new one, that isn't irony.
Anyway, you can't be being ironic. A set of events are ironic, not
something you're saying. What you describe is more like sarcasm than irony.

> He is the most
> conservative anti-American anti- globalist guy you can find.
> Unfortunately, there are rotten apples even in the best trees...
Yeah, like you on this list :P

>> Where's the -ti come from in /paRl"ti/?
>
> It's a feature common in all Northern Western Langues d'Oil, but its
> origin is unknown.
Well, that's just difficult.

> > And I probably should've
>> included an article before 'Anglese'. To used to English's use of
>> the definite.
>
> Hehe, Normally in French you wouldn't use the article in this case. I
> added it but it's only optional in Normand French (it was mostly
> here to make it really sound different from Standard French).
Oh. I thought the French were really articlophillic and shoved them in
here, there and everywhere on a whim. You'd given me that impression at
some time in the past. And they use too many articles at the best of
times, anyway.

> > So it makes sense. Except for the fact that
>> [Sys]=/Z+sys/ whereas /dZiz/=/dZi/ (i.e. I) + //z~s// (i.e. 'm).
>
> It could be possible too. Normand has affricates where French has
> simple postalveolar fricatives (but not everywhere, since not all the
>  stops that became eventually postalveolar fricatives in French
> became affricates in Normand). We still say "gambe" from standard
> "jambe" and "qu(i)en" for standard "chien". So "je" could also be
> pronounced [dZ(@)]. Still, in the case of this pronoun, the
> deaffricated form is more common.
I'm not sure exactly what that's talking about. As far as I know, Norman
  French of 1066 and following (and Standard French in general at that
time) used /dZ/ and /tS/ where modern French has /Z/ and /S/, hence Eng.
'chamber' and suchlike.


>>  To be the full equivalent of 'do' it'd have to
>> be able to hold the simple present and past tenses anywhere, as
>> well, though that may be happy by generalisation.
>
> Why not?
BTW... is it inflectable for tense? If so, how? 'Coz if it isn't, it's
not exactly usable, is it?


>> Anyone know of any useful sources (in English) on Anglo-Norman as
>> it was spoken when it was spoken as a first language?
>
> I wish I had... I only have the notes on Anglo-Norman in my booklets
> about Old French and Middle French (where it gets an important
> treatment, along with Picard), but they don't say much, mostly only
> what is different from Parisian French.
How incredibly dissapointing. You'd think such a huge aspect of English
history would have stuff written about it, especially in English,
considering all that's been written about English... (I found an
dictionary of Anglo-Norman, being <http://and4.anglo-norman.net:8082/>,
that seems to say it'll eventually be online, but isn't yet. Has some
articles on it too, may see if they're interesting in the morning.)

> But you can often guess from English borrowings some peculiarities of
>  Normand French. For instance, English "count" for French "compter"
> is an indication of a pervasive phenomenon in Normand French: the
> diphtongation of vowels in a nasal environment. Yes, Normand French
> (even today) has nasal diphtongues.
Oh, so that's where the ME spellings of 'dance' <daunce> came from. I
was wondering about that.

>> I'm sure that a proper analysis of the usage of 'could' could show
>>  that it isn't the past tense in that sentence but shows a similar
>> condition as the 'could' earlier in this sentence (or maybe another
>>  use of 'could'...). And 'I did it because I can' is not
>> ungrammatical.
>
> But it doesn't mean exactly the same. Or does it?
No, it doesn't.

>> Yeah, I know, I was just using your very same metaphor!
>
> You mean I'm taking the leading role in your movie? ;)))
Trying to, but I told you off and wasn't letting you.

Tristan.

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