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CONLANG Digest - 20 Apr 2000 to 21 Apr 2000 (#2000-111)

From:Muke Tever <alrivera@...>
Date:Saturday, April 22, 2000, 14:55
> From: Jonathan Chang <Zhang2323@...> > Subject: Re: J.Cowan's reference to Tamil onomatopoeia > > In a message dated 2000/04/21 03:28:58 AM, you wrote: > > >Tamil, IIRC, has thousands of such words. > > Yes, Mr. Cowan, but are they purely sound-mimicking, not voice- or > mode-mimicking? > I am peculiarly intrigued with "neologistic" patterns in
sound-mimicking
> onomatopoeia (i.e. is/if there are certain electronic sounds > infiltrating certain languages' onomatopoeia & how are they formed > (what is their Romanized interpretation spelled)? etc., hehe)
Hmm, the only English one I can think of is "beep", the generic sound made by a computer, which is probably also the parent of "beeper"... (Nothing like "beep" is in my dictionary [!], but I'm sure it's from Old English "gebeopan", 'to leave a voice-mail for'.)
> From: yl-ruil <yl-ruil@...> > Subject: Lurkers > > This is a multi-part message in MIME format. > > ------=_NextPart_000_014D_01BFAB8C.EA7A06A0 > Content-Type: text/plain; > charset="iso-8859-1" > Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable > > To all our Lurkers: > I'm not trying to be offensive; I honestly don't understand. Why lurk? = > Don't you feel like you want to join in with all the arguments (whoops! = > civilised debates). That's the best bit for me- my first day on the list = > I sparked off an argument (the s-->h debate, which I thought should go = > s->z->h) and the most recent such was my argument with Vasily about = > fracturing in OE (that was fun! thanks Basileus!). What do you actually = > do, just read all the postings?
I'm technically lurking right now, actually. I do read all the messages, but I don't actively participate because I'm not currently working on a language. (I plan to rebuild the one I was working on earlier but I haven't got the time as the end of the school rushes up to meet my face like a brick wall at 70 mph--I have to get several animations made, get a character modeled, do about a billion designs, and get my film paper written, in less than two wee-eeks!)
> From: Dan Sulani <dnsulani@...> > Subject: Re: Lurkers > The informant explained that among his people, conversation is not > always necessary, and not only was he not bothered by his cousin's > actions, he was pleased that the man had come; again no words were > needed.
Can I get an 'Amen!' here! I do this.
> From: Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> > Subject: Re: Italian Particles > > Muke Tever wrote: > > How about something like Spanish "Me gusta comer manzanas"? Where
"comer
> > manzanas" is the subject of the verb _gustar_. > > That is an exception to the normal Spanish rules, and it could be argued > that "comer manzanas" is considered the object, and "me" the subject, > it's just that they're inflected irregularly. I'm not sure if that's > actually what's happening, but given the word order, it makes sense to > me. Regularly, you'd expect *"Comer manzanas me gusta"
It's not an irregular inflection, 'gustar' inflects regularly to the subject. "Me gustas tú" ("Tú me gustas" sounds more likely in this case[1]), cf. "Te quiero". (I appear to have lost a book.)
> From: Sally Caves <scaves@...> > Subject: Re: Italian Particles > > Muke Tever wrote: > > How about something like Spanish "Me gusta comer manzanas"? Where
"comer
> > manzanas" is the subject of the verb _gustar_. > > > > ('Me' isn't topic; to make the speaker topic wants "A mí me gusta...") > > I thought this construction was simply dative with impersonal: "(it) > pleases me to eat manzanas." Old English has a host of these, but we've > lost the tendency now. Survives in Shakespeare's methinks.
"Eating apples pleases me", roughly, yeah. I was trying to come up with an example of object-firstness, and it happens _here_ because "gustar" has roughly a reverse meaning from what we usually translate it to--"like"--while the word order in the construction stays the same as "like". *Muke! [1] This Sesame Street song is stuck in my head now. "Tú me gustas / that means I like you / I really like you / Me gustas tú!" _____________________________________________ NetZero - Defenders of the Free World Click here for FREE Internet Access and Email http://www.netzero.net/download/index.html