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

> 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
>
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> 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!"

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