Re: Rotokas (was: California Cheeseburger)

Andreas Johansson said:
> Quoting "Mark P. Line" <mark@...>:
>
>> Thomas R. Wier said:
>> > From:    "Mark P. Line" <mark@...>
>> >> I don't think we have any evidence that Rotokas has ever been
>> analyzed
>> >> with so many syllables. Seeing the number '350' in a single
>> *secondary*
>> >> source is not a good data point when we can find in a primary source
>> >> that
>> >> Rotokas has 11 phonemes and that its syllable structure is only (C)V.
>> >
>> > I'm jumping in here, and don't much of anything about Rotokas, but
>> > how can it have a (C)V syllable structure when the name of the
>> > language itself has a coda? Is there some constraint allowing word
>> > final codas but not word internal ones?
>>
>>
>> I must have been mistaken about Rotokas being (C)V.
>>
>> Clearly, those who don't know much of anything about Rotokas are in the
>> majority here, so I'm outvoted hands-down.
>
> I'm quite convinced that Mr Wier was asking a honest question.
So you're saying that, knowing not much of anything about a language, it
makes perfect sense to question primary sources on the basis of a single
form for which you have no particular reason to believe (due to the
widespread occurrence of external language names) that that single form is
even native to the language in question.

Where I come from, that's not how linguistics is practiced. But we all
know that I come from a different planet. :)

Me, I would have started from the assumption that the primary source
giving us (C)V syllable structure is probably correct (not knowing any
different), and asked if anybody knows where the name 'Rotokas' comes
from, since it's clearly not well-formed phonotactically in Rotokas
(according to that primary source).

It's one thing to be disbelieved when there's no source in play. What
astounds me is that I am so often disbelieved (usually by the same handful
of people) even when there *is* a source and all I'm doing is repeating
what it says. Something of a gunslinger mentality, I reckon: youngsters
trying to see who's quicker at the draw than the aging, retired gunslinger
who's really just in town to visit the saloon. You could say that the
aging gunslinger brought this upon himself by the choices he's made, and
you'd be right. New choices are in order, then.

Clearly I've failed to inspire much professional trust from some people
here, but that's okay. This list is recreational, and otherwise vacuous. I
just need to remember to treat it that way.

I have my own forum for Empirical Linguistics, so I'll be using that in
future for discussion of (not purely theoretical) linguistics and natlang
issues. I'll take purely theoretical discussions to my forum on
Neurocognitive Linguistics, because any such discussion will have to be
related to that paradigm somehow or I won't be very interested. Most of my
work in functional-typological linguistics is empirical, not theoretical,
so that stuff can be found on the Empirical Linguistics forum. Ontological
discussions in the functional-typological vein are landing at the
Semiotics of Complex Systems (SoCS) website. I'll take my part of any
further discussion of Wittgenstein to the SoCS site.

This list is about conlangs, so now there'll be less intrusion of
linguistics, philosophy and natlang stuff, at least from me.

Sorry to have been so obviously disruptive to the game as it is played
here. I just can't get the hang of the rules.


-- Mark

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