Conlangery #108: Obviation

Conlangery #108: Obviation

Published: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 04:00:32 +0000 \

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Transcript

utterance-id1 before we get started with the show there were a couple of <unk> that i wanted to make about events going on in april first on april eleventh uh this is a bit of a local thing if you're going to be around madison wisconsin uh the linguistic student organization here at u. w. madison is having its workshop and general linguistics and david silo is the invited speaker he has an interesting talk uh about <unk> changes in con legs uh diet chronic and sound change in constructed languages and real an imaginary time that's the the topic he doesn't have a title right at the moment but ah if you don't know david is very active in the <unk> community he runs the face book groups and all that and of course uh he's well known for being linguist consultant on the lord of the rings movies and i think he worked on the hobby movies as well getting elvis dialogue correct so that is april eleventh i will link to that information and the show notes uh and his talk we'll be at four fifteen p._m. and if that gets recorded i think it will be then uh um i will linked to that in the future once that's done uh i know that there are working papers published so if uh his papers in the in the working papers or or if it goes onto <unk> then i will linked to that in the future as well the second thing that i would like to highlight of course is the sixth language creations conference which is happening on april twenty fifth and twenty six in horse from u._k. ah just south of london and uh i will linked to the information about that too now if you have not already planned <unk> go to the u._k. or you're not you know in that area as usual the language <unk> conference will be lives streamed and i will give you the information on that and as well uh in the show and it's er right thanks and let's get on with the show [noise] both of them online or even thought that fucking started languages people's <unk> with me down the road ways is william and [noise] and over in uh england we'd have fiance or richard [noise] both come back to back for it or reunion too [noise] [laughter] i don't think i messed up and down to atlanta right now [noise] time shake [laughter] oh yes good time and i even mispronounce that one for the future first few episodes [noise] [laughter] [noise] i thought it was <unk> and this mango and then now you're richards which is much easier to <unk> you know you just <unk> i'm not like how do you spell that [laughter] so ah today we're gonna talk about <unk> but ah before we get into the episode uh i want to make it no our patriotic on uh if you don't know where you can support us on patriotic just give us uh uh a few bucks every month and uh we uh have some goals up there for for our funding um we're up to sixty three dollars a month which is over half way almost two thirds of the way to our first goal where i would be uh redoing a website so that is a great thing and you can go to <unk> dot no go too patriotic dot com slash <unk> and you can you can uh pledge do that so uh who who we getting money thank you everyone who's doing it yes and uh so uh let's start on our topic today which is <unk> so just to to get the the basic thing down the essential sort of idea of what uh v._h. one is as far as i understand is it's a way of marking ah third person to arguments in a sentence based on it's mostly based on discourse so you'll have one argument that will be proximate and that's unmarked and then every other third person argument usually it's restricted to end mutts but every other third person argument ah for for our simplified definition is mark as obvious and that it will get yeah we're going to get into all the details and a bit but the basic thing is the proximate is more prominent in the discourse uh it it <unk> you know where your point of view in a story is or what's the most important character in um in that you're talking about at the moment that sort of thing yeah one thing that i want to point out and i have some papers in the documents that we'll have link is well did focus less an obligation i'll be the first time you learn about <unk> seems terribly weird and it probably does the second and third time you look at it too but it just really related to the same sorts of problems at every language has to deal with this is just another solution how do you indicate what is the most important part of a discourse when you have a bunch of third person entities discourse topics going on and they're all sorts of subtle ways at this interacts with the enemy to see which george mentioned usually it's only animate um pronouns that bothered with this distinction um so <unk> subject <unk> and see all of these things come into play um one of the papers i linked to looks at different kinds of um systems for managing discourse and shows that different languages have different ways of dealing with this but the conditions in which this or that option chosen look the same <unk> you know high agency hi <unk> triggers one behavior low agencies now typically healthy um triggers another behavior and those charts when things happened look the same from language language even if the sort of overt mechanism is quite different so obligation yes it looks like it mostly happens in in fact just won the language family um but it represents something that happens in all languages um and even <unk> pretty closely in other ways it's just as chosen a different mechanism to to say who who's on first she wants on second in the sense of what's going on in terms of um who is important in the the discourse at the moment yeah yeah it's um [noise] so uh since you mentioned uh it sort of a blakely the language family that everyone thinks of when they're dealing with um <unk> is the <unk> language is uh and so um these are also the same language is where um you have the ah the direct inverse marking where basically you have a hierarchy of persons and if the subject an object you know follow that hierarchy that like i think for a chip away it's like second person first person third person and then uh i'm uh <unk> obviously if it's under that right i think um i don't know where the and the specify but the <unk> under that and i think inanimate it at the bottom but um if the subject is higher in the hierarchy than the object then it's marketed direct if the or it's just not marked if the if it's the opposite way then it's marked inverse now the the reason i pointed that out is just to clear that is that you know the obvious issue is mark on the firms in these languages yes <unk> yeah and the object of is always marked under the the proximate third person and um it so that's sort of a a a thing of um [noise] and more generally you know we have a note here you know agents are more likely to be the proximate uh although you know as you get to telling a story sometimes ah the proximate person <unk> the the approximate argument can be in the object position right just as a function of how the discourse evolved threat to the rule is in any given chunk of text or scores one entity alone gets to be proximate everyone else is and the obvious right that's when all of your verb arguments or a third person once you've got a first person or second person subject then you're um third person and it can be proximate that as their own marks [noise] makes sense but there are probably from language language details um that were missing because i only have access to one grammar of these languages so yeah and we're just we're we're we're going sort of foreign overall idea i'm i'm sure there's there's a lot of details we do have um uh we do have some uh things that deal with a specific languages and um one thing i want to we now is that like [noise] so we're talking about the discourse and you have one proximate argument that doesn't mean like throughout the entire discourse you're going to have one proximate argument and in fact um i have a paper here that specifically talking about uh <unk> and you know it's examining some stories and basically you can sort of break up the stories into different chunks based on which of the characters in the story is is proximate so you know this guy he's you know going over uh uh uh <unk> a story about a bear that gets in some guy's truck and start driving it [laughter] yes yes native americans do in fact tell stories about trucks and cars and modern thing it's not all you know mythical stories about coyote i don't even know if <unk> talk about current <unk> i don't know what i don't think i would he got that far he's no they they talk about um the they have their own characters uh but this is this is just about uh the funny story about a <unk> and basically he <unk> this this paper sort of <unk> you know there are sections where the the pear is uh where the man is proximate or the barest proximate and it's sort of it's sort of like a queen of huge shift there's even a a few where apparently the truck his proximate [laughter] okay because because uh so mostly languages and i'm a c. is is included in gender right and truck has animate gender so it can be it can be the proximate technically that so yeah i don't know <unk> <unk> <unk> <unk> but i guess that today <unk> well there's always what i was just thinking that i should have <unk> so in the language i regretted grammar fort blackfoot certainly talks about this and wilder is grammatical agency a grammatical enemies seem rather um uh-huh the magic and in the seat matters to such that <unk> you know certain kinds of sentences or simply under medical um even if the subject is dramatically animate because it expect systematic and so <unk> so that's that is interesting it's um it's you know since like i i think there probably is gonna be variation if you look at a bunch of these languages yeah because you know they all have intimacy <unk> gender and they often have sort of weird things of um certain things being and i met because of cultural important like uh i think snow shoe and <unk> and i met ah it would've been nice if we had ah christine on your butt dry she didn't she didn't volunteer for this one so so to say you're you know yeah i stay on anything well you're right i <unk> hi i'm <unk> <unk> <unk> <unk> i kind of <unk> individual thanking case type thing yeah yeah that's true yeah and um we and we had a lot more to talk about with different uh like what's more more likely to be uh proximate and all that kind of <unk> so one thing that i just wanted to you know we've been talking about the obvious without talking too much about the mechanics so let's talk about that briefly and then we can move on [noise] mhm basically you have two sets of third person pronouns the <unk> in the opposite of set some times unfortunately the <unk> it's called de force person you should never recall anything fourth person because that's used to mean about three different things none of them are related [laughter] so if you want to know how i found out about it right i i love <unk> [laughter] which may or may not <unk> um so but it's a full member of the system it has subject programs that are marked on the verb so they're separate verbal section so it is entirely possible to have an entire transit have said since we're all of the third person estes in that are of the it is mm so that's important it's not just some funny marching on the now the trigger something as <unk> um but it happens in the verb system as well in general um the proximate is preferred for agents but if you have more people going on in the story you can't keep switching you may or may not keep switching around on who's the proximate um so you know you may have a few um about some trends if sentences where the subject to the object or both um abusive um right it's it's again it's like point of view thing <unk> mention that because sometimes it's certainly when i first was learning about this i wasn't really fully appreciating that you could have the subject of a transit verb also be abusive and suddenly once you know i learnt that it became much more obvious how this was a useful tool in managing more complicated narratives and discord mhm um your demonstrative pronouns i going to take marketing for um the proximate [noise] um <unk> herbs and nah [noise] so that covers all of that there may be some word order funky in is such that proximate non phrases are expected to occur before anything obvious and then george you've seen another thing that says i'll be tips or just preferred before the verb is that right ah i i sort of skim through this paper but it looked like that was one thing that it was saying that it was that the that in in east korea at least um uh <unk> sort of <unk> preferred as coming before the furniture and again that makes sense [noise] topical items and obligation and rocks mission has to do is <unk> you expect topics to come first in general [noise] um and everything else come after and that and where before and after happens tends to you know follow the either the markings of or or some fixed one so that makes sense again that the things that are most come first right and it is um and you have you had some some things where you know that we're talking about the topic of the sentence is likely to be the proximate argument yeah and in general is likely to be higher intimacy so a story about the barrier to human humans more likely to be [noise] talk summit in general like earlier like unless a parent labor and that'd be <unk> that are driving a truck yes um [laughter] these are all general tendencies you there's always right you know undo you know we're the needs of the story outweigh general tendencies and i uh george that were making fun of up to <unk> theory earlier because there's an opportunity theory account in one of the papers i <unk> um what you <unk> you know is exactly designed to deal with this idea you have competing needs to be met [noise] um and you go through and do some sort of magic um and outcomes the <unk> the best solution for the context that you're in yeah it's uh well i mean it is the kind of thing that that that <unk> theories is designed to describe but you know i have i have my views on <unk> theory [noise] maybe some day if we if we ever but if i decide to do any kind of theory rent in the future you know i just want to know where to <unk> lower kept in my brain [noise] alright um george mentioned the direct inverse systems verbs system um that plays in the row in general um if the subject just approximate <unk> normal if the subject is obviously if you get the inverse right because the proximate is ranked is sort of higher up and if you have to be it is in your transcript claws then you typically the default to direct rather than um indirect inverse market mhm i'm which can be confusing because a lot of these languages <unk> original word order [laughter] so figuring out who's doing what to whom with too obvious might be fun sometimes yeah good [laughter] um what else was gonna say and you can have who is <unk> who is not switch not just from sentenced to sentence but you didn't even sometimes get it happened across a clause that's just something i ran into my reading and i thought that would mentioned that you need you mean like between two clauses <unk> yes yes <unk> mm okay well it i mean less sometimes that tell you organize the story because you know i you know fell down because and then you know there's a beer in the story sadly who matters more than uh-huh i do for a little while and that is <unk> so that doesn't make and i don't know how many languages permit that um i would not be surprised to find that's different from language to language <unk> um ah oh here's one mechanical thing that i forgot about eight possessed now that is a non possessed by a third person cannot be proximate at least it can't be in blackfoot and it looks like that's true in a bunch of these other or something languages and that makes sense yeah the other paper that you you ah <unk> that like it's preferred that the uh the professor ah gets proximate right now you can have a situation where the professors also on the it is um but in general i expect the professor and that makes sense and and also remember this is the third person possessed my father is perfectly acceptable as a proximate non phrase his father is not okay whose cat that's that's all right sorry that's oscar who's complaining because he can't get in the room that's fine [laughter] he's a siamese he talks a lot [laughter] [noise] that's fine that's fine mm we've got the cat uh you have cats you know i don't have pets um so uh i guess do we have other particular things to talk about we've talked about you know the role of um you live in in the discourse um i went back uh because <unk> has uh you have to have and i started with uh really of from the beginning with that language and like i looked at my translation of the the terrible donkey bitter story oh my god the duck <unk> okay and then earlier version of <unk> and uh i made some i think i made some mistakes and trying to use the <unk> like i i'm i missed some object of marketing but it looked like i was trying to do point of view switching with i believe that seems like uh what we're seeing here but you know and i <unk> ah the one kind of like on time right now um yeah and i and i find it sound like <unk> <unk> yeah it's it's great you can you can uh i i i hope to uh i've i've been writing more tests stories and i'm thinking uh be interesting to to start translating goes into that and uh so i just wanted to mention here like we said most of what we know about how <unk> works is based on <unk> in languages so to me there's a question in my mind is could con language sort of play with this thing and tried to bring you know see whether you whether you can fit and obligations system into a language that doesn't have the direct inverse thing it doesn't seem like it would be that difficult to do it that way [noise] um [noise] i actually do it that way <unk> <unk> <unk> <unk> <unk> okay yeah i i have to think about that i was just trying that out there 'cause you know oh is it was always something it does seem to like naturally fit into the direct converse uh system i wonder which came first [laughter] that is the question really <unk> but there are other languages that have pretty sophisticated direct inverse systems that don't appear to have a vacation <unk> wonder yeah mhm and uh there are things that are sort of similar to a <unk> but not quite like yet right in other languages uh that don't have the direct converse so it was just something to think about an hour waiting any i i came out like a lot of staff richer <unk> [laughter] okay <unk> okay nice to see it got another way <unk> hierarchy <unk> now that shouldn't be in the day right like what like give some examples of like what um i think some of my <unk> <unk> <unk> <unk> <unk> <unk> <unk> [noise] uh yeah i know a standard switching roof some languages put the first person at the tops other put the second person [noise] and that seems to be associated with the politeness matter yeah that makes sense you know <unk> <unk> <unk> does it that way as they have a second person and then first person and uh there there are extra things that people attribute to possibly politeness like the the way that you say i._c._u. is like you don't have a congregation that has a first person in the second person in in in like things where uh one person is [noise] where were the first person is is doing the other one what do you do is you have a passive oh you are [noise] [noise] yeah i get quite a bank and and this is typical again the adopted languages chose this way to keep topical things and things higher up the <unk> first and other languages do trickery like you have to use a passive in certain circumstances um as as you mentioned so they're all sorts of ways to keep what we care most about in the right place english uses the passive mhm um other languages do other things so i'm just gonna mentioned it in terms of ah [noise] those hierarchies there are some languages were first and second person pronoun plural come before first or second singular [laughter] so number plays a role in it hierarchy too and yeah yeah i guess where this happens the pacific northwest where you can find any looking for i i think there's i think there's i don't recall this perfectly and i need to go find my notes from my morphology class to to see but i think there's actually like two different hierarchies and <unk> and one of them have second person on top one of them has first person on top i run across that i think that that's um but what i noticed one yeah i know one really funny thing that sticks out in my mind is that the um the second person inclusive has morphology for both first person in second person on it huh what's the blitz between the two systems i mean where's one used where's the other <unk> that's the question that i don't know the answer to and how <unk> some some day well we'll we'll go over the the direct inverse system in in in uh tail and well i'll pick up and i know that honor did we we've done now you tell me i think we've done different uh line would systems maybe the different <unk> i certainly know talked about the subject the past of whether or not it's got its own episode i can't recall i don't know i think i think it it could get its own episode because when i learned about a drip way i learned that you know the version of this system that you see in like playing on is is seems like very simplified mhm i don't know maybe some of the language and <unk> and it's supposed to i think really i don't know it has but <unk> but it's it's weird [laughter] so yeah and i'm the one that i had like <unk> ah shake [laughter] you can get <unk> it's not you can't get any rain i don't know it's it's ah honestly when you when you when you look at it in in in a real language in in uh a natural language like you look at the <unk> the trip ways verbs are crazy so i mean you know you you you end up <unk> once you once you throw irregularity on top of all this this stuff that gets spread but anyway we were talking more specifically about <unk> we have any other like points it's not it's not necessarily a super complex thing it's just takes a minute to get your head around well <unk> and not only that but i think for a long time for me certainly i was really uncomfortable both of the <unk> and as a language learners with anything related to discourse because you can't just right a rule [noise] see that's why i love it because it forces you think about <unk> <unk> <unk> well and they pay you aren't they came on planes so that'll happen yeah from what <unk> type stuff yes no yeah no that's all interesting an important but it's really hard so like this um russell paper that george links to that actually have the story the barely made in the trucks take a closer look at it and just watch what happens and follow the narrative and that will give you a lot of insight into what is going on and what i love about the horrific donkey beat her story is that you have to come up with a tool in your language to manage you all these different discourse topics in who's central at any given moment who's doing what to do especially as you have a language that does not distinguish overtly different pronoun forums write english we have <unk> which gives a certain kinds of leeway but if you only have one third person thrown out which doesn't distinguished gender um then you have to come up with tricks to make sure that you're being clear about what's going on and there are lots of different ways to do this <unk> is one and just to be clear i just want to say like when we're <unk> we would talk about the donkey bitter store you you can find i i can link to the episode where i um where i have that written up but um so i just want to say i wrote the dock you beat her story to be that way in order to make sure that people have a way to differentiate who does what who it was actually specifically for for that episode because of you know we were talking about that ah that thing that specifically eventually i'm going to write a better story though because [laughter] it's not i don't know the story so much more uh but it's not about the <unk> the <unk> the like the mechanics of the story the mechanics of the story worked well for getting that kind of grammar but i realized in retrospect that the subject matter is just sort of unnecessary 'cause it it has affected my life [laughter] really yes i'll try and find it oh it's so much alike [laughter] <unk> right now is it designs to exercise reference tracking same thing as a donkey l._a. uh <unk> donkey passions right [laughter] in the in the donkey story the guy does beat his wife any pizza's fine so every one he's <unk> that's a that's a that's like my <unk> terrible joke [laughter] regardless no it it ends with the the the my story ends with the abuse or getting punished so not mind entered a punch line yeah so yeah but uh anyway but i do a lot of these guys will store yeah we we've got um is it gary <unk> has all of those syntax test sentences that's that's that's a very useful tool for sure but my point is we have things like that that are great to get let you go through and it it sort of shows you how things are working in your language and like you know show humor attention needs to go [noise] but there aren't really except for the doctor your story ended up going when george come up with short things to translate this really let you knew how you or discourse management in terms of keeping track of multiple through persons things going on right have good material to test that which is why i'm i'm hopeful that george can come up with some more stories that don't involve abusing poor animals um [laughter] and if other people come up with ones please share them with us 'cause i'd really like to to have yeah that was that that would be nice i'm i'm trying to just build up as i as i get inspired to write some little like fable like stories just because i think just for a lot of things translating a story is good yeah 'cause it's not just about tracking multiple third persons but um you know how you were talking about you we were talking about this course like there's all kinds of things that languages do do discourse definite versus indefinite articles that's a discourse function [noise] so what are those were addict versus imperfect [noise] um <unk> yeah <unk> <unk> it is an important role in narrative as well yeah ah background again what uh what is it existential expressions there there was uh that that's a way of introducing a new uh a new character a new thing into the discourse so uh yeah those there's there's all kinds of things that you want to be able to um do that really it really helps to have a story in order to um manage or or some sort of along tax in order to uh learn how to manage discourse in your language right so i'll mention my last weird paper the paper is called syntax <unk> direction and obligation as empathy based phenomena he type a logical approach [noise] so by stephen oh she my he talks about a few languages including i think it's fox for is his example for the obvious languages in terms of japanese and different for choices and <unk> novel ho and uh really interesting language from the tobacco berman area called jean powell um we've had some very interesting stuff going on you should look at so i'm not sure that um i buy the stories term trying to push in terms of his thesis but he has so many interesting things to say about <unk> and managing reference found that i think it's worth a good look at and it's not supersede <unk> unlike some papers um so yeah take up where we are able to do papers in here and the whole <unk> you can get stuff out of it it's it's like and you know i don't know i'm i'm more comfortable with thirty now that i'm in grad school but you know it's like you can take in leave things when you're doing <unk> it's it's you know just the surface district of faxes what you need to yes down yeah great for <unk> but sometimes using some certain theories you might be able to use in the background just make things easier but anyway just that if if you understand how it works but um what was i gonna say so that paper is talking about empathy seeing related embassy hierarchy is what he's proposing instead of an <unk> uh <unk> and that makes sense from some of the stuff we said like so we have a quote from what's her name uh dull strum who's written on the fox language says the proximate third person may be the topic of discourse the price of a third person is also usually the focus of the speakers empathy narratives proximate often corresponds to characters point of view is being represented so that's a starting point for that sort of discussion yeah so yeah takes that or leave that i have a feeling that like you know and i'm gonna see an empathy are going to like [noise] <unk> yes i agree [laughter] especially when you're telling a story you know you you're going to like focus <unk> mostly on human characters that kinda thing yeah but uh but again you hyper has lots of data about actual languages and that's where they useful bits hang up that's very that's very helpful for tonight stash probably <unk> hey ron right it was just a lot of <unk> <unk> <unk> like the correction <unk> mm yep yep so we all have links to all the the stuff we dug up um on in the show notes and um ah thank you very much for listening and think all the people who contributed to our patriotic yeah your uh yes very it's a very nice and i i am i am thinking ideas of uh you know what to do with that money it's not like going into my pocket to buy me nuts or any [laughter] [laughter] i'm thinking about you know if we're if there's any like particular books that we want to buy or like my my pop filters getting <unk> very ready but um so even if we don't meet goals i'll have some some ideas about what to do but if we can get up to that first goal you guys get a new website that hopefully we'll run a lot better and look a lot prettier so i don't know why that are better now oh okay yeah congratulations yeah [laughter] maybe maybe if we get to that preschool i could pay you [laughter] now [laughter] i'm nineteen now we'll see uh so with that uh does anyone else have any you know we kind of straight a little from the topic but that's that's not bad but um you know any anyone have any less thoughts about obligation mm yeah it's cool [laughter] i highly suggest people like read about it actually really seriously considered if they want to put it into my online there's a lot of different things you can play with and uh i think it's [noise] if you want to do it it can be very helpful you to start to think about it in terms of uh <unk> truck and this poor structure and getting [noise] getting straight [noise] who is doing one who does that really is what our views about he's about prominent [noise] so uh what's that i'm going to say thank you all and happy online [noise] thank you for listening to <unk> find our archives of show those online dot com [noise] follow a son put her face both and plus [noise] home [noise] those are like three [noise] you could support us on pay per year on at patriotic dot com slash <unk> we would especially like the thing is the <unk> latest twenty dollar a month [noise] web space for <unk> provided by the language in our music is find no divider [noise]

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  1. Conlangery Podcast
  2. Podcast
  3. conlang
  4. discourse
  5. language
  6. linguistics
  7. obviation

Conlangery Podcast/Conlangery 108 Obviation (last edited 2017-09-09 20:17:14 by TranscriBot)