Conlangery #113: Applicatives

Conlangery #113: Applicatives

Published: Mon, 05 Oct 2015 04:49:04 +0000 \

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Transcript

utterance-id1 <unk> <unk> <unk> [noise] welcome to online or in the <unk> languages and the people who create them <unk> with me down the road ways <unk> hello and with me over in sunny california we have david j. peterson [noise] okay [laughter] all of that with some of it was perfect and i want you to with knowledge that i gave david a new toy and he's playing with it he's trying to make me that was my <unk> i don't know what <unk> what what city or what they're doing so what oh okay i'll i'll just say um very briefly here so i'm recording this episode in a new way uh i found a program that it's sort of web based and each person is recording their own mike at the same time and then it'll automatically <unk> be put into my drop box and then that way i have three separate tracks instead of two separate tracks um surely surely this much cost something yes uh at the moment no because it's beta wow that is a real deal brought you buy the folks that zen caster [laughter] but anyway i'm experimenting with that if the this episode sounds a little different you know it uh maybe because i use those files but um and <unk> in case that fails we have to back up and going anyway so [laughter] i guess uh the fact that you weren't listening to this park just proves that that at least one thing that's recording this episode succeeded so [laughter] the fundamental rule of working with computers and she wanted belt and suspenders yes it might look hideous but really that's the way it has to be yes okay so uh before we get into the topic for today is uh going to be a topic episode but um i want to announce david you have a book out by the time this episode is out your book will be ouch yeah i was in fact i was really surprised that just between the time that we recorded this pod cast and the time it aired uh my new book the art of language invention has been option for a minute [laughter] actually it's starring it's during land niece and it's going to be a bit of a thriller um and technically it's going to be called taken for [laughter] but really it it it was my it was my book that was the inspiration um which is a credit i think to the entire come on line community yeah [noise] i often felt that there needed to be you know a scene for about this hobby where there's big huge dramatic music and you have somebody looking serious and they walk into a room and they sit down and they open a notebook and then they just sit there [laughter] and then maybe write down if you notice that looks like i. p. a. and then they stare some more for you know fifteen minutes but all would like super dramatic you have an image of of their dictionary or whatever but was super super dramatic music [noise] you know maybe maybe a techno fight track in there somewhere i possess some very particular set of skills yeah i can <unk> i can <unk> i will find europe or oh novel conjugate [laughter] right well we'll see if any of that uh happens in any film coming up including the including the documentary that would be interesting anyway uh so that's the art of language invention you can buy it now ah william and i have boats were written reviews we both think it's good of course david as a friend of ours sort of [laughter] i have not reviewed the book i swear i'm gonna i swear i'm going to get my review up on amazon eventually [laughter] they're sure and uh uh another thing i want to mention really briefly um there was a thing that was going around ah people may have already seen this but there was a little uh like a mini documentary on uh trent pearson and uh is it <unk> language and <unk> and um it was just a a really cool little thing uh by uh video west and there they had uh uh radio west interviewed uh our coach grant and britain and josh so about <unk> so uh so i all linked to that it's a a really interesting little thing [noise] more and more you know that interview was irritating the interview i don't know the <unk> at least the first part it got a little <unk> some some people don't like the talking about <unk> being quote unquote successful in the way of like <unk> and stuff and i right i understand that sentiment [noise] did you listen to the thing if it officially yes [laughter] well you can watch the video the videos like four minutes but uh yeah that's <unk> no no no no actually i did see that the trend person video that was very interesting i i thought it was cool i'd love to see like a little five minute bio on like every single coddling or just like that i think it would be a great syria but um as as far as listening to something that's longer than [noise] six minutes that isn't a song it's it's really tough flooding with me [laughter] um but i do listen to every episode of this pod cast of course the moment it airs and then several times afterwards [laughter] great [laughter] okay so anyway that's all that stuff out of the way at the end of this we may uh ask david a few questions about the book but uh we thought we've done a couple of interview episodes in a row i want to get to do a linguistics topics and languages and so we're going to talk this episode about <unk> [noise] yeah so uh i'll start off give you the basic definition of a <unk> in a <unk> basically it's usually something you have a <unk> something marked on the verb then it promotes and oblique argument so we can be a <unk> a benefactor or instrumental or a competitive argument promotes that to the direct object position and we'll get into all the things of how that happens is why that happens during this episode so guys who wants to start out talking well let me um let me just share a little bit of background i think about this this very special episode because i i wanted to mention that um you know earlier this earlier this year uh george george was a very dear friend of mine uh reached out to us in need in desperate need and he said i'm really busy with graduate school um i i would love it if if you can each of you record maybe just a short ten minute episode on whatever you want and and and email it to me and then said something like i'll give you more details about it later so i thought okay i'll do that at some point in time then email began same while i guess nobody's going to send me anything so i turned around right away and i recorded a ten minute episode in one take on a <unk> where i said everything i know about it <unk> might have some of the other stuff that i also now and i sent him to file and i said did you get the file and this was george's response got it all rent it sometime soon there's one i'd like to do myself first okay i'm kidding [laughter] so so but but i'm i'm here in happy to talk about a <unk> which i desperately and dearly love their one of my favorite thing uh at least in in language grace and they really are they're one of my favorite thing in my defence basically what happened was [laughter] basically nobody sent me shorts at that time and then later i put out a thing of okay ah i have all the episodes planned out for the year and everybody can sort of sign up for episode they want to be a guest on and the david because every time i talked to david uh ask david to do anything for the show there's always a misunderstanding he signed up for the afflicted episode this month thinking that that was about the shorts it's true oh shores yes anyway i mean no matter sorry [laughter] i mean may cut this whole thing out but [noise] <unk> let's uh let's get onto actual business <unk> david you wanna talk about [noise] course things i have one thing that i wanna mention upfront and click it in or something that is marked on the that the mental too the definition so like uh a phrase in english she bakes the cake for me it's a benefactor construction but it isn't a benefactor ticketed because nothing happens to the right to to me is it's in a separate cages um or even something like she baked me a cake where there's no a weakness going on but it's still a benefactor construction to be an actual if they could have something has to happen to the <unk> yeah and we have a really good example from english um where <unk> you wouldn't i'd say call it an <unk> a plug it ever played it but it's it it really illustrates the the uh the distinction nicely so since we're talking about cape baking and i'm really excited about that um we could i mean naturally when you're talking about cakes the first thing that occurs to me is competition uh because it's about who can make a better cake so for example one could say william bait a better cake than george mhm alright one could form a <unk> like construction and say that william out baked george now what happened to the cake gone was destroyed [laughter] hi instead uh george with elevated from the role of of being a um no the object of some sort of a proposition like thing or a small claws element elevated from that role to the rule of direct object position via a prefix that was added to the verb bake it went from bake too out fake um which is ah i think the way that minnesotans pronounce um the outback steak house is that right [noise] no [laughter] no it's not terrible it's terrible it's terrible we go into <unk> sorry they only do that would gee i know [laughter] yeah ah so no that's that's a good example that's you know i wouldn't we wouldn't necessarily say that that's an <unk> an english it's sort of a derivation all thing but yeah that's <unk> that's pretty much how they work and we've met we mentioned sort of the like he bake a cake or she makes me a cake that a lot of like theoretical linguists like like to put that construction like in the same category as a <unk> but it's not what we're really talking about [noise] and the big thing is the great sort of example for other things that are going on with the public it it just like passive the purpose of the <unk> is to let you manage important lets you tell the listener what parts matter most [noise] if we've already established that cake baking is going on then you know me out baking george george baking me um raising the salient of you know the competition um and cakes or in the background because we already know that information similarly in lots of languages [noise] the only things you can use ah had a relative causes or the only things that can be made into passive also have to be more arguments so i was oh baked sounds a little bit weird [noise] but is is workable yeah so it's not like most of the time you shouldn't think of <unk> uh some kind of weird derivation it's doing a particular job and that is managing um argument structure who is most important or or narrative structure rather what's most important independence at this moment and click it in a way you move them into the core argument structure [noise] okay you just really <unk> that's actually a nice um ah example there if you compare i was out baked to the alternative i was baked it better than yeah that's it sounds awful i think it's technically grammatical uh no that's that's grammatical let's find for me but it's just really not in my in you i mean well it's not it's not great english but i think it is technically grammatical um in the sense that if there were eight quirky writer who decided to put that into their a novel the editor would not turn it back right right unlike um well we won't go too far into that yeah [laughter] [noise] unlike some some other things uh oh well if i can just uh build off something that that will you mentioned um that's it it's actually a nice thing if you're a con linger to bear in mind that the kind of the the the real point we've been having up like it it is in order to make something some other type of construction simpler um and not just to have them so for example uh the place where uh and and one of my languages <unk> place where the <unk> ends up getting used the most in in uh relative clauses and the reason for that is uh only subjects can be relative eyes income a collie you can't relative i anything else so if you want to <unk> an object to direct object you have to pass of eyes um the <unk> um then if you want a relative i any other rural essentially what you have to do is first <unk> to raise that lower all up to direct object status then <unk> passive and so then you can do something like um like uh i think the example i had my book was the the fire that was thrown into it's like you know you know who's who's through something er in er into water or like what's the deal with that <unk> that's the fire that had something to run into it basically use it like it if any passive in order to say this is what sally <unk> about the fire um and that ends up happening a lot more than just regular you know click it abuse yeah and and that's yeah that's and that's not just comical you that's a pretty common thing and lots of languages <unk> shoo [noise] manage moving things are on the causes right [noise] the three most common kind [noise] of <unk> are um benefactor instrumental and lock it of of some sort [noise] mhm [noise] the benefactor gave um in some languages frankly is no different from what we would call a day do [noise] um like <unk> indirect objects in addition to somebody this is sherrie are you know in some languages possible for ah <unk> <unk> the benefactor sense mhm be instrumental just like um positions that might some in some languages instrumental is the same as with in a sense of together in some languages your quote unquote instrumental up like it it might also i mean i went to the store with ball mhm um and then finally uh lock active uh is just you know are afraid to place i went to the store and then you can like the fire examples that they would just [noise] um and then finally i should've mentioned the benefactor it can also be male effective you know the judge made the decision against me so or or <unk> i think there are um like languages that distinguish between benefactor <unk> ah <unk> effective in other contexts do they do that with <unk> is there a language doesn't i'm [noise] i'm trying to remember from my reading if there's anything that is a purely an solely malefactor and i can't call [noise] um any language might have multiple ways to marketing is like multiple benefactor's where one allows 'em out back to reading in one doesn't that i recall running across but i can't think of any where you have <unk> yeah if you're talking about uh uh non natural language that he just wanted to use this for ah you know some sort of an interesting project or an art project there's certainly a no reason that you couldn't have a malefactor specific uh uh <unk> yeah um i would find it surprising ah if there was one in a natural language but at the same time if it were from either south america or australia i wouldn't be that surprised and i guess that's our [laughter] our place for [noise] you know it's like yeah you can or pop when you're getting yeah you can click advise malefactor arguments only that's the only type you try to do it for anything else it just doesn't work yeah i can't think of any really real reason why you couldn't go crazy and have tons of different afflicted abs but in fact why don't we take that comment and moved to something uh at the bottom of the notes list here what's imagine if you did what's a match it if you did have a whole bunch of different types of <unk> ah on your her what might you end up with you might end up with an oscar de janeiro or specifically a language of the philippine tight [noise] [laughter] [noise] not a trigger system just a bunch of a flick it as in passes that's all it is right and there's also a historical background there there are there are like two sources for a play at him [noise] proposition or postage is phrases that have gotten sucked into the such as my favorite [laughter] um or verb compounds um which may or may not be productive in the language as it exist now but <unk> <unk> that effective phrases like pick up or use gives you instrumental you can easily come up with a <unk> that has the smell effective sense um and that gets into the giving you a malefactor only um [noise] i'm looking at but over time when something's been sucked in and become part of your grammar it's sort of <unk> using it um [noise] that course antics starts to get <unk> overtime yeah and um and in fact you can you can just imagine in your mind uh real simple way to do this so let's do an instrumental since i got the easiest and let them use the verb use let's say you have a language that says you know what like i i eat strawberries right um and then let's say you have a serial her construction if you want to specify specifically the instrument so i eat strawberries use for right now let's say that you can just drop the object right you could just say i eat i eat yesterday we can do that in english you can do that in a lot of languages some you can't but let's say in this when you can [noise] you could end up with that and it's like i eat use for if you get that and pretty soon they use just starts to fuse on there pretty soon when you've got isn't instrumental <unk> um yeah that can happen i'm like what a couple of months [laughter] about that but pretty pretty darned fast as we're talking about uh i i've been thinking about this and uh um i'm probably going to build an objective system with with not uh not flicking of system out of propositions in the language i'm currently working on because um i have fairly early on i have inflicting propositions that agree with their objects and then i'm just gonna pull losing to them for uh i've had other ways of pulling them into the verb but i was thinking right to play games would be one thing i could do with them [noise] and and certainly that encourages <unk> reading in in in the uh as a baskin languages that's exactly what happened is the object are i mean the positions are infected [noise] and then they get [noise] <unk> [noise] i mean i guess i need to read up on now [laughter] [noise] um [noise] or you know or a patch or whatever there are several streets from who actually i think it's an easier example hey um i had a question for you so you say that the uh the the ab positions are inflicted meaning like you know uh for the er object of the proposition would be first second third person et cetera yeah whether they're inflection on the bird before that yes the verbs are also marked um four subject so do they have double marketing object or various <unk> oh yes oh goodness yet so it's like you you <unk> there are different parts on the verb that have to agree with the subject an object multiple times uh not the subject that i've ever seen um and not the object in the sense that uh <unk> avenue arguments <unk> or a bird um right the asking languages have [noise] a generic object and generic subject markers so even if you yeah so even if your original direct object is no longer salient um instill appear without drawn to it so that makes sense okay cool um [noise] there was something i was going to say about that okay so when you have an intern transit of [noise] and it becomes into clicking if you get something that looks an awful lot like a transit waiting you added up looking into trans divert what's happened [noise] to the original direct object to possibility it can stay there and you just get to direct objects however your language mark shows or the original object is kicked out and if it's expressed at all it has to use some sort of oblique you know race or whatever um different languages cope with that [noise] differently so you get to pick okay yep [noise] in english i was trying to think ah were you were you probably do any number of really bizarre can hack expressions so like well <unk> <unk> william out baked george in cake baking like [noise] i don't even i didn't even think you can just do cakes or in cakes or with respect to cakes yes some yeah well i think most people would like fall over um trying to do this is this is partly because english just doesn't really have an flick it is if we did then we might find some strategy or not we could just like [laughter] you know like some languages <unk> you know i'm sure lots of languages with a blanket if you just cannot add the original object back dislike many languages with a passive you can't add the age it back into the sentence right [noise] roman you just go around you hear my cat yes yes [noise] you know look i closed one door in a room that has it completely and always open door complaining because he can't go through the one door that's close yeah yeah yeah you're going around now now that now that now that you've been exposed you made a fool [laughter] [laughter] okay and then ah right at the beginning i said that <unk> should be thought of that sort of the same way you think it <unk> it was just more grammar than some sort of derivation however as always wants to these things happen there are plenty of languages that have a <unk> that have routine senses that are not strictly cop additional [noise] like <unk> has a four to enter a supplement and where you use uh ben effective you get <unk> like i should enter or you just means i should visit you [noise] so the combination of interest on that one and at that effective secretive means um [noise] so again that can start to happen once you <unk> as well [noise] um another thing that uh so we have gone through these different types benefactors of instrumental lucrative she can also have specifically a committed if <unk> if that's the tested [noise] um what i'm understanding though is that you don't necessarily need these specific category as you can have just one of <unk> right [noise] yes that's very vague yes absolutely yeah just want to play it can be of this like any oblique argument this gifts but that gets promoted or you can have one or two specific categories and then i dumped <unk> george we called that'd be residue absurd it runs it too yes [noise] that is nice [laughter] [noise] exactly [noise] [noise] oh nice to construction you know [noise] if you just got the one though uh it tends to be that it gets used to the you know pretty specific argument for given for [noise] and if you want to use it for something else you kinda have to prime it right is there anything else we want to say specifically [noise] about a click and if i ran across a weird sort of thing which is not quite end up looking at it but i thought was interesting but i don't think that um [noise] i'm looking forward to that [noise] well we've covered we've covered the menu so like just <unk> the the main uses like just like a passive it's managing your arguments structure bringing things closer in to bring more focused to them or they would was saying if your relative clauses can only uh cover certain arguments then you have to move something into that argument position somehow yeah and uh we covered basic types and now i guess i guess than if you if you're a language creator the series of steps you need to go through his first deciding [noise] if you should or should not have end up liking it if you do um at at the naturalistic language it's probably a good idea to figure out what the source is going to be that's probably going to tell you where it's going to appear on the verb you know based on you know where where in the claws the old thing occurred uh then it's a question of if you're going to have one implicated or multiple ones um and if they're going to be multiple ones what rules they're going to have and what their lexical sources are going to be and then uh the important question is once you've done europe like it at your bad the plug it into the verb um what happens to demoted object um you know just to just to just get put afterwards and exactly the same case that it used to have that have a new case or a new prep additional phrase [noise] is it easy to reintroduce is that difficult to reintroduced can you do anything with it once it's been reintroduced and um [noise] the last bit the last super important but for the public it <unk> it was going to say and i'm forgetting [laughter] it died and that's all there is to know the the but the important thing is like how are you going to use it and we've explain that bit of it what they are usually used for [noise] 'cause if you um this in in the last short the david recorded he made the point of you know you can add a whole bunch of things into your con lying a whole bunch of ah um yeah a bunch of a whole bunch of you know any kind of features and then have no idea how to use them i never actually have them realized yeah so then you end up with this with this grammar that has like all these different things you know that your con laying does and then when you go to do a translation you 'cause like you know quarter of them right um oh <unk> uh i did remember though the other thing the other question that you have to be sure to answer when you're doing and playing it is um you need to consider how it interacts with your other veil and see changing operation that is <unk> and cause it ebbs and ah yeah one yes what's the other one uh some sort of middle like things some sort of tammy passive <unk> yeah [noise] um and that was something i was going to mention it it seems like in some languages you have things that looked like an executive um ethics that also those duty as a closeted sometime yeah so that seems that that's happened i've seen ran across that more than one so there's something interesting going on there i could see that happening uh well here's the question if you know anything about the history of the those things do they come from up for meaning to cause cause i could see that like branching off into two different meanings yeah i tried to find good documentation on this and i didn't i found reference to the phenomenon but no nothing really trying hard to explain it okay i'll give you one example that i can think of well not not a uh a legit example but think about all of those uh older english words that begin with for um uh thinking like you know forego for went [noise] um and others like it [noise] which is essentially ah [noise] they're kind of like they're kind of like confidence kind of like uh like it it uh it kind of do both um and you can imagine if you know four and we know exactly where that comes from an english if that was your little prefix you can imagine at doing either personally so the funky thing i wanted to talk about is they have things in <unk> which they call it <unk> [noise] but really if they're kind of some fun way of the verb additionally cross referencing certain kinds of representational phrases out in the rest of the call so [noise] but it doesn't promote anything so it's like a <unk> yes it looks like agreement but it's it's not it's not it doesn't promote anything it's not person agreement is just the <unk> it's been marked with oh we have a bed effective out here oh we haven't instrumental out here [noise] yeah it's really weird cause i i remember i was looking you and you you gave this example so i pulled it up and i'm looking at this paper and i'm looking at the very first two example and i'm like that's not enough like it it <unk> stupid argument is still there [laughter] why they're doing that <unk> weird right but what the point is that the verb is being yeah they call it looks like it if i have no idea why um i just ran across it but for people who like interesting little tidbits i recommend looking at this paper we've got it here it's cold or austin texas look look at americans and [noise] and you can go find out about this additional cross referencing and then there's a bunch of <unk> that you can just <unk> that might be that might be just sort of a thing um but if i knew the term up like a day of and didn't know what else to call this [laughter] but uh yeah that sounds like it's sort of yeah it's just a little terminal logical <unk> um that's a that's an interesting thing i could see that like becoming in a place to live in the future or something like that but uh yeah it's an interesting little uplifting if jason thing i i i could actually see it starting out as an <unk> um and then it just people reanalyze it as agreement so they started using it i would be shocked if when the first two cents is that you got here you couldn't do it without the expressed arguments if it was understood who they referred to yeah there's there's not a longer continuous examples there to get context so that doesn't make it hard to see what is going on [noise] i it's hard to know which to marion just because the rating system is so effective until it had been dead for several thousand years [noise] um but there's this long chain of pre fixes that happen on the <unk> and some of those also seen she'll be nothing more than agreeing with locket expressions or other case expressions happening upstream in the sentence [noise] or at least the grammar i was reading thought that but there's lots of um frankly cheating going on with their marion um and uh like thing analyses wisdom area and it's sort of like a russian block test project to almost anything you want because we don't know enough [noise] i think i reminded me of that reminded me of doing to feel to work with a graduate student in my class who just decided one day i hear a tone yes specialized in working on tone in ahah [laughter] uh-huh aren't whatever man and wasn't tone according to him now okay ah i i could have my own issues with that [laughter] because i do work on tone and i know yeah you have to you have to to sometimes you'd have to get in a little beep to to understand what's the difference between tone and stress so [laughter] yeah mhm [noise] all right do we have anything else to say [noise] about a <unk> [noise] i think this is fine i think we've got everything unless you want to read some laundry list of examples somewhere but um [noise] ah we've covered the basic stuff um you guys yeah they're pretty common so if you're a serial monogamy just in terms of <unk> that is if you're not just working in one in your life i recommend trying them in at like what you're too and you're near future um for longer examples um the banshee languages have a course that <unk> and there are lots of examples of those people like to talk about those a lot um and where else are they super common uh <unk> [laughter] but i don't understand that so i don't recommend [laughter] i mean maybe someday i'll figure it out but until then yeah okay yes they did you have a book <unk> which which talks about it it does [laughter] i actually including <unk> oh you did you did mention of politically lives in him and nothing and you said everybody should have the packers [laughter] [laughter] hi how they get away with that didn't that supposed to be attacked for for people that had absolutely no background in language at all and i got to a click it it's it's not bad [laughter] yeah yeah many things get cover [noise] um so i'm curious what sort of hair pulling was involved if any [noise] when it came to write the chapter unsound <unk> writing about phonology it's sort of like dancing about i don't know <unk> whatever that phrase is it's tough to do so this is what happened with the book because i did write it chronologically um i wanted to skip through the section on writing systems but i my vegetables first anyway [noise] but um so when i when i started writing the book uh you know i wrote the the introductory matter and then i started writing the section on chronology um and i saw it getting a little long so i decided to kind of condensed some things like ah i thought well alright maybe maybe i won't ah go into describing in full detail how um how the system the cliques works [noise] system clicks working african languages [noise] i'll just <unk> explain the extreme mechanisms [noise] um [noise] anyway so i finished up the um i finished up the section and i like uh i i sent it onto my energy just to show her that i was working and and she emailed me back and says um we had imagine that the book would be seventy two thousand words total um you might consider cutting this down a little bit <unk> [laughter] at her with six thousand words [laughter] god [noise] and that was with me that was with me already self editing um at the end of that uh phonology phonetics section [noise] so um i had to go back and cut out about forty thousand words that section and then i wrote the rest of it i i think that at the beginning when uh the title of the book was going to be how to invent a language um i really sat down to write everything that you could possibly need to know in order to create a language and uh kind of put me back on that so um that was when uh my brother in law actually suggested a change in the title so now i was like it's not sauce advertising is just about yeah yard of language invention and uh having run it you know it is very short of condensed and it's sort of all a brief introductory i i um uh like my suggestion was that like this could be like someone <unk> first foray into it and then they could go further or but i saw um i liked but you did your case studies because that's the part for us who who know a little no about about linguistics already and uh are already <unk> that's the stuff that's valuable to us to see how you met these particular challenges that you had so what was the what was behind the choice to do that um those actually weren't even my idea that was the editor that had that idea i thought oh no that is that is a good idea um no i should say that those to work and got condensed [laughter] yeah yeah uh obviously there's only so much you can sign up well i mean i had more to say about all of them except for maybe uh the does rocky one which is the first one which is just about sounds where it's like and you can almost say everything that you wanted to stay there you're just talking about the sound of it but um but yeah for the for the other three the each of those got condensed but um anyway so yeah credit my amazing editor elder rotor who by the way and and this is i think is really important approached me about the book she said do you want to write this so it wasn't like i had a manuscript and shopped at her out she said hey we think this is a good idea would you like to do it now like oh my god i cannot believe this happen [laughter] i don't know what gave her the idea but um i over an incredible debt and i think that was just amazing that that happened so um anyway but ah at least for for some of those things like um i know i've said this before on on the <unk> list and maybe in other places but um to to bring in kind of a slightly different topics uh one of the things that i wanted to do with <unk> you know our little archives of of articles is essentially for con lingers to kind of reflect on what it is they do and put up things that would be like one of my case studies perhaps even longer 'cause you know we don't care about like their um where the the <unk> themselves going through either the the process of grading the entire language creating a portion of the language and really reflecting on why it is they did what they did even if at one point it's like you know as as far as like the <unk> on a logical form of this suffix it just um it was just my initial backwards or you know or i just went to a um a a you know phonology generator and hit the button and i like this one for whatever reason um that i think is really interesting uh especially to con liners and so that's something i would like to see more of so anyway um however we got here uh uh yeah so it's it's good i don't know it's it's good to me to hear that you liked that part um you know and i and i think that uh and this is i think something you said in your review george but i think it it it <unk> uh saying again and it's not like uh georgia saying he liked it'd be like oh i didn't know what i was doing before and now i read this case study and i know how to do it's like man i don't know you just get the sense of what another con linger is doing why they're making the choices they're making so you can just maybe see a different point of view right and maybe at the end of it you'll say well actually um either i think i'm on the right track here 'cause i was doing basically the same thing or i do things a little differently and i like it better that's useful you know yeah yeah yeah and i think um in my review i mentioned like one place where you were going <unk> things from one direction and i would have probably gone from another direction just because i did have different experiences with young which and in fact right away if i can if i can recommend your review i found that interesting because that would not have occurred to me and and i think again it's because of my background in language your approach would not have occurred to me and i found that really interesting 'cause it's like wow that is a totally different way i could have gone with that and it would have worked yeah so so we're not like talking around each other i'll <unk> i'll just like spill the beans on what what we're talking about is um yeah so david was talking about <unk> he wanted you wanted the language beep are slow uh in terms of like <unk> and the way that you thought about it is your mind went to <unk> or <unk> yeah it was an <unk> one of the an aptitude languages it was similar to uh any what languages and so you're it didn't end up like this but you're starting point is like crazy pollo synthetic language what giant long words and then but because you know i haven't heard a lot of that language and i'd never thought of it of slow the language i think of is slow is mandarin chinese and chinese language in general they have a fairly low <unk> rate but it's a completely different you know type logically different kind of language almost backwards it's yeah it's <unk> completely the other way around so i would have been approaching that problem from exactly the opposite direction that you were almost so it's it was just fun for me to think about how you know because we are familiar with different languages we would've just thought about this problem and i totally i <unk> when i think that uh that goes to the larger point of it's it <unk> sharing just improves are craft gives you it gives you more more tools in your arsenal right yeah i mean you bring it up [noise] or you know the art of language invention and because i've taken a visual arts again in my room entry way at this point [noise] and uh right there are many different ways of painting painting some people spend a day's working on under drawing which might be in and fill it might be in charcoal and the perspective is perfect and everything has worked out sometimes <unk> <unk> significant detail or they might do that same under um work with a brush they might draw it on <unk> and then made over and other people draw lines to help them know what's going on and just attack and assaulted the canvas and [noise] you get [noise] a perfectly fine paintings out of all approaches yeah um but it's worthwhile even for um experience artist to see other ways of doing things either because you want to play with it some way not that you're going to copy that approach necessarily but you know use the approach for a while to find out what you can afford and then okay these three things i like and then you <unk> heard the case studies it seems like that must be great news for people who are fans or things like <unk> or um hi weary and because my feeling is that it's like a clear lay out of stuff that otherwise [noise] only been released piecemeal mhm yeah that's true like i think that's the first time i've seen a full discussion in detail of the large you're eighteen now class system yeah not knowing what am i <unk> [laughter] yeah knowing that ah well knowing that uh that idea came to the publisher that's probably what they were thinking there were probably thinking to include those as like a marketing thing too friendly these properties that you work for [noise] yeah um but it's it's interesting for <unk> two and four con lawyers who aren't even necessarily the the beginner types and how did they feel about the typesetting fun at this what must have been oh good god alright so [noise] but they just they mentioned that um you know of course i i've studied arabic uh eh you know at the college level and i'm a big fan of the arabic language so often when i need to uh you know come up with examples of things i i go to arabic um arabic of course it's a wonderful writing system that it's written from right to left and um ended supported by you know code even if uh it's poorly understood by say word processors and i did my at most to make sure that every single example of arabic was exactly correct um and and followed you know unit code guidelines and everything i sent it off they sent me back like their first past absolutely no example was correct <unk> utterly baffling [laughter] so it's like sometimes ah the arabic letters would be separated ah so that it was just you know one letter straight after another and it's isolation form um right sometimes there was one baffling time we're each word look correct but the word order had been reverse life [laughter] i don't even understand how that happened [laughter] [laughter] and then you know other times where it's just like uh there was you know uh along the line break where it's like <unk> and there was a particularly long production for some reason there was a bizarre lie break between uh <unk> what we ended up having to do is we did an image for every single arabic example in that book every single one i mean [noise] and we we the funny thing was we had to do that too for um for the <unk> for the defiance languages for the writing systems um because uh because i i couldn't give them the fun so [laughter] so even though i have the <unk> you know i couldn't give them the fun it's like it's like just send them pictures of everything so it's just [noise] oh or or or the rights on the hans lockdown <unk> yeah or <unk> i mean the rights on everything are are locked down so [laughter] [noise] <unk> we'll see uh it just ended up um so it's like all right whatever so [noise] there are like millions of of images and that book some of the very small even the ones that occur inside the text and um the type setters just had just had a heck of a time making it come out right so the fact that it looks any than even close to the way it looks now is just a miracle um and i'm really glad of it but ah yeah if you increase the font size the arabic is not going to increase proportionally witches [laughter] just nuts considering the <unk> world we live in right i i remember another little thing up so william and i got um jolly copies of that the switch where on corrected and you have one example in pie that's supposed to be showing like but you know you have these little girls in the letters but in the original galley it was too small to even make out of a <unk> [laughter] [laughter] it's like literally no a lot of the a lot of the images we're we're really small um and i ended up asking an increase them in size and they did like uh for example like uh trent person sent me a wonderful example really detailed example but it was so small that you can see the details so it was like well what's what's the point of view even including it so i got a new criticized hopefully everybody can now see all the little loops and the <unk> [laughter] right yeah yeah yeah well i'm always reminded of uh very <unk> uh develop round python you said everyone wants you to code until they get it [laughter] so that's that's exasperating all images that's amazing well congratulations on getting any sleep at all turning out on your face of the book yeah and and think you guys for breaking through the uh the an corrected ah copy [noise] [noise] yeah it was mostly good it was it was fine and there were a couple of uh by the way i fix that example uh uh william degree yeah [noise] [laughter] [noise] oh oh there was a bad greek somehow i just i've just uh missed uh miss dakota missed our forgot about words like you know [laughter] [noise] kind of an important one i guess kind of [noise] anyway yeah people should people should read the book even basketball players i especially think um for people who have not done a lot of historical con lightning that chapter has a lot to offer um lots and lots of uh <unk> not surprisingly i feel yeah um in that but that really just interesting stuff in thinking about semantic history and semantic development [noise] yeah [noise] and also um you know to to to get you started on sort of the electric <unk> son trick <unk> that that david likes to do and that i'm starting to favor now finally welcome to the whole that's hey did you did you guys <unk> did you guys like the definition of morphine him in the classroom [noise] you know i noticed or using that word and and that sort of came to my attention but i didn't want to dig into it for fear arising irritation because i wasn't sure what convinced you to use the term [laughter] uh yeah no i just i i uh that was that was my little joke that was my little joke i included <unk> [laughter] yeah you see that oh i see yes [laughter] yeah i know some people who would not like the definition but you know it's not it's not actually it's it's not an appropriate definition but um you know no but oh good to go and hey i got through an entire book on language creation with only using the word wants in that instance saying something [laughter] anyway so i think that's uh all but uh we really need to cover today and we've got plenty of stuff oh yeah recorded here so uh i think we can wrap this up one final thing just uh uh a little tag note uh well i'll i'll say it do you guys have anything any last things to share <unk> okay wait what um oh what did you not have anything to sharing nope okay well i just wanted to share one thing that was it just say thank you guys are very much we're having me on i appreciate no problem ah thank you david for for being on the show and i want it uh yeah i have one little tag is just because it's on my mind i'm learning <unk> oh that's right and i have <unk> i you know i don't know if we'll ever feature on on the show i might actually want to actually talk to some people about that before i decide to do that but um [noise] i did think i wanted to share this one little tidbit [noise] if you're afraid that your words for numbers are getting too long [laughter] the whole chunk word for nine is <unk> [laughter] [noise] just uh just minor explanation it's sort of [noise] it means it it can break down as sort of like minus one or something so it's it's like ten months one but yes fade [noise] basic [noise] number [noise] under ten [noise] <unk> so don't worry about him [noise] and what's that i'm gonna say african [noise] thank you for listening to constantly [noise] you can find our hearts <unk> dot com [noise] support us on patriotic <unk> dot com slash online or [noise] you can also find this on base with her and <unk> and if you would like to hear your online featured on the top of the show [noise] you could look at our [noise] tribute has the truck for what you translate how to send the [noise] <unk> webs faces provided for language creation society and our music is by no divide [noise]

Tags

  1. Conlangery Podcast
  2. Podcast
  3. applicatives
  4. conlang
  5. language
  6. linguistics
  7. The Art of Language Invention

Conlangery Podcast/Conlangery 113 Applicatives (last edited 2017-09-10 00:23:30 by TranscriBot)