Conlangery #120: Adjectives

Conlangery #120: Adjectives

Published: Mon, 06 Jun 2016 04:00:10 +0000 \

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Transcript

utterance-id1 [noise] [noise] walk 'em too online or in the address by constructed languages and the people who create them i'm george carlin and with me down the roadways william and [noise] all right and uh [noise] before we get started i'm one of <unk> ah chicks starting to really quick um there's a comic project or low and uh the the thing that interesting too uh <unk> uh so this is in sort of a post apocalyptic um fantasy world and there is a language created for it i think it's called named marian and i haven't looked much into the language itself um but ah one thing is they of incorporated it a lot into the art work <unk> as a sort of interesting sort of calligraphy so anyway oh just like to that and if people are interested they can take a look [noise] the comic [noise] saga has uh one group of people one major faction the storyline uh speak <unk> [noise] yeah i'm translated so you're not quite sure what's going on in this you know <unk> and it's like oh they're telling him to stop or oh shoot [noise] yeah i i've been reading saga actually and it's [laughter] it's sort of funny to be reading <unk> throwing er i've been learning experimental by the way oh george [noise] just for fun now you get to be vilified my other cousin angers everytime you bring the subject [laughter] i'm not really talk about it so much to you know my <unk> more naturalistic but yeah anyway um okay so let's get started our topic today is adjectives uh so we actually did an episode episode forty two that was called getting rid of adjectives which uh really wasn't just like that's the title of it but it really wasn't just about getting rid of them but making them sort of less prominent ah this episode so um he's gonna cover some of the same things but we're taking sort of a different tax and saying okay let's have adjectives in your language but let's make them interesting right right uh so william why don't you take away and talking about a little bit about um [noise] oh no adjectives okay well the the first thing what to say is a lot of my information now they've got a good chunk [noise] it's <unk> [laughter] [noise] excuse me from dixon basic linguistic theory book [noise] um and he is searched all languages adjectives naturally some people disagree um so we're just going to lightly jump over that question um and we can basically distinguish two kinds of languages [noise] those have been open classes adjectives with new ones always possible either through derivation <unk> most of us in this thing to this contest um speak languages with an open class a badge tips there's a huge number of them and you can always add more um and then the other hand you could have languages with a closed the cat uh class um i've adjectives possibly a very small inventory like <unk> three actual tree adjectives on without too maybe eighty possible with a dozen or to most likely [noise] when you have um in either open or close to class you might have some classes adjectives with different behaviors even though it's been very small <unk> inventory still might have two sets of adjectives to behave differently in various ways <unk> as we go to the show [noise] all right so there are basically for grammatical possible possibilities your adjectives can be verb like your <unk> coming down like um and these are the two most common possibilities um dixon next er mentions a modest correlation um so that dependent marking languages or languages to use now in case are more likely to have him down like adjectives and head marking languages um are more likely to have a bird like adjectives um not not not super strong but he seems there seems to be a modest correlation now when we're talking about uh <unk> like in mountain like are we talking about morphology are we talking about syntax what we're talking we're talking about uh whether various tests but mostly we're talking about morphology [noise] now like ones will take now uh marketing of various kinds sometimes it's not a vacation um third like ones will take um curb marking typically not the full gamut of barking um some uh ten cent mood things are aspect things might be unavailable for adjectives that are available for <unk> okay well um in that case then i think we could say uh i i <unk> i think i could see why cakes languages might be uh more likely to have known like adjectives because one of the things you could have its case agreement on the adjectives exactly exactly yeah um [noise] uh these two are the most common um another possibility is for your adjectives to be both now like in <unk> like that is they get [noise] now the inflections when they're in a non phrased but when there are credit like it's blue making marking um this is what calming beginners desperado always wants to do with us brought to adjectives um you can't turn them into herbs um even though people don't normally do that but um uh common there's always wants to make blue <unk> right that's uh that's the thing that the <unk> 'course teaches you too [laughter] um and the another possibility is that your attitude made these like neither <unk> are now make an english is an example of that there's no marking at all that additives get that relates to either absurd [noise] um and then you just mentioned it passed and there's a fifth option which is you can have some mixed japanese has two classes of adjectives and it's a verb likes that and i'm like <unk> um we ate quite differently but they still do have a few commonality so that it still makes sense to call them <unk> adjectives [noise] even though they're behaviors or a little bit husky yeah so it's it's that's interesting you could also sink a little bit about um <unk> uh <unk> 'cause you're talking about now unlike him for like in terms of morphology yes um i think you can sort of talk about <unk> tactically too because you know again that's gets into like theoretical things of how you want to say that you <unk> you could you could um you could analyze chinese as not having adjectives but just having student verbs or having like for like adjectives right because of syntax right uh you know they can act as a credit get on there yeah <unk> <unk> as as often the case [noise] with these type of logical questions [noise] it doesn't it can be difficult to come up with a definite definition of an adjective that applies correctly too old languages you will typically need to come up with sometimes quite subtle test from language to language to say yes this is definitely an adjective and not <unk> not just a state of her [noise] um and each language is going to have their own test right and i i i bring that up mainly just to say that these categories are a little bit fuzzy and oh yeah you know when you're describing your con line i don't get too worried about like feeding things into classes properly because sometimes you know sometimes what class you would put it in depends on what theoretical position you'd want to take in common language really don't need to be worrying about theoretical position sure i mean it's useful to you as a way to help think about stuff but yeah i don't think people need to get too attached to any one theory [noise] i'm i'm remaining agnostic on the question of whether or not all languages absolutely must have an education class and then just in passing i mentioned hopi which turns adjectives into prefix is when they are um modifying an album um and look sort of like whether or not so that's like the the the boat class i just mentioned above except it's wonderful but hoping we have a lake here is both the adjective an unknown undergo various kinds of on a logical reduction when they're cramped together um which is worst taking a look at just for fun yeah that that's uh more phonology is always fun right um okay so what do <unk> do two primary jobs with a third optional job first job is to state property the dog is large um and all you to talk about stating a property or i'll talk about <unk> you said about your tips there um and then the other thing is you can use an adjective to specify a particular now that is to say it's contributed i see the big dog as opposed to some other kind of dog [noise] end up most languages both of the functions are possible however some languages only have one or the other so for example you might have some that can only have a tribute to adjectives and then something like that you can't say bob is tall you have to say bothers atoll man or something like that again is always you may have a subset of adjectives that'd be it differently with regard to this than others um second even though you might be allowed to vote credit an attribute uses of adjectives language language might have a really strong preference for one or the other for example apparently korean has a strong preference for uh a private you <unk> so you're more likely to say the men are many versus there are many men oh okay right so both functions are available but there may be a strong preference uh for uh for one or the other okay so it yeah and that gets into like idiomatic freezing and stuff yeah it's it's style thing but also i mean it's really they sort of subtle things it's like yeah that sounds right but don't take that and finally um your additives uh maybe uh really into adverse either a pair edgy took my usable isn't <unk> maybe some special construction um or derivation we might want to do and for some time in the future yeah they're pretty it can be pretty wild too the problem with <unk> and just kind of a dumpy drowned [noise] [noise] [noise] yeah [laughter] like particles wide open since i would call it you know either <unk> or article yeah that's been see i can see that happening okay so ah let's get to the issue of the the small close class edgy chips for a moment and i called these the dixon specials [noise] he's identified certain course semantics senses which are most likely to be adjectives if you have a very small adjective class so they're very core <unk> types are dimension small short h. new young oh value good bad ugly that sort of thing [laughter] color if you have a very small number of additives in your language they will very likely be drawing from the score semantics sect or most of them okay that's a very interesting i wonder about color in your language has you know if your language has colored terms at all yeah and or or or by the the the question for me what would be like if he's restricted set of adjectives is more likely going to be uh things that are earlier in the car lot color hierarchy than later that would be interesting to know i don't know but yeah <unk> we don't know well rounded up the paper where i'm getting the list the colors lifted are black white and read so they were obviously having that in mind mhm okay if you're you're <unk> gets a little bit larger um some <unk> our physical properties like hard soft heavy light shielding <unk> jealous happy so on and <unk> fast quick slow interesting that speed is actually a little bit is in the peripheral uh 'cause we think about speed is kind of uh basic but i think maybe speed is more paced basic as an adverb <unk> right and the paper that we're getting this from that will happen to show is actually talking about that very issue that if you only have a small number of route adverb speed is highly likely to be mm uh early early in the the set um and then finally if you have larger education classes um it gets a bit out there difficulty easy technical tough similarity like unlike qualification true untrue definite quantification all many um position i live near and then cardinal numbers for less than someone um more likely if you have a larger set up uh adjectives um in the tub and um and it's very possible to have a very small additives class you know ten and have most of them from the core set with maybe one or two that are just utterly unexplained um or are uh in a higher uh grouping that i mentioned here mhm so that's interesting uh another thing we're talking about these is that even if you have an open classes adjectives some of these sticks and special <unk> might behave strangely for example if you've had french you know the adjectives usually follow their down but there's a small that called the bags adjectives we're bags as an acronym for beauty age goodness size which come before and some they have some times funky you funny forms as well and these of course are all things that fit into needs course <unk> there are i couldn't remember which language it was but i know that there are some languages with state of herbs that are basically <unk> and that's a large open in class but a small state of new stadiums always take classify are marking um if they fall into one of these <unk> ah you actually uh uh made a no to me about spanish has some adjectives that change meaning if you put them before the <unk> right and picky about that and looking at um at uh at like i have a list on what you p._t._o. folk ones that tend to change and i think a lot of them are ones that fall into that the those poor meanings like uh <unk> is one uh of course there's uh round and round versus grinding right equal no uh blend versus when all right um uh that which that's another thing is that there's uh uh reduction in many mexicans singular but that's you know that's gonna be a spanish pacific but uh that's interesting that the ones that tend to be it seems like the ones that tend to be used before the <unk> more often are are ones that uh would be in in one of those core classes right so that's the point i wanted to make here is even if you have an open class of adjectives there are still um it's fun you play ah by looking at these course meant to type so comparative <unk> not all languages <unk> [noise] uh so you have to come up with other ways to expressing it by compared to i mean you know uh i am stronger than i don't know my cat um it's that comparative sam [noise] the way and um just to clarify that uh we're not when you say i am stronger than my my cat that you're talking about the strong with the e._r. on it right 'cause all languages have some sort of comparative construction and i'm listening to the walls trapper aren't comparative instructions just her background but uh the thing that's odd and uh the walls chapter is by uh stats and he knows that like this that you are suffix or having more before um at least according to uh this guy that seems to be much more common in europe than elsewhere right actually <unk> having a separate comparative form of some sort of morphological marking it's actually quite rare outside of the indy european language that doesn't mean it doesn't occur outside it's just but it's actually common yeah [noise] um so you can do that you can have some larger construction uh where are you how basically what it looks like a <unk> marks comparison and the proposition or position whatever is his soul marketing of comparison um you can use a verbal expression wind stay strong surpassed this yesterday for the wind today is stronger than yesterday um answer passes very common production um or you can just say multiple sentences you know john this big all the small right there's always a way to to express the meaning right but uh yeah the the marking on adjective the conflict credit marketing is not uh it's not the usual way to do it right um in terms of <unk> it's a little bit harder to say things general about that um [noise] one thing worst mentioning is there i mean it's basically two ways to uh move up or down um a scale you can have a separate word you can have some sort of more quality um english uh has most for example ah french uses the dusted article combined with the comparative um so different languages handle these uh providence differently um and also if you have one of the like the with with surpass or exceed in comparative uh sometimes it's just like it's uh exceeding all right uh that's how you do <unk> we were just better than everyone yeah [noise] um but i just want to mention the possibility that census like barry or most or extremely um can be separate words um but you could also have effectively derivation of forms uh for all of these and that's the preferred way too mart a scale ah i think korea does stats okay charges anything from the walls chapter you wanted to mention or did we cover all of these um uh well i mean the on the walls chapter the the main thing is just uh i think you sort of cover what the the main uh types are you sure you didn't use the their names were them but <unk> yeah look at the walls chapter and see [noise] so this is worth mentioning that marking the point of comparison you know i'm i'm stronger than the cat um various ah locket expressions are very common mhm uh for for marketing the comparison <unk> english uses banned but others not used to work from or various other things right right um so yeah and that's one of those types of the <unk> the other is the exceed or surpass <unk> sometimes it's just a controlling right he is <unk> like you said okay so i just wanted it mentioned a little bit about the semantics um you might have and it happens in all languages where you have this funny overlap between different word classes [noise] ah so an english we have afraid for the adjectives much fear is the verb well why do we need it seems um they're related but they're not related and obvious weighing like the difference between cooking cooked which is just a normal <unk> all right um so because dixon is the master of australia languages he gets an example injure ball which is an interesting overlap between verbs and adjectives with entirely separate lexical items for cook versus cooked <unk> versus sick cover versus covered and so on um and what's interesting here's these adjectives uh kind of like pass pass a participle they are used only four permanent resulting stick [noise] okay [noise] so uh and these tend to be uh a small court semantic set uh processing things like cooking a gathering things into groups ah but these kids don't have to be derived from groups that can be utterly separate lexical items um i i can't think of any good examples in english i mean we have afraid and fear um but there's still there's still there's there's a <unk> at a logical relationship there whereas these they're utterly different but i just thought that was interesting to to think about uh if you're gonna have adjectives um you might want to have some that mark result in states for certain kinds of common things uh that are in no way related to the verbs there used to mark the same thing yeah and even if you do have um related to verbs <unk> there can be you know the the whole weird thing of you know english board versus boring meaning totally different thing right um obviously you know there's a lot of languages that don't have that distinction and you just have to know per contacts uh but you know it's just a a choice of how the verb becomes an adjective more logically is is changing how it works [laughter] right yeah that's uh yes and the <unk> uh confusion that can happen in classical creek [noise] is you have a bunch of adjectives either with actual uh <unk> you know the uh the hour and pre fixed um or uh adjectives uh describing some odd any problem like being deaf or something or blind or wet it can be either activity passive the word for blind it either i mean you can't see or it can be see oh okay you can't hear or cats to be heard um so that leads to confusion sometimes when you're translate in class [noise] yeah if you're if you're big dogs that [noise] ah where is that i should just sort of a general thing issue mentioned um context matters can matter <unk> sorts of things so that leaves nicely chew derivation all morphology um positives formed from adjectives occur in many many languages um large large enlarge you know to make something to me the adjectives quality right <unk> that's that's seems like something real easy to do with you have um have <unk> any kind of magic do whatever you're adjectives or like probably you can yeah yeah it doesn't matter oh what what the primary <unk> um uh i already mentioned that uh in terms of <unk> ah <unk> excuse me from now that the english suffix is less <unk> like are all very common and lots of different like trip i went looking for non into european languages and i found primitive scene of like um hopeless um are pretty common full hopeful to have a lot of something ah resemblance is a very common derivation and sort of generic it'd be characterize spy so like uh rocky ill ah right yeah just to be somehow uh characterize by having rocks all of those are pretty common and lots of different languages and i have a link to a nice uh uh <unk> dog overview grammar that has a nice selection um lots and lots of generations ah that's nice yeah yeah yeah um so we're just taking a quick okay um also there's just the fun of the you know a certain asian bubble prefix the success and <unk> so you just never know where where it's going to go right and um [noise] the sort of just on a side note um because i found this is uh an interesting thing to do when you're creating words is i think about you or you don't want to do this like predictably for every word but you know sometimes you might um pull things you know take things and look at um how's things end up being derived an english and do like the opposite uh like um instead of you know so we have raven bravery and then we have courage to so we have separate rich too um and then you know in language i'm working on now um i just decided to do the opposite and have a root for courage and then have encourage is to be brave sort of thing obviously that's just sort of that sort of a cheap trick you don't want to do it all every time you want to be more comfortable but right you never know which way the generations ago yeah so all right that was a side note yeah no the edited house yeah well no that's we're thinking about yeah um i'm not a whole lotta time thinking about the question of adjective orders when you're allowed to have multiples you know the big red angry dog or whatever um we have a list i have a link to a paper on that um i've never found that question particularly interesting and i almost never have and now like adjectives in my language so it's not a possibility for me anyway [laughter] so yeah there's there are claims that when you have uh strings of you know several <unk> several as just piled up that there's like a specific order that's somewhat universal but ah you know that's not my area of expertise so i'm not gonna say necessarily one way or the other [noise] right [noise] um [noise] there are too well there are three walls chapters adjectives um there are a bunch of chapters to talk about education but they're mostly have to do with the the order of elements in the non price you know <unk> where does demonstrative come all of that the chapter on how predicates aren't coated it's interesting we've sort of touched on this a little bit is just do you use a calculator like english is tired um or do you use some other sort of uh uh way to to a code that you know to me i just to become a bourbon itself right is that that need a copy of uh what what kinds of things you can you do and then for ah languages with um not like adjectives can they be used a low as they now right right like <unk> you can say a little home right right right the right one where english we got to use a prop now one uh <unk> to hold that up so those are both were taking a quick look at it as well just to think about it um and that's all i wanted to say about <unk> unless you have anything else george i'm just embarrassed we've never talked about it before i'm not sure that we would ever necessarily have an episode and downs 'cause they're so fundamental and i'm not sure how you could do that without having a three hour show it's more like you would want to do [noise] um just several episodes on mountains 'cause there's even things you'd you would want to cover with mountains that uh not everyone even wants to do like um you <unk> have to you have to go you know cases a very deep subject right under can be a very deep subject olive olive which we address right right we we we've talked about them before but um like exhaustively going over now even exhaustively going over for is not something we can do in one episode but that's the year long project yeah uh yeah we've [noise] this is our second time around talking about adjectives but then it's looking like this is a sort of a shorter episode but i think we we cover uh quite a few things so um [noise] just these are good sort of options for you um and keep in mind you know what you want to call these things in some ways might be a little bit up to you ah because you know if you think have adjectives that really don't work very differently from verbs you might not necessarily want to call them adjectives where you can call the magic gives it's not a big deal but it's useful to to be thinking about the category of adjectives and you might want to actually really have um that it's not just the european thing to have a separate class that that is adjectives so it's you know it's not it's not you know anything particularly on it is normal for adjectives to be more now like are more verb like or have these splits but william was talking about but um [noise] <unk> i guess the main thing is like [noise] the basic choices for how you treat adjectives are pretty simple the complexity probably comes in much more in terms of what the what the implications of that are or other parts of the language so like if you're having now like adjectives well if you have <unk> then you have to ask okay am i going to agree with case right right or is just the entire non free it's going to be decipher case marketing rather than agreement going on right right so so uh as i said it's about you know the the the choice on and on the adjective is not so much of a a big thing as much as uh what your choice with the adjective does to the rest of the system so [noise] or how we interact with the rest of the system so um i think that's about yeah i didn't really have any any particularly interesting thoughts to uh um uh going uh going back on the the the spanish no i i will ask uh listeners so i linked to the <unk> get paid drawn spanish road trips um i remember hearing something about the position of adjectives in spanish wrapping do with restrictive this but i'm not like uh they mentioned this something similar to this uh here in uh but i've never really gotten myself to understand how what that really means like limiting versus not versus describing distinction so someone can give me a good explanation what how that works uh leave a comment 'cause i'm a little bit lost on it yeah i wasn't going to say oh ah going back to something you said earlier my language so high i don't have an education class listed what i have or things like <unk> um and they're used for all the education like jobs in here you know a relative clauses it'd be something like an attribute a job um that just like normal verbs except in mine even though i don't call them adjectives there is a restricted uh options for verb aspect for the state of verbs <unk> um so even though i'm not calling them adjectives um they still are different from you know more ah i agency kinds of herbs right and um that's actually sort of the direction that i'm i'm planning on doing for um <unk> i also just have stayed in verbs and then uh tributes there uh the attributed abuse is is the same as a relative claws structure but uh i'm planning on making like agreement working work differently because of the way my agreement works marketing works in the first place and um so yeah uh the the key thing is like even whether you're calling and magic to or not these you know things that describe a state or a property what what do they do and how do they differ from other kinds of words right right so uh that's that's the the the general up thrust of uh what you need to be thinking about from this episode is uh is thinking about what adjectives adjective like things are are doing in your language uh so any other kind of thoughts before we even [noise] know take a look at this <unk> types and do something fun with you're like oh yeah definitely i think we didn't talk so much uh about those restrictive sets of adjectives can be really interesting the there's um [noise] uh we talked about this an episode forty two a little bit so you can refer back to that but um like the odd <unk> languages have uh these pre now right stake where those are actually just like <unk> that are that restricted set of adjectives and then other adjectives are are verbs um so yeah definitely definitely ah look at all the stuff and just may just should make that little traces about how <unk> working then work that into the system language yeah if if you're not sure uh for how this might work if you have a small <unk> what do you do for everything else um right there's gotta be other constructions is going to be for construction stadiums whatever uh a house a is a good example language which has a few dozen true as your kids um and most descriptions of how <unk> as you just talk about them and then explain how you deal with every other actually kept like since you might want to talk about right so i think that's all for for the show now um but uh [noise] definitely [noise] you know [noise] have you ever think about <unk> and ah [noise] ah people will have any ah any thoughts you'll fruit surely [noise] so uh [noise] thank you everyone uh thank you william and i've been on line [noise] thank you for listening to <unk> you could find our archives and show notes at <unk> dot com [noise] we could support the show on patron at patriotic dot com slash <unk> you can also follow us on baseball quieter brutal plus and on top of her now all of those you just find online hurry our web space is provided by the language creation society farsi music is by no the vice and our news site was designed by beyond for richard [noise] <unk> and another thing uh i'm gonna try to edited out but um [noise] uh my fire alarm is beeping so you might hear that little tweak every so often uh i haven't gotten around to we haven't gotten around to get in the battery changed yet so uh unfortunate sorry [noise] well see if you had mentioned and people were just they gave it goes to the birds and bugs sense we can hear from outside your window [noise] yeah i better clothes that window no betting fight that [laughter] uh [noise] there we go [noise] no more window sounds no nature for <unk> [laughter] [laughter] okay real professional here

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  1. Conlangery Podcast
  2. Podcast
  3. adjectives
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  5. language
  6. linguistics

Conlangery Podcast/Conlangery 120 Adjectives (last edited 2017-09-10 05:51:22 by TranscriBot)