Conlangery #42: Practicum — Getting Rid of Adjectives

Conlangery #42: Practicum — Getting Rid of Adjectives

Published: Mon, 19 Mar 2012 04:00:46 +0000 \

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Transcript

utterance-id1 <unk> <unk> [noise] <unk> ah <unk> language is people regret i'm george carlin [noise] with me and the state of wisconsin we have [noise] william penn is hello and over in new jersey we have one my <unk> hello how are you yeah i'm good um so my kids joining us for the first time this is sort of uh a trial run to see if he wants and uh my can i have a personal connection mike was in the same chinese classes i was in uh w. um his chinese name was <unk> anyone curious you know uh mike so so that uh listeners know who you are and stuff why don't you talk a little bit about yourself how you got into <unk> and it's usually what sticks in general or that's fine well um jeeze i've always been interested in language even before i knew it <unk> was i was doing it and working with languages and uh i studied spanish the very first chance i can get and then i did french and german and then russian and then chinese and then well it just kinda snowballed from there and i know it's very well [laughter] yes it's uh it's wonderful it's blissful but it's uh it's decadent too yeah um [noise] but so i've been <unk> and i've been um working with language for gees since uh since since last since last millennium i think um [laughter] but um i <unk> my most recent linguistic track i was over in taiwan for a year teaching english and uh i was able to work with learning some chinese over there and uh now i'm just back in new jersey working with con lining and um the <unk> and i really enjoy it yeah it's great i wanted to well as you say when when i was first taking mandarin in school i'm like oh yeah i could go to taiwan or chinese but now mhm i went to taiwan i'd head off to the back country and try to find people speaking the native um austin asian languages mhm oh that would be awesome that would be awesome see i would i would first go to my sister in law's family and there's some members of them that can speak uh taiwanese yes i'd heard a lot of that over there yeah um i i've been i thought of before i applied to grad school i've thought of going to to china or taiwan and teaching english but i never got to got around to to going through all that i've always felt i was i was kind of uh scared of blown away by horror stories so [laughter] sure so what what textbooks or people using for chinese classes now did you guys have the ones from the the beijing language school ah we used integrated chinese [noise] oh yeah oh for some reason my school always use these things from beijing so i knew how to say people's liberation army before i could ask her that there was no no no no and and all so and and also are teachers had bad [noise] strong beijing burger [laughter] yeah i know that it's <unk> <unk> <unk> oh yeah the ease the taiwanese i tried to speak chinese would that would laugh and laugh and laugh and i talk like i was from beijing [laughter] yeah well my teacher was taiwanese but she still wanted us to learn sort of war mainland terms uh-huh um and see i've had exposure to both because i i stay in um in sioux joe on the mainland and <unk> and <unk> and also i um i have you know a time when he's teacher had taiwanese teachers i have a sister in law who's taiwanese uh i've been exposed to uh both sides of the uh the straight so mhm oh my you were you were in taiwan mainly but have you been have you been to mainland at all or no actually i'm not i've not yet been to mainland china um but when i was in taiwan i did hear that taiwanese come in and the taiwanese accent um they lose the retro flex on a lot of those that to flex confidence and it well it's funny 'cause like so i'm a chinese teacher <unk> she was scolding me because he's like a year i mean you you know and she would take her head sadly because she want us to have a broad kind of mainland and taiwan balance i suppose and uh i guess she she <unk> ferry standard <unk> and that included uh the the retro flex distinction yes yeah yeah yeah no the last of the retrospect always made me <unk> about the idea of taiwanese people saying the <unk> the [noise] what is it the forty four stone lion tongue twister yeah yeah [laughter] without a triplex [laughter] [laughter] oh you're sort of like what are they talking about why are they laughing [noise] oh we don't [laughter] well let's let's let's kind of ah stop talking about chinese [laughter] i'm sure at some point in the in the pot cast because it always seems to yeah but uh why don't we get into what our main topic is and this is uh one of williams practical things that he suggested and it's ah getting rid of adjectives how to get rid of adjectives and william according according to your notes you were saying it's not necessarily getting rid of but maybe lessening the the the the uniqueness of adjectives or not having them so much is a separate category right that's the point here is you still need to be able to do a bunch of things in any language if you want to say something big you need some way to mark either <unk> <unk> large or attributes <unk> be big house and in in the european languages were used to these being a separate category of word [noise] with their own grammar um agreement mechanisms and so on and so forth and there are plenty of languages that do not have adjectives <unk> medical sense mm and do attribute <unk> in different ways so i just wanted to go through a long list of possibilities for how that could be done all right oh good um i suppose the first important distinction then is that i was talking about here i'm going to keep using this terminology is attribute <unk> or a tribute to adjectives and <unk> and the attribute is attribute <unk> is the large book versus predicates the book is large okay so you might have a language that has no predicates adjective in the sense that we're used to but might attribute it was perfectly fine or vice versa um wait do we have vice versa where you have no well anyway i mean there's different mix in <unk> we can do so i guess we'll start with the first one and this is on my mind because i've been studying classical now what about language has nothing that really matches adjectives everything's a noun okay with the provides though that all mountains in <unk> are also kind of herb like [laughter] so how's that for confusing [laughter] basically no ones are used in piles and <unk> <unk> good house we'll have to now in in a position one meaning house one meaning a good thing or a person that's interesting um [laughter] go ahead oh no i was just saying that does sound interesting [noise] um yeah it's it's more common that you might think in terms of just grammatical structure um because there's no it has no taste marketing and only marginally things like number um you don't have this you don't have to worry about agreement mechanics because there are <unk> okay so that makes it easier to do so that's one thing i want to point out it may not be easy <unk> only use now like things um if you take out your case marking that might be a little uncomfortable because you're going to be doing identical case marking maybe it'll work maybe it just seems to me that now i'm like really strongly <unk> like um adjectives things um seemed to me <unk> be less common <unk> non inspecting languages i could be completely wrong about that someone could tell me but from what i've seen that seems to be the case well hum english has very little case marketing and we know that english you can slide on now into the modern fire a lot of <unk> right right yeah that's a really good example english is martin lucy goosey about this than than probably a language like latin or even spanish french oh spanish is is terrible right now the romance languages are very <unk> about agreement where english really doesn't have any agreement working at all [laughter] um mike do you have any sort of thoughts about this particular um [noise] this particular kind of ah fudging but the distinction between adjectives and now it's by not requiring agreement well i think if he did that it would definitely make um how would you determine which was not find which i suppose it would be mainly living by the order of the words right [noise] um yeah in the not what case not so much you can either order because they're just <unk> in um <unk> position mhm they're not actually [noise] so so the now watchful structure there's not even like an adjective slot you're saying no this this you're saying instead of the good house it's the house which is i think that it's <unk> that is good right now here's a question if you for example have um [noise] if you have one world for say bird and one word for i don't know <unk> and you put the next to each other does that mean the bird like cat or the cat like bird uh [laughter] i don't know if you want to talk about things that half the quality of something there are near invasions that gives you sort of or be like things or uh or additional things so just using a bearing down mhm as a matter of fire seems marginal to me oh okay [noise] okay um so the possibilities and let's see if i can remember all of them and now what are [noise] um how <unk> good thing mhm good thing house the house the good thing oh oh so it has to take the the definite marker if you can you can still just have your normal um two now owns in either order with the article in front or you can have both of them with the article oh okay [noise] so this this seems to sort of break down the concept of a noun phrase a little bit uh well as i said most people consider <unk> um at least somewhat non configurations already so [noise] having the non phrase being a little bit rough around the edges is not a surprise huh [laughter] and then again so that's you know attribute <unk> is very simple because all now like things can be confiscated like verbs anyway so you want to see it is good or he is good are you are good then you just conjugate in the normal way mm okay so i think that's a that's a good um [noise] we we talked a good uh that's uh a good sort of summary of that that um particular type but at least as regards how <unk> does it but um [noise] i don't know other languages that do this so thoroughly is not a lot so um yeah there may be some other useful points out there that i'm missing yeah we but we covered a few sort of of the ah the challenges of it why don't we kinda move on i think the next thing in your uh list is using verbs yes [noise] um so that's not obviously insane where you have verbs that are all state is so instead of saying you know just blue you have a verb that means to be blue mhm um or to be big or whatever and then <unk> is very simple he is blue no problem how do you say you know the blue bird mhm so there's several ways you can go about this the simplest is have something like a relative claws okay the bird which is blue um and english has very heavy relative clauses you have to have a pronoun and you have to pick up verb so the blue bird versus the bird which is blue it's quite a lot <unk> whereas you know language like <unk> um this sort of syntax is used all over the language and amounts to a single short <unk> at the end if you've ever since i was really easy to produce these relative <unk> what are effectively relative clauses for the bird would just blue is <unk> <unk> um [noise] some language is like <unk> um has a special kind of conjugation just for a relative clauses and they use that for that subset of their education like things that are a verb like <unk> yeah so that is uh yeah i i keep [noise] and like you you probably appreciate this kind of what i thinking of using verbs made me think of actually trying to use for a little yeah chinese kind of has dedicated at but they can all become state of fur yeah and when they're adjectives in the current news said that kind of now like in that it's the same kind of structure as if you would put a tentative structuring <unk> um yeah i think the chinese or i'm gonna say the mandarin adjective is a bit more it's a bit <unk> than they were in classical chinese but i think than to retain a little bit of that nature yeah [noise] um so that's one way simple relative claws very common the next possibility is chu nominal lies an entire phrase um so you can do to <unk> you can either nominal lies the verb phrase which is effectively at kind of relative clause or in another way of analyzing it it is another example of tune downs in opposition okay so the bird the one which is blue [laughter] or you could do it <unk> does which is to just slam a definite article on an entire <unk> credit phrase that gives you an affect an attribute if things so the cat is big versus the it is big cat [laughter] okay [noise] of course i'm putting the at the beginning of the non phrase in the <unk> it follows the phrase but right so where are you put the article determines is this um uh uh <unk> or distributive phrase <unk> okay um i had another thought about verbs and uh i think i've heard about it and uh the spur on toe is kind of <unk> in that sense where you can make just changed the ending conjugate an adjective and habit become verbal you know in terms of what grammar level it is or what part of speeches and right mhm that it <unk> it's a little bit marked yeah but i think the way they do it in terms of um talking about the gender or what they what they used to talk about like the cat is blue or the blue cat i think they might say like the blooming cat or like the if you hung out with small cat i think they'd probably just say the you know the cat is having this property that isn't the <unk> the uh the state of this verb i'm not sure if they would do it no actually you wouldn't i mean <unk> as as bronx is absolutely will take every opportunity [laughter] which they can but yeah general as bronco is straight up european language in this regard mhm additives and in your day to day activity uh-huh speaking adjectives agree in number in case they're they're just pretty boring adjectives yeah yeah <unk> <unk> understood had very um very sort of well defined were classes even more so than most like which is really yeah i wasn't trying to say they didn't have added 'cause i was just saying if you were to nix the adjective not ah grammar class then you could probably use the the way they treat the verbs in there as that i wasn't saying that uh as bronco didn't have <unk> those were so yeah yeah i could um honestly um what what you were describing sounds like a little bit of one of the the <unk> tricks that william was mentioning you could you could just turn sort of turn a state of urban too on now and and use it a tribute to berkeley right right um this is i think um one real um way to add interest here would be sort of to mixing match and uh like i made a note here i said you know you could always have a mix of state of verbs of now like marta fires and up some <unk> even straight adjectives if sure you're doing or ah language i even has the word class right i mean i have a few examples of that is well we can get too in a bit so for now i've been talking about verbs replacing adjectives straight up state of verbs which are indistinguishable from the rest of the verb system it turns out that very often these adjective like verbs be state of firms are restricted compared to a verb like kick more run they often occur in fewer [noise] classes are very stores they might be a current fewer tense is may might occur in fewer moods all of these things are somewhat restricted so even though they're quite verbal like going so far is to become jaded they might still not be one hundred percent verb like compared to the rest of the language mm okay so they might have some some things that differentiate some a little bit right right i think um [noise] we'll get mail about this if i'm wrong i think japanese falls into this category where it has very verbal like adjectives except or has a class a very like adjectives <unk> yeah right there there there's some restrictions on how just how <unk> like they can be uh-huh japanese is a good example of the mix and match thing because they have one class that is <unk> <unk> and then not object is i guess are sort of now like they have to be connected with a particle and this kind of thing right right [noise] so those are your your simple things you can either have adjectives as a class like an entire european you can have them as <unk> a deposition or even happens verbs then you have all of these great language that do different sorts of things hopi has verbal like adjectives the <unk> as an independent verb like thing but when it's attribute is it turns into a prefix <unk> oh [noise] um not only is a trade prefix but it could take a multiple you could say the big angry cat turns into great big word [laughter] a big you know and angry being separate where does it get crammed in and then cat and because it's hope he of course there's this chain effect vowel alterations in short innings and oh man [laughter] and and led mission that happened that word boundaries and morphine boundaries so it gets a little bit complicated <unk> this is for the women [laughter] <unk> got bored [noise] no no [laughter] i mean [noise] <unk> ah chain reductions change production um frankly olive utilized second languages are more approachable then most of their neighbor languages in terms of just having to learn stuff [noise] so that's that um <unk> languages have very funny things most of their adjectives are again verb like but they have a bunch of things called the <unk> we're a small sets of adjective like meanings are pre fixed um but they have no independent for um some very basic ideas of things like a size <unk> age are the usual category so these <unk> or not they're not as there's usually not a huge number of them okay [noise] and so for those attribute is very easy but how did you say the cat is big when you have no independent form of big you have to say the cat is a big cat [laughter] all right can you say the cat is a big thing yeah you know i think the example i saw the numbers repeated okay so so you don't <unk> you can't even sort of do an effort to to to save yourself or anything um not any uncle in languages that i've studied maybe some allow that and there may be natural language is where you can yeah i'm uh i'm <unk> specifically talking about alcohol when i'm sure yet or our languages that do have a similar thing and you have a and and now for uh thing yeah <unk> and then the higher level <unk> language family are kind of huge so i hesitate to say across the board none of them do that but yeah the big ones it mhm i also big ones that that find themselves in grammar is for <unk> street seemed to work this way okay i like what we were going to say oh it was it was gonna say that um like you were saying if you could say the cat is a big thing or if he referred to a larger class included the cat has a big animal or the cat is a big organism it'd be surprising if there were some way to kind of paraphrase that if you didn't really want they'd be a it is uh be in that kind of structure but i've never studied them myself so you know a lot better than i <unk> yeah it it's like i said <unk> the set of adjective like uh concepts then followed us to texas small enough that i'm not sure it's a great big burden <unk> yeah it may be young big small tall short but that's the usual sort of <unk> and these adjective ideas are often peculiar in many languages yeah okay well you could if it's a very small set very small very common sets of things could preserve some really wacky stuff so right right [noise] um and then the last bit of fun i just wanted to mention was cop dick and this gets back to uh georgia was talking about in having sort of a mix of things [noise] <unk> has two possibilities it has um a much larger set of now like adjectives um and it has a smaller class of verb like things that have to use a relative claws mhm so when you say the book is big um you have to say the book is a big thing you know i think i have actually accidentally created some of the relative claws ones for real because there's an alternate relative claws structure but in the huge almost like turning hey hey ah bourbon too like a defective adjective uh-huh [laughter] um so the funny thing about <unk> is because they're both known the two things falling off in that first a particle links the two elements together [noise] <unk> it's it's a <unk> an which means that that particle looks like half the other grammatical particles in <unk> which all look like and for some reason to me [noise] um but they can come in either order oh oh so the big book and the the the big book can either be book <unk> big or big and book huh interesting [noise] um yeah that is interesting and <unk> when you want to use one of those <unk> the adjective like thing must take an indefinite article prefix you just don't say the book as big as you say the book is a big one [laughter] the book is a big one that's right that's interesting so topic is sort of an odd hybrid thing that right vibe or thing and it's a hybrid in which is important an enormous number of um greek vocabulary which apparently at optional complete free will sometimes they agreed dramatically sometimes they don't [noise] for gender um and they fall into the now like behavior um and the rest are this special conjugation opt to catch a relative clauses you well but that looks like all the things you had noted down here in a show now um mike do you have any other thoughts about this that or or questions or anything that you might wanna raise well um when we were talking about now that after this and i think we mentioned that there was um i think that was <unk> they don't have a case marketing right right i wonder if there's a way you <unk> i'm sure there is a way that you can use case on the now that you want to say in the attributed sense um and then just have it if you did want to have a <unk> used case marking <unk> case for the affirmative so if you're using say the big cat you could say the big and then have the saying hey this is an attribute and the how the <unk> after it and just habit agree in some way not and not to mention sure and that's basically what <unk> it has been smoking grammar mhm um that combines these two elements couldn't you also have a case mark on a click that goes on hold noun phrase ensure that seems very common as well and then word order <unk> which one is the head <unk> oh no that's that's that that was an interesting sort of um i want to say do we wanna like we did with the last uh <unk> come on getting rid of case marking do we want to give people homework <unk> [laughter] i don't think so i mean if they want to share some other interesting system that's fine but this is has um i think it presents fewer challenges in terms of i think it's easier to wrap your brain around us mhm yeah really i think the only two things that you have to remember is you have to be able to do both the attribute <unk> and the credit yet right and i don't know if we really would want to do the homework has has that would require a sort of restricting it to certain things and <unk> <unk> i think it's better that we just leave all the options open so that people just in the regular language maybe decides to create another class of adjectives that works a different way shorter <unk> one thing i didn't want to mention that when you were saying reminded me so we've been talking about now i mean we've been talking about hopi so these are two <unk> second languages [noise] um and we've been talking about how some of these especially these now many um adjective languages the order can be quite flexible uh he's been on like thing or the <unk> thing in terms of how we usually you eat english speakers think about coming first and it's often very free [noise] but what you often get than as a result is a distinct way to notice whether something is an attribute or if it is a pretty good [noise] in the case of <unk> which is yet another you to a second language um adjectives are very boring they just they're just they take no special marking when they are attribute <unk> and they can come either before or after the now completely at will mm when it gets when it's a pretty good even though it's still uses helping curb it does take a different form oh okay mm how so drastically different various just to <unk> um which yeah i forget what it is it in any case the point is if you're going to have somewhat flexible word order and um now i'm like non agreeing adjectives then you might want to think about having some way to distinguish attribute it from <unk> especially if you don't have a <unk> <unk> ah yeah so i'm just i'm just telling you that you know this natural languages do this all the time so there's there's tool for you to to use yes certainly if you don't have a copy really want you want to make sure that the the two things are distinct in some way whether it's word order or different form or something right so you can tell you the big cat he's tired and all your word orders um and still know where things go yeah um i think that's about it we can say we've given a lot of different techniques and stuff for people to not necessarily get rid of your as <unk> but to make your attribute <unk> such more interesting i'd like to say <unk> it is interesting to me to find out how many different ways there aren't to do this especially um attributed <unk> there's just a lot more variation than i had really ever sat down and thought about you've got announcing opposition you've got verbal egg thing you've got various kinds of <unk> as you have linking particles just for adjective kind of attribute <unk> there's a lot of possibilities and plenty of languages that may have multiple ways all the same time yeah um so do either you guys have any last thoughts before we move onto our future online i think we pretty much covered ah lower quick question [noise] oh yeah [laughter] so i not to draw this out but um if you have we've all we've talked about if there was one <unk> one now but what if he multiplies his <unk> multiple downs does is there um could there'd be one way or maybe say five added to them one now and maybe the last four adjectives follow one one means of uh inflection and then that first one or the one close to the now maybe falls in different structure i wasn't sure if you knew of anything like that ah [noise] first of all when influence speech would we use that many adjectives well who knows i mean i suppose that's comes along the question of just being example sentences but if you're saying like it's a big green ball that's just too yeah but it was if you were not actually making five but if you said like you know the big green flow double ball or something in that situation where you have just more than one is what i was just trying to get out yeah that is that that might be a little bit more complicated that people wouldn't count er normally but i know that adjectives generally have some sort of order based on semantics but um the language right yeah right we've really not talked about that which is kind of a different issue yeah it's a little that's a little separate from this if you but that would be an interesting thing whether like if you have to classes of adjectives and they're both modifying the <unk> which one <unk> [laughter] i guess it would have to do with like if you're using a relative claus thing in the <unk> thing it depends on where you're relative clauses go [laughter] right well it's funny like the u._s. just because this um oh gosh two years ago now in october a whole bunch of people who study not be met income [laughter] with paul from or to talk about and we thought oh chunk of time trying to address this very issue [laughter] is because not be uses uh uh lincoln particle <unk> and what if you want to say the little the little blue bird mhm and we came up with the rules for this and the point is in general you did not want to have <unk> use normal conjunctions and then link the whole thing to the non with a an attribute in laws so the dog which is stinky and rabid huh mm so sometimes you can yeah you could do it that way i guess he could i guess that's that's something we'll have to to research reserved for a future episode to go into more depth on so it actually turned out to be interesting how'd you deal with multiple adjectives being used attribute <unk> um in classical greek for example you must always use a conjunction yeah [noise] <unk> big and angry philosopher yeah um if that's about all we have to say really i think we can uh move on but that was an interesting but at the end than i wish we could go even further into this but i think we've talked a quite a bit on this topic really yeah sorry about that my apologies no no you yeah it's <unk> should think about the question yeah it's great that you're raising some interesting questions at the end here but why don't we move on and let's talk a little bit about our future con laying today which is loaded bon <unk> so low but actually started it out it's life in nineteen fifty five as <unk> it was or local and i'm not sure how to perhaps it which was created by james cook brown and basically it gained the name load and in nineteen eighty eight because basically james cook brown was being a little uh uh but uh annoying and <unk> he was he was trying to retain control of the language when the community you wanted to go a different direction and so uh bob <unk> who is still the president of um logical language group i believe it it's called actually created sort of a he created a to relax of low log land which he called <unk> and from their <unk> continued to be um to be uh changed and modified and evolve a little bit so that really it's not it's not any so much like uh log land except for the original philosophy behind it but the philosophy is eh of a language that gets rid of ambiguities and is very extremely precise to the point that you could almost use it for like programming [noise] and um that has sort of some uh applications and as far as human learn ability and uh i have a quote here from land land of invented languages that i i have um our <unk> said i didn't see much live conversation at the log fast that's that's um that's a convention for <unk> but i did see a little it goes very very slowly it's like watching people do law division in their heads of course the types of people who are corrected to load but our precisely the types of people who are good at doing long division in their heads [noise] almost everyone there had some kind of engineering or math background so that so anyway that sort of indicates do you what <unk> is and how and <unk> and why it is the way it is sort of it's it's attracted all these people who are very analytical minded and very much in interested in precise language <unk> and that has fed into it becoming more and more um you know having more and more minute distinctions [noise] well [noise] i mean it was invented by a guy who's a sociologist uh-huh james cook brown he's not or was not he died in two thousand um he was not an engineer and he was performing a basically a sociological experiment amount of disappear war hypothesis yes so i mean he <unk> the idea is that <unk> was and those money is he's spoken form of credit calculus um for those who didn't know it pretty good calculus is it's a very formal way of making statements of and coding proposition will content that and it's clear and unambiguous um not because there are a five hundred and twenty three words for chair but because the logical relationships are easy to see and work with mhm [noise] by virtue of making a correct dramatically correct statement you have a statement that can be plugged into <unk> um lively [noise] um so that's an important thing to make here is that we're talking about probably get calculus rather than say ah [noise] what's the thing called <unk> oh yeah it's <unk> more <unk> more about making distinctions on the words i i actually saw this when i was looking over the load grammer it's much more about the syntax and it also i think one thing that makes it easier than well is it has a mutt it doesn't have a ridiculously huge phony mid been tori to deal with yeah [noise] right um so do we want to talk about <unk> what a roll back then and and go look at some phonology first um yeah we could okay <unk> the reason is because they want to complain about soccer iffy [laughter] [laughter] they are <unk> [laughter] [noise] <unk> ah why why like why use an apostrophe for how and why use that period for global stop yes [noise] that doesn't make sense at all does it it's a lot of the language of course it makes sense [laughter] i everything [laughter] mike mike can you play does devil's advocate why would you use a a period for a global stop all i mean i suppose if you're looking for something to be completely um you know unambiguous so to speak you take someone who you know <unk> and they don't know what a period move that's one symbol that perhaps you don't use and um [noise] what's the word um [noise] to let us put together that ah <unk> <unk> uh-huh and if you're looking to you know maybe this thing was it from other is i think that would be one thing one option <unk> the the issue is periods and <unk> i think fear there by and large used as punctuation not as actual um you know <unk> so that those kind of go counter contrary to i guess what they're looking for another big he was very precise transcription well it it works for their purposes i yes but yeah the the the point i think that you were trying to get too is that load man doesn't exist in <unk> in a vacuum and <unk> most learners of <unk> i would suspect are familiar with <unk> [noise] [noise] yeah and i'd or any language written in the <unk> yeah hell yeah yeah [noise] i think that i mean if you were going to use the period for golf stop [noise] it just seems like there'd be a lot of uh learning required and maybe that's why people were looking like there were <unk> doing longer isn't there being like okay so carry the period and pronounce it here oh wait no that's english and it just is very [noise] it seems almost like just complicated for the sake of being something and innovative well to be honest i think getting used to the <unk> maybe is is not as hard as just the uh the complexities of uh <unk> syntax yeah no i agree <unk> you learn okay apostrophe s. h. period is gonna stop why on earth they do that and you move on right it's not cold yeah it's just surprising and gives well i'll <unk> terms of marketing it certainly gives the language very distinct appearance [laughter] [laughter] or blocks of text of <unk> have a distinct <unk> all your other hand you can say that <unk> doesn't need punctuation because of another um thing i find odd in that it has a a sentence separation particle [laughter] things like that so i don't know they've they've taken out anything that has anything to do with <unk> or anything and made it explicit with particles in the language ah yeah that's true i mean <unk> the goal is that in addition to being well foreign predicates calculus or at least i mean there's plenty of stuff in the language that does not fit in any way shape or form interpreting calculus we can get to those in the bed um but it is supposed to be possible unambiguous sleep our civil by computer <unk> assurance um [noise] so [noise] what's going to say <unk> i forgot to hardly sorry roars um <unk> and they <unk> they say oh they actually have a uh uh <unk> english machine translator to test sentences all right [noise] they may well there's an awful lot of material floating around in the internet <unk> including their <unk> gigantic huge grammar of the thing i'm sorry my <unk> you were going to say something [noise] [noise] oh no i think um what was i going to say about that [noise] um my mom now [laughter] oh i'm sorry i <unk> oh it's fine lost an hour this morning and ask for [laughter] we're both um one thing i want to say is the er the grammar that i found on <unk> site um i think we've kind of discussed this off the uh off the air before a little bit and that there's an annoying fact that the the main <unk> reference grammar first of all it's sort of a learning grammar which is okay that's fine style to write it and um but they use all native grammatical terms and it makes it really hard for me to follow when they don't use now and and <unk> <unk> <unk> and that use these <unk> word that i'm not sure what they mean yeah i mean i understand why they do this but it does present a raft of challenges to try to understand what is being said and i think part of it is that they have their own linguistic theory probably dealing with creating a proper predicates calculus and the <unk> they have to use different words classes that are available to modern linguistics but i still think that it's a little confusing to have to deal with all of new terms <unk> sort of slightly redefining mounted bourbon such <unk> so hears a sentence the first sentence from section nine of chapter twelve [noise] okay [noise] it is common to form <unk> based on <unk> sad as well as other <unk> oh well obviously [laughter] [laughter] yeah [laughter] for someone who's just trying to scan it get a feel for the language that's a little yeah um daunting yes i believe <unk> <unk> <unk> <unk> yeah one thing that is interesting that i was able to par so was i think we talked about this slightly in connection with uh lab that is they're not <unk> really there there's a whole bunch of <unk> attitude no ah markers and load ban that are extremely precise yes yes i mean honestly for me there are two things <unk> you're not interested [laughter] speaking credit could calculus can learn from those bonds and one is the tremendously huge collection of these attitude noodles mhm um especially the the very scheme adequate they have combining them does not seem very natural but in terms of getting ideas for vocabulary for your own <unk> you think you can look at this you can give me a jew insights into just give you ideas and insights about how these i._d.s maybe broken down and how you might want to put them in your language yeah i guess it's the base core vocabulary and i forget dinner the term for these fundamental predicates i think maybe it's <unk> um seat and <unk> um i think that um [noise] are really interesting we divide defined [noise] many many many predicates <unk> most of his consider verbs in <unk> have a potentially have a large number of arguments it's not just subject indirect object um for example the smuggle flower lou f. l. a. l. u. has up too potentially five arguments that's an interesting [noise] so what is it is defined as f. one is a law specify f. too for community if three under conditions s four by law gave her f. five oh okay so those are position all but if you leave things out or wants to shoveled them around you have particles to clarify wow so <unk> pardon sorry i said i hate us not precise enough for my point is if you're stuck on vocabulary and you want to talk about law go look at large ponds definitions for law and pull out part of that i think five arguments to a single verb like thing it's too many frankly yes yeah <unk> yeah you just it's such a great tool for thinking about vocabulary creation in a natural language naturalistic language at any rate idaho okay i'm sorry uh-huh oh go ahead i was gonna say so you'd have <unk> tried transit of <unk> i don't think it makes sense to use that terminology yeah i don't think for example there's a passive mechanism yeah oh really it uses word orders shoveling and particles to let you know that your argument structure has been <unk> with [noise] um ah what was i <unk> i would say that don't take anything for <unk> from load fan because pretty much all of it is sort of engineered unless you're an <unk> <unk> we should've got <unk> to talk about this 'cause yeah um and if for art <unk> which i think most of our audience is that's what um the hosts are so that's skew of the show um i would say don't take anything verbatim from load but what use it for like uh uh uh seat of an idea adult because any if you take anything verbatim or nearly the same as even a single word like this it's gonna be a little bit unrealistic lee specific <unk> [noise] right which is what i say pick and choose yeah and it just it's again because of how it's designed it's useful for thinking about your own <unk> yeah okay um like do you have any final thoughts about <unk> or anything um well it does look like in the very precise and it's meant to be used in a very <unk> not very cut and dry very precise no ambiguity is a framework which it for that it's wonderful but i don't know how natural it would be or how poetic you can be and without having <unk> baggage behind you up this exactly which flower on the tree i'm trying to describe so uh there there is poetry and load man that there's also uh yeah uh i'm going to uh i don't i don't have an example of poetry i'm going to do but i'm going to splice then some audio here so that people can can hear <unk> nikola <unk> let me some <unk> other than that i don't think we have much else to ah to say about it william do you have any final thoughts um yeah no i i feel we're short changing those <unk> a little bit just because it's so <unk> really it's not the sort of language i'm interested in learning yeah which is funny which is funny from the guy who has no problem learning language like <unk> <unk> um partially because just like it's <unk> i'm still not sure i'm smart enough to speak <unk> i'm not sure anybody is i was going to try to get a <unk> i was trying to get a <unk> on the show but uh i kind of waited a little bit too long and it and it didn't work out but uh if any uh <unk> uh get a hold of this uh show then please you know give us some feedback keep it keep it don't don't don't give us a big treat us 'cause i don't think we can read those on the show but if we got something wrong specifically or if you have some some other resources that we may have not seen that can help us then feel free to leave comments or email called language email dot com yeah yeah help us [noise] so i'm not done with large bond yet oh i'm sorry [laughter] <unk> [laughter] a little bit more <unk> you know those but um it has an entire chapter should talk about attitude and emotional indicators yes well we we tremendous tremendous clarity is possible with these but it makes me think of the problem with that that <unk> had with logged on oh yeah do you really want to be this nuclear [noise] is there not value in language that has a little <unk> yes for perhaps machine translation or certain kinds of poetry <unk> armaments harry in this gigantic collection of words that bush has to indicate all sorts of things about the motion and mood and attitude and [noise] all of that might have value but i sometimes wonder in day to day conversation if you want all the beans now are those i presume there's er optional are they [noise] they are optional they are optional um but someone put them in for a reason and i know <unk> very much enjoy playing with them like what do you think do you think uh there's there's some value in being able to be a little bit ambiguous about your own emotions such [noise] i think so i think there's i think there's an attraction i mean i like i like for it not to be compulsory like you can if he wants to be very specific about something wonderful but if you do want to have um freedom to maybe leave something up to someone just to see if there are <unk> that perceptive or if you want to just maybe be on a level as not everything's cut and dry out in the sunlight if you actually want just to have something underneath to really give an a loose of kind of quality to what you're saying i me personally i'm wouldn't have something not cut and dry i don't think yeah i mean part of this well go ahead george um i think it's the same problem that we had with the some of the <unk> is that it's not so much that it's so specific and i don't know people monitor their emotions that specifically anyway but it's just socially awkward to disclose that information in the context of what everything you're saying right there is a good point too we have to stop and south of value it all the time um [laughter] um and it part of this is uh so i have two points wanted this is there is a philosophical distinction here since i see language fundamentally as social behavior mhm mhm obviously communicates information but that's incidental in my opinion to the fundamental thing language does <unk> so that puts me already at odds somewhat with lowes bonds goals [noise] um and i was just thinking back to this issue of how slow when speak slow just bought it just it reminds me of this <unk> in science fiction of these very wise ancient space varying races who take a day to say hello [laughter] maybe maybe they're speaking lotion pot and then they just [laughter] long construct or or <unk> [laughter] <unk> emotional attitude no markers or even a in fantasy maybe this is what the <unk> yeah maybe or maybe the answer all logical positive is yeah yeah i i don't think so [laughter] actually but i think the language is more extremely rude done that but anyway [laughter] [laughter] that that gets into token you agree that we we <unk> i really wanted us to talk about the fact that lowes bought has sixty three tens words but i couldn't find enough i didn't find a nice table so that was an interesting thing that i saw what why why don't we mentioned that really quick sort of uh [noise] we can't talk about everything about low fat it's too big but it it's huge and i think didn't <unk> it is of all the <unk> she seen it is the best documented and <unk> it's it is well documented i don't know if i understand the documentation but anyway um what what you said why i think it's very interesting that they have an odd concept of pets in <unk> in that include it includes both space and time and didn't has uh a lot of <unk> uh relative uh distinctions with all of that [noise] yeah but uh i don't think we could go through everything about it but yeah it has um the pet system in codes that direction and uh space as well as time sometimes but i don't know uh from the examples it seemed like it was optional to include all of that yeah yeah no i understand those are optional yeah um well uh unless there's one more thing for somebody to say about <unk> ah is there one more thing from anybody there are what i'll just be quiet [laughter] fine yeah i mean we've we've gone on long enough i mean i just [noise] there's a great richness to it even though it's not it's sort of language i think i could speak yeah why don't we kind of 'cause we we might end up going long if we talk to too much more about load ben and i encourage people to point out things in common that but uh [noise] why don't we move onto feedback while we still have time to do a feedback and uh we got an email from eight and i think that's how his name's pronounced and he said just wanted to say i finally cracked down these pod cast of yours and i thoroughly enjoying them really i only heard about them fairly recently as i happened to catch something on the con lying list where someone much lately i've been crazy busy and i don't and didn't know about them after a month or three of <unk> ah i've finally remembered and downloaded a lot i'm only an episode seth i'm not bad for one work week and i'm really glad you figured out your george's william issues yes we we are sound quality was awful before episode [laughter] oh yeah well [laughter] ah i also say that it's making my commute so much nicer i swear you probably save uh eighty three thousand five hundred and forty seven lives since i'm not all <unk> just follow and enjoying the cast [noise] that's right the <unk> the savage <unk> [laughter] exciting i'm excited to listen to all the rest over the next month or two and i hope you guys keep up the great work for a long time um yeah uh i i worry about what's going to happen on the road when when she runs out eventually and has to go to weekly [laughter] to me i saw this and the notes and i'm like i i was surprised to see the <unk> moving out into the bigger world mhm [noise] oh what's this ad grill oh yeah um [laughter] i don't know where where he uh well he says he's on <unk> list so he's a he's a <unk> but yeah a lot of kahn languages are also kind of <unk> i'm not even <unk> [laughter] <unk> non game uh associated uh uh i will reminds you that i'm slightly older than you and even though i have friends my age you are <unk> i don't know that [noise] i think i gross i have no idea how <unk> how old i grow is but i only in the last year or two of i started seeing it outside of gaming contexts it was it's an <unk> mostly i think [laughter] and what isn't even mean i mean i mean it's obviously that some measure of aggressiveness but [laughter] <unk> in video games refer to uh a hostile bob paying attention to you and yeah so how much how much how likely it is to attack you uh i love it it it's i guess <unk> generally how much aggressiveness you have okay okay that's good to know i don't want to use it wrong ever if i [laughter] i moved to use the word yeah um but that was that's um that's a show for us i think we can wrap it up a little bit um a bike do you have any final words wisdom [noise] man i i guess the sample all the different kinds of things so you got the different ways that something makes breath so that you can feel fine that way that you want to express something that's what you're looking for and if you can't find it invent something new i'd say try to <unk> you know anything is possible and uh so many lives out there are so much diversity it's it's brilliant that's wonderful yeah just go go nuts searching for stuff oh not yet [laughter] william do you have anything [noise] um it's not so much words if we just <unk> as an idea for keeping yourself humble about your own <unk> try to translate david bowie lyrics [laughter] try try this and you're gone like bashes the ashes phones the funky we know major tom's a junkie [noise] [laughter] i sure that that will take some effort yes that's my point is how is he in seven but that's why i'm not lying but other than i really really fun to fund [noise] right yeah uh well i'm gonna say that those are good uh words wisdom for both of you guys and i'm going to say happy <unk> you've ever been listening to con lying or [noise] you can find the sooner through this episode an all previous episodes at <unk> dot com including links to our prepare go online and a few resources you make friends with today's topic you're also find linked to subscribe to us on high tuned or through on a pond [laughter] <unk> <unk> not a whole lot more questions common something just in may be sent to <unk> dot com you can also submit those translated greetings we played the palm pilot show or con scripted display in our head or at least c._b. contribute <unk> detail [noise] thanks for listening [noise] and i only ever knew you as a <unk> so yeah well <unk> yeah me and i was when i was in taiwan added a third syllable [laughter] oh that's cool i i need to i still hate my the fact that my chinese name just needs george [noise] yeah i have i know nothing well technically okay technically mine mine nuts masters of arts degree says foreign languages and then the concentration wasn't linguistics oh okay what your mother was <unk> was it she's from singapore she's from singapore yeah but <unk> i'm sorry she's she's chinese origin is it <unk> or what well she's actually singapore's <unk> is a little bit mixed like here so she has chinese a little a japanese and son malaysian and then um she speaks um hockey and then you a jew so uh she has a lot of that south east asian linguistic back on the <unk> what how the second one a lot of people don't know all about a lot of the different chinese language in yeah yep yeah i know some of these minor chinese dialects have more speakers than some national languages of europe [laughter] put nobody knows the but no one knows what the danger saying anyway [laughter] um well i don't usually have the first <unk> because i think of notes over the weekend and them oh yeah well you well you miss the the the harder it's working on at least research it's tough <unk> [noise] my job is moderating and doing the editing afterward and i'm a terrible moderator anyway i mean sometimes i do research but most of the time these are just things that are in my brain and then they <unk> over a week you played con lying for forty years so you've basic <unk> no <unk> i don't really know 'cause i even though it was the making of so i'm really a little bit nervous because i don't know if this is just uh you know run by the seat in the past there if there's like a script that memorize or [laughter] no no there's never a script there's these list of topics and we'll cover them and then we'll remember other things and we'll add to them and uh <unk> come knocking at my door [laughter] this winter has been surprisingly mild so um it's currently sixty four degrees here which is unprecedented lee warm for this time of year that's unusual <unk> this this whole winter has been quite peculiar yes oh so you're one of the jersey kids that came to w. because it was cheaper well i'm a legitimate came down to w. because the marching band [laughter] oh really yeah yeah yeah i i'm always analyzing people's accents alright yeah actually um but you know people who have study foreign languages sometimes they have um [noise] they have influences that are not from whether <unk> whether from there originally [noise] true but some of your <unk> would make no sense coming from africa oh [laughter] [laughter] well no hook hook yeah yeah yeah i'm sorry <unk> uh uh that was my mistake not <unk> [laughter] well you um if i went i end up in wisconsin you may see a a surprising changing me because i'm one of those people who picks up the accent of wherever i am surprisingly fast <unk> we're going to purify your overall will completely what are we going to say about <unk> well i'm actually looking at it right now too um i had i looked a little bit out of yesterday but um [noise] and um [laughter] it is about right yeah it seems less like a nice <unk> hello mike what happened we lost mike hey i'd jump to my phone because uh that's exactly why i don't like being put on my house i'm hard wired than it cut out so i'm on three gene outside don't expect any uh enter and interruptions if you don't mind using your three g. service for that for all i can <unk> i know what i'll do i know exactly what i'll do i um [noise] oh yeah now my my wife <unk> and it's not cuts out hopefully in three d. will jump in and saving day

Tags

  1. Conlangery Podcast
  2. Podcast
  3. adjectives
  4. conlang
  5. language
  6. linguistics
  7. Lojban

Conlangery Podcast/Conlangery 42 Practicum — Getting Rid of Adjectives (last edited 2017-09-07 06:10:46 by TranscriBot)