‘...English spelling usually hates you.’ -Moti Liberman, March 2015. Best, quotation, ever!

@thelingspace

8 жыл бұрын

Can't argue with that! ^_^

@MonicalovesTAEMIN

7 жыл бұрын

Robert Andersson totally agree. English hated me and I hated it. We have become friends now, but we fight once in a while 😂

The problem with most spelling discrepancies is that the Latin alphabet worked just fine for the type of language Latin is (was); syllable timed language with a five vowel system. With the addition of diacritics it works even in languages with way more consonants like Slovene, but it just isn't cut out for representing stress timed languages with their vowel reduction and insane vowel inventory.

@thelingspace

9 жыл бұрын

Pakanahymni Thanks for the comment! This is very true - we are rather not using the best match to our language as we could. And we could have chosen to add more characters, as Russian did with Cyrillic. But even when it's not a question of vowel changes, English still doesn't do a great job of reflecting allomorphy in its spelling. As you say, Latin did a much better job of the language being transparent, and those languages that are closer to Latin still do a pretty good job with the spelling matching the pronunciation. And Latin also did a good job with spelling its allomorphy out. Latin spelling's not perfectly reflective (e.g. urbs having a p instead of an s, or some loan words, like philosophia losing the aspirated [p]s and getting the [f]s, but it did to a lot better. But we can talk about this more next week, when we have a video about writing systems. ^_^

"English spelling usually hates you." yup.

@thelingspace

9 жыл бұрын

Inez Allen Yeah... we've just taken too much stuff from different languages to really have everything be transparent and all. It's too bad.

these videos can be so awkward but i just started my undergrad and love them more than anything

Your videos are great. I love looking at the changing bookshelves. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and The House of Leaves are on my shelves as well. ♥

The pattern you described for conjugating verbs to their negative form in Japanese only applies to う verbs.

@thelingspace

9 жыл бұрын

Duck That's true - there are two other classes of verbs, kamo-ichidan and shimo-ichidan, where you drop the whole [ɾɯ] from the end and attach [nai], so things like [tabeɾɯ] "eat" turning to [tabenai] "don't eat". There are also a few other irregulars for the past tense, [sɯɾɯ] "do", [kɯɾɯ] "come" and [ikɯ] "go". But we felt that bringing that up in the video when it wasn't directly attached to the point regarding the irregular form of [aɾɯ] changing to [nai] was more confusing than illuminating. Thanks for bringing it up! It's good to have it out here. ^_^

Great video! I'm going to share it with my introduction to ling students!

I just realized I've been saying umbeliveable my entire life. My reality is fraudulent.

Here's the thing - that 「ない」 that gets attached to verbs to negate them in Japanese - that *is* the negative of 「ある」. 「ある」 is the baseline - an artifact from prewar dialects. Also, that's only in kansaiben. Move west, to oosaka, and you negate verbs with 「へん」, a regional shift of the more formal 「ません」.

Is it possible for different dialects of the same language to have different main allomorphs? I ask this because my family is of German immigrants in Mexico and their default suffix for plural borrowed words is -en, never -s. They only use -s in already standardized plurals with it.

The moment man devoured the fruit of knowledge, he sealed his fate... Entrusting his future to the cards, man clings to a dim hope. Yes, the arcana is the means by which all is revealed.

My dialect of English (Pacific Northwest with a lot of other influences to to excessive TV watching from birth) definitely has some big differences with this subject as compared to yours. Just using the in- example, the begging of improper and involuntary sound the same to me when you say them, and pretty much no one here says incredible like ingcredible. I use the sound in indirect for every word unless it has an m like improper.

@eruyommo

6 жыл бұрын

catlover10192 Maybe. But maybe not. This subject is highly unconscious and when people try to make it conscious, it normally hides and behaves regularly. That's the reason linguists have to catch it by surprise recording it secretly or in relaxed environments when people don't try to be ultra correct. Actually, if your dialect behaves as you say, it would be the first instance I'd know of that behaviour in English and it's really interesting.

I love you

"spelling usually hates you" lol

direct -> indirect flammable -> inflammable No, wait...

I wonder if different genders can qualify as a condition for allomorphy.

English spelling isn't that bad. It's just inconsistent with other spelling systems.

@eruyommo

6 жыл бұрын

Daruqe The problem is not being inconsistent with others. It's being inconsistent with itself.

you are talking too fast man

@bonbonpony

7 жыл бұрын

Not only that, but also too loud (almost like yelling), and the echo from the room makes it almost unintelligible :/

I don't understand you talk very fast and your explanation is not clear I have a exam and you make not happy