Latin, the Enlightenment, and science
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From: Bart Mathias on 30 Dec 2009 13:49 Ruud Harmsen wrote: > Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:24:54 +0000: Ant�nio Marques <antonioprm(a)sapo.pt>: > in sci.lang: > >> Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote (29-12-2009 19:45): >> >>> If anyone doubted whether the difference between f and v was phonemic >>> one could think of endless examples to show that it was, including some >>> very common words like "life" and "live" (adjective). So there does seem >>> to be something special about the two th sounds. Is there any mechanism >>> that could explain why minimal pairs are so rare? >> Is this so different from the case with german ch? (It is different in a >> quantitative sense, inasmuch as some speakers undoubtedly do have one ch >> phoneme while others may have two; but it's similar inasmuch as it's a >> borderline case.) > > Remember, borderline cases a.k.a. marginal phonemes DO NOT exist, per > Peter T Daniels. Phonemes are strictly "same or different", even in > historical context. So one day, at 5:31:14.037 AM on the 14th of March > of the year 1437, the former allophones [D] and [T] suddenly turned > into separate phonemes /D/ and /T/ in the English language. Science > doesn't allow any other scenario, so it cannot have happened but so. That kind of change isn't instantaneous for a whole language, it travels in waves. It wasn't really complete until sometime in the 1480s.
From: Brian M. Scott on 30 Dec 2009 14:35 On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 06:39:43 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim(a)verizon.net> wrote in <news:3471526e-6b28-4bc7-b0f1-ed74d7631d1d(a)s3g2000yqs.googlegroups.com> in sci.math,sci.physics,sci.lang,alt.usage.english,alt.philosophy: [...] > Once in a while, people post "message IDs" here, but if > there's a way to display the header _of a newsgroup > message_, I don't know what it is. In the upper right, next to the date and time, you'll find a link 'More options'. Clicking on it will show you the Newsgroups, From, Date, and Subject headers and the local time corresponding to the Date header, under which you'll eight new links: 'Reply', 'Reply to author', 'Forward', 'Print', 'Individual message', 'Show original', Report this message', and 'Find messages by this author'. Click on 'Show original'; the original plain ASCII message, complete with all headers[*], will appear in a new tab. [*] Except that the e-mail address in the From header is mangled. Brian
From: Peter T. Daniels on 30 Dec 2009 15:29 On Dec 30, 1:49 pm, Bart Mathias <math...(a)hawaii.edu> wrote: > Ruud Harmsen wrote: > > Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:24:54 +0000: António Marques <antonio...(a)sapo.pt>: > > in sci.lang: > > >> Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote (29-12-2009 19:45): > > >>> If anyone doubted whether the difference between f and v was phonemic > >>> one could think of endless examples to show that it was, including some > >>> very common words like "life" and "live" (adjective). So there does seem > >>> to be something special about the two th sounds. Is there any mechanism > >>> that could explain why minimal pairs are so rare? > >> Is this so different from the case with german ch? (It is different in a > >> quantitative sense, inasmuch as some speakers undoubtedly do have one ch > >> phoneme while others may have two; but it's similar inasmuch as it's a > >> borderline case.) > > > Remember, borderline cases a.k.a. marginal phonemes DO NOT exist, per > > Peter T Daniels. Phonemes are strictly "same or different", even in > > historical context. So one day, at 5:31:14.037 AM on the 14th of March > > of the year 1437, the former allophones [D] and [T] suddenly turned > > into separate phonemes /D/ and /T/ in the English language. Science > > doesn't allow any other scenario, so it cannot have happened but so. > > That kind of change isn't instantaneous for a whole language, it travels > in waves. > > It wasn't really complete until sometime in the 1480s.- But the moment someone realized that "pressure" and "pleasure" don't rhyme, it was phonemic _for that person_.
From: jmfbahciv on 31 Dec 2009 09:46 António Marques wrote: > jmfbahciv wrote (29-12-2009 13:39): >> António Marques wrote: >>> Peter T. Daniels wrote (28-12-2009 12:29): >>>> On Dec 28, 5:01 am, "Brian M. Scott"<b.sc...(a)csuohio.edu> wrote: >>>>> On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 20:40:47 +1300, PaulJK >>>>> <paul.kr...(a)paradise.net.nz> wrote in >>>>> <news:hh9nbf$ejq$1(a)news.eternal-september.org> in >>>>> sci.math,sci.physics,sci.lang,alt.usage.english,alt.philosophy: >>>>>> Peter T. Daniels wrote: >>>>>>> On Dec 27, 3:49 pm, "Brian M. Scott"<b.sc...(a)csuohio.edu> wrote: >>>>>>> Whatever you recently did to "fix" your encoding has >>>>>>> resulted in blank spaces where you typed funny letters. >>>>>> No, it's posted with Content-Type: text/plain; >>>>>> charset="iso-8859-1" I don't think the problem was caused >>>>>> by his last mod farther down the list of formats. >>>>> >>>>> It's almost certainly a problem with Google Groups. If >>>>> Peter would break down and get a decent news client, he'd >>>>> not have the problem. >>>> >>>> Yet somehow Google Groups managed to show the letters a few minutes >>>> later. >>>> >>>> None of the newsgroup-snobs has ever explained what's _wrong_ with >>>> google groups. >>> >>> I don't see that there is much wrong with GG from the POV of who >>> doesn't use GG (whereas Outlook has a number of bugs, after all these >>> years, that can disrupt other people's experience of the 'news'). The >>> problem with GG is that it's a pain to use, though I don't know of any >>> web interface that isn't, and the occasional weird behaviour - the >>> inconsistency you mention above being a good example. >> >> I've been using Seamonkey which is web-based. > > Uh? You wrote that you don't know of any other web interface newsgroup software.... I thought i would point you to one that isn't as painful as Google's. /BAH
From: jmfbahciv on 31 Dec 2009 09:51
Brian M. Scott wrote: > On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 08:51:05 -0500, jmfbahciv > <jmfbahciv(a)aol> wrote in <news:hhd0o90qao(a)news5.newsguy.com> > in > sci.math,sci.physics,sci.lang,alt.usage.english,alt.philosophy: > >> Brian M. Scott wrote: > >>> On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:13:23 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels" >>> <grammatim(a)verizon.net> wrote in >>> <news:149065af-e4ab-4d84-aedb-57a8999264af(a)u7g2000yqm.googlegroups.com> >>> in >>> sci.math,sci.physics,sci.lang,alt.usage.english,alt.philosophy: > > [...] > >>>> Is "CIV" going to turn up in your little narratives one of >>>> these days? > >>> No, though a couple of poker decks might be an acceptable >>> stand-in. > >> The sentence, "Subtract one hundred four" is supposed to >> be appended to my posts. Somehow, somewhere, it >> disappeared. > > Yes, I remembered it from some years ago. I thought it one > of the cleverer munges. > <grin> I was extremely surprised by the number of people who didn't know Roman numerals. /BAH |