- ([info]entangledbank) wrote,
@ 2004-08-26 19:01:00
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Current mood: depressed

Went to library. Did some reading and note-taking. I think the only interesting quote I got was someone echoing Einstein, that grammar was subtle but not malicious. Got distracted reading about Tagalog infixation. Spent the last couple of hours reading in Huddleston and Pullum's CGEL, more interested in something I could at least partly understand. It's so good to see English grammar described freshly and impartially, with terminology appropriate to it. And they spend only a few paragraphs on such hard nuts as used to and had better. This much needs to be done on every language in the world, starting with Pirahã and Eyak and all the ones that are rich and strange or that we might be about to lose.

Am still nowhere nearer understanding anything of what I'm trying to write about. I want to give up. I don't know how I can hand in anything.

Am now about to get more maudlin over some Old Peculier.


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hello
[info]astree
2004-08-26 12:13 pm UTC (link)
what's "Tagalog infixation"? and "Huddleston and Pullum's CGEL"?

hard nuts as used to and had better - was it practical grammar or theory of grammar book?
don't want to give up. go on, inspire me.

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Re: hello
[info]entangledbank
2004-08-26 12:57 pm UTC (link)
Hello.

Can't remember specific meanings or words, but (making some up) there's a Tagalog infix -um- that turns e.g. katin into kumatin. What surprised me is that some grammarians had described its behaviour with vowels differently. With a word like atin it's a prefix, not an infix: umatin. But this is wrong, because this is just based on the spelling. Words don't begin with vowels in Tagalog, so written atin is actually ?atin. Then the infixation ?umatin is completely regular and doesn't require being described as a prefix.

CGEL = Cambridge Grammar of the English Language a recently-published 2000-page volume, which instantly became the definitive descriptive grammar of English. Up to date with all recent theories and discoveries. It's not really theory, they avoid theory if possible; it's descriptive, but they sometimes have to justify their analyses with theory.

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Re: hello
[info]astree
2004-08-26 01:04 pm UTC (link)
katin kumatin atin umatin: what language are these?

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Re: hello
[info]entangledbank
2004-08-26 01:07 pm UTC (link)
Well, it's made-up Tagalog (the main Philippine language). I can't remember real words, but that's roughly what they look like. The infix -um- is real, but I forget what it means.

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Re: hello
[info]astree
2004-08-26 01:14 pm UTC (link)
got it.
I thought your studies are about English. (I came across your journal today. Like your style.)

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Re: hello
[info]entangledbank
2004-08-26 01:16 pm UTC (link)
got very distracted. :-)

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[info]astree
2004-08-26 01:19 pm UTC (link)
that happens :)
in such cases I keep on remembering the phrase from Fowles's The Magus: the man who discovered that screw may take another turn. (it may be a misquotation, but the idea is that.)
I always think that screw may take countless turns:)

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Re: hello
[info]tisoi
2004-09-11 02:26 am UTC (link)
The same thing with the suffix -IN. There are those who incorrectly say that there its allomorph is -HIN. A Tagalog word that appears to end in a vowel really ends in either /h/ or /?/.

For example the rootword /'basah/ sounds like ['basa] and is written basa. And so bása + -in is [ba'sahIn] (to read something).

Then there's /ba'sa?/ which is written basa, too. With -in it comes basain [basa'?In] (to wet something).

And FYI, it looks like you were close to making a real Tagalog word. katin is close to kain (to eat). And it takes the -um- infix. atin is the ergative form of the inclusive "we."

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[info]tree
2004-08-27 06:36 pm UTC (link)
nothing remotely related to your entry, but it just made me remember when we lived in the philippines and wish i could still remember tagalog.

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