[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/sci/ - Science & Math

View post   
File: 62 KB, 1681x884, sumer-vs-jap-headfinality.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
15337330 No.15337330 [Reply] [Original]

I wanted to see why the genitive particle seemed to "stack" in Sumerian, but not in Japanese, so I drew this syntax tree, and it made it clear to me that it's because in Sumerian, the noun phrase is head-initial (the noun comes first, then the prepositional phrase), while the prepositional phrase is head-final.
Meanwhile, in Japanese, both the NP and the PP are head-final, so the prepositions don't all combine at the end together because they're separated by nouns.
I don't know either Sumerian or Japanese, I just assumed the translations were right for both of them and made assumptions from there. The Japanese is from Google Translate.
And this is the first time I'm grasping X-bar syntax trees.
Isn't this interesting? Why aren't you studying linguistics on your own?

>> No.15337382

>>15337330
the stacking version seems better, it's more efficient

>> No.15337395

>>15337382
Really? It seems more complicated to parse, to me. It's easier to think "king's brother's house in" than "house brother king of of in" to me. Easier to immediately turn a noun into a noun phrase, then seeing the posrposition and turning into a posrpositional phrase.

>> No.15337622

>>15337330
It's called "suffixaufnahme".

Linguistics is schizo nonsense.

>> No.15337634

>>15337395
It was probably seen as one long word:
lugal - king
lugalak - king's
šešlugalak - king's brother
šešlugalakak - king's brother's
éšešlugalakak - king's brother's house
éšešlugalakaka - in king's brother's house

There are other languages like that. Turkish or Korean to a lesser degree, Greenlandic and many more to a higher degree, especially in the Americas. Chinese might be actually like that if it wasn't obcured by the characters.

>> No.15337868
File: 942 KB, 300x225, tumblr_9a617ed12da21aac13d3f7b40c5d97fe_e45c59ee_400.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
15337868

>>15337330

>> No.15338560

>>15337330
Very interesting way of parsing
Seems to be an example of a complex whole vs a sum of two less complex units. Any other examples of this?

>> No.15338586
File: 12 KB, 168x150, 9400297.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
15338586

>>15337330
>Isn't this interesting?
Absolutely, its organic based combinatorics.
Why aren't you studying linguistics on your own?
Do. Korean time-perspectives on English was quiet eye opening, since native English classes dont cover this because its so inate to our language.
>Fish: Water? What water?

Seeing yourself from the perspective of someone else...life changing shit.

>> No.15338626
File: 25 KB, 1681x884, English-sentence.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
15338626

>>15338586
> Korean time-perspectives on English was quiet eye opening, since native English classes dont cover this because its so inate to our language.
That does sound interesting. Does Korean manage time differently to how English does?
>>Fish: Water? What water?
Yeah, that's literally what it seems like to me. Language is so interesting, and yet we're so immersed in it that we're blind to our own language and don't even realize all the parsing we're doing anymore.
>>15338560
>Seems to be an example of a complex whole vs a sum of two less complex units. Any other examples of this?
I don't quite understand what you meant by the first sentence, but I did make a tree of the equivalent English as well.