Random questions

[Phineas]

1. When listening to Finnish, I seldom catch the elongated double vowels. I only know that they're
there if I'm reading along. Are Finnish speakers really supposed to double the vowel length?

2. Are there languages with elaborate declension systems in which the noun is declined
but the adjective is not?

[jahasjahas]

1. When listening to Finnish, I seldom catch the elongated double vowels. I only know that they're
there if I'm reading along. Are Finnish speakers really supposed to double the vowel length?

I was going to say "Not necessarily double, just a bit longer.", but then I checked this data, which seems to indicate that a double vowel is about twice as long as the corresponding single vowel. However, as we can see, the absolute lengths are very much dependent on the context where the word is said: even a double vowel won't be that long when used in an actual sentence as opposed to saying it on its own.

My suggestion: practice. (Maybe someone else can suggest something more specific.)

[Rosamunda]

2. Are there languages with elaborate declension systems in which the noun is declined
but the adjective is not?

I vaguely remember that in Hungarian adjectives are declined only for number (sing. vs. pl.) but not for case. The case declension system for nouns and verbs is painfully elaborate. I might be wrong though, it is over 10 years since I studied survival Hungarian.

[Phineas]

I was going to say "Not necessarily double, just a bit longer.", but then I checked this data, which seems to indicate that a double vowel is about twice as long as the corresponding single vowel. However, as we can see, the absolute lengths are very much dependent on the context where the word is said: even a double vowel won't be that long when used in an actual sentence as opposed to saying it on its own.

My suggestion: practice. (Maybe someone else can suggest something more specific.)

Thanks for those enlightening data, and for the suggestion. I'll just have to practice and try to listen more carefully.

I vaguely remember that in Hungarian adjectives are declined only for number (sing. vs. pl.) but not for case. The case declension system for nouns and verbs is painfully elaborate. I might be wrong though, it is over 10 years since I studied survival Hungarian.

Thank you Rosamunda. I asked about the adjective-noun agreement (ANA) after discussing the matter with some people
in an Esperanto forum. Nobody questions ANA in natural languages like Russian and Finnish, but in a constructed language
like Esperanto, it strikes many people (especially the native English speakers) as a design flaw, or at least as an unnecessary
complication. That got me thinking about the issue. Zamenoff, the inventor of Esperanto, certainly had his reasons (redundancy,
consistency, etc.) for retaining ANA, but they never seemed like especially good reasons to me. But ANA seems to be a near-universal
feature of heavily declined languages, so there must be something naturally appealing about it. It is interesting that case agreement
disappeared from Hungarian, but number agreement did not.

[cors187]

This thread has Atari written all over it!

[Phineas]

What, or who, is Atari?

[Upphew]

What, or who, is Atari?

Atari, poliisin rekisterissä nimitys ammatti- ja taparikolliselle.

[cors187]

You know Atari , the other disposable function.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari