Wednesday, November 7, 2012

She Shall Be Called Woman ...

I've been brushing up on Biblical Hebrew lately, and experiencing sympathy pangs for those poor souls studying for their bar mitzvahs (bar mitzvot?).

The most common words of a language tend to preserve irregularities long past the death of their conjugational companions. In olden days, of course, these were not irregularities, but perfectly sensible in the systems of their birth. The erosion of the years and the reform of their now-wayword companions leave them orphaned and oddities which frustrate the beginning student and fascinate the linguistically savvy mind. From the multitude of en-dings for Anglo-Saxon plurals, only "children" remains a once-common "-en" ending, and throws an "r" in the mix for good measure. Seldom do comtemporary English speakers refer to "oxen", and even those who might use "brethren" are more likely to say "brothers".

It is no surprise that the Hebrew words for "man" and "woman" display such irregularities, The plural of  "ish" "man" is "anashim" and plural of "ishsha" is "nashim." The missing nun in "ish" and "ishsha" vanished through assimilation to the previous consonants, and the missing aleph in "nashim" proabably disappeared through its own weakness (I don't think the aleph is an addition, as some might, for reasons I explain below). The three-letter root, then would be aleph-nun-shin. If scholars who have dedicated their lives to the study of the Semitic languages cannot agree on the distribution of the various sibilants (s-sounds) in proto-Semitic, certainly I dare not do so. My suspicion is that the root originally meant "man or human being", and thus, according to the usual androcentricity of gender systems, declined as a masculine. The feminine meaning is probably derivative, and the bewildering multiplicity of "broken plurals" in Arabic, traditionally considered the most conservative of the Semitic languages, allows for odd plural patterns preserved in the much more orderly Hebrew. The root aleph-nun-"s", however, could extend much further back: the basic proto-Indo-European root for "man" is "H1ner", in which the "H1" represents one of the famous laryngeals, possibly a glottal stop, that is, an aleph. The speakers of Indo-European apparently treated "H1ner" as exclusively masculine, but struggled to make it fir into the later declensional patterns. In this case, at least, it seems that :"woman" really is called "woman" because she was created from "man"!

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Frame and Fortune


On Wednesday night, I went to a talk at the Commonwealth Club. George Lakoff was promoting his newest book, The Little Blue Book, under the banner of a lecture about framing. Although I do vote as part of my civic duty, I prefer to keep my political views to myself and try to examine the world analytically, so my purchase of a copy of The Little Blue Book was more about getting an autograph of a man whose intellect I respect rather than any political allegiance, The fundamental argument of the book is that Democrats and Republicans use different frames. If two well-meaning people start with different premises, it is quite easy to talk past one another. It is alarming how facile human being can be at self-deception; yet the ability to imagine things as they might be rather than as they are is fundamental to the human capacity of planning and creativity. Here is the nub of the problem, as I see it (and as a fellow human being, I am as blind as anyone else who is reading this): human beings need frames and narratives to process the astonishing amount of information the world throws at us, but this coping mechanism is so ingrained that it is easy to forget it is a tool rather than the only possible representation of reality. The underlying assumptions are buried below layers of reasoning, and an amnesia to this truth leads even the best-intentioned to perceive those who oppose them as stupid or evil or both. Even worse, it blinds one to the assumptions of one's own argument. If you don't know why you believe what you believe, how can you figure out whether it is valid or how to argue pro and con? There's a reason, after all, that true debaters have to understand the opposition's argument as well as their own. Even where there are few facts, and the relevance of those facts are agreed upon, it is not possible for human beings to just look at facts rather than composing a narrative. Human beings are per se creatures of story, and the best we can do is examine how we construct the stories we tell from the world around us and the motivations which drive us.

Monday, July 2, 2012

Royaneh 2012

This year at Royaneh saw a lot of action up on Pioneer Hill. The new flush toilet had some starting difficulties – as unattractive as a kybo can be, it cannot be jammed up. The migration to Big Egypt has not ebbed. Speaking of Egypt, the international Scout this year, Sharif, was from Cairo, and many of the neat things in the Trading Post were Egyptian-themed. It's a testament to the power of Scouting that Mubarak, the former ruler of Egypt, banned Scouting in his country. Opening campfire was a bit rough, as it always is, and some of the first years became confused on Monday about which classes they were taking. Gladiators was restored to a semblance of its rodeo days glory, complete with a rodeo-style opening ceremony. Horsemanship was popular with the Scouts this year, as was Astronomy/SpaceEx merit badge. Scouting heritage appears to have joined the regular stable, rather than remaining a centenary phenomenon. A lot of merit badge classes at Royaneh are doubled, so that you can get two badges at once. It's great to have more badges for your sash, especially at a traditional Fourteener color guard, but part of me does wonder whether the doubling diminishes the information content of each badge.


There was a touch of the plague at camp, but it passed over Fourteen with one unfortunate exception. Other troops, however, were not so lucky – one lost nine kids, half its contingent. The good side effect of the reports of sickness was cooperation with the shower patrol for the dirty little first years. The troop skit was well-executed, thanks to preparation by one of the older Scouts. I missed the first closing campfire because I had whacked my shin, but I did have the pleasure of chasing away some miscreants from a different troop who (believe it or not) wanted to steal the 14 and transport it to the top of camp. Saturday, of course, contained a game of Capture the Flag and some very cold and wet, but poison oak-free Scouts. The Scout leading Sunday's Scout's Own is the descendant of a rabbi and it showed. I do not know where the parent who was scheduled to speak was during the Scout's Own, so I spoke instead.

Monday, of course, brought classes. Beck and I were the uniformed leadership for week 2. Fourteeners were more active during this week, and one of our own designed an Advanced Riflery class. All the first years did the Trail of the Thunderbird. I held my own in the Scoutmaster dance-off on Tuesday, but I did not win. On Wednesday, Gladiators both went long and had a snarled schedule. I'm sure that by next year the staff will have the format streamlined. The skit for the second week was the same as the first, but with a slightly different cast, although all the actors were once again first years. Friday night, of course, was the Troop Feed, which lasted into the wee hours of the morning. Those Scouts who had brought guitars, ukuleles, and other instruments entertained the group, but I didn't get to bed until 3 because I was out with the fire crew cooling the fire.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

The Syntakkes Hole, or The Hollow Word

This is the last post on German for a while - the Hawaii adventure awaits. I am bringing my Hawaiian dictionary with me, so there will be linguistic content! But for now, more German. German is notorious among Anglophones for being a case language, the nearest modern one, and many fear it for that reason. If you look at the case system, however, it has a hollow core. In Indo-European languages, and perhaps other families, the core arguments have less case marking than the peripheral ones. A case system decays like a tree (in the case of Latin, like a eucalyptus on fire, once all five cases in feminine singular became -a), from the core outward. The plurals have already become arbitrary, with only a few rules of thumb and that strange little -n in the dative plural, and the only difference between the nominative and accusative is in the masculine (der vs den); all other nominatives and accusatives are the same for their genders and numbers (The pronouns have a similar problem, but that's another post, post-Maui). It's no wonder that the German have developed an obsession with word order! Yet even in languages that are far more meticulous about genders and noun classes and still preserve the nominative-accusative distinction, two participants of the same gender and number can still cause confusion. I was practicing my German composition by describing the plot of Mirror, Mirror (review coming soon), and ran into just such a problem describing the evil queen and Snow White (Schneewittchen, not Schneeweisschen - thanks to Bill Willingham, I know the difference).

The dative forms of German do not always aid in disambiguation. True to Indo-European form, the neuter article  dem shares the dative form of masculine, while the feminine dative singular definite article der shares a form with its masculine nominative counterpart. The plural dative definite article shares its form (den) with masculine singular accusative - perhaps this is why the dative -n hangs on. At least it's not a Russian genitive-accusative!

For now, German retains its cases, but the minute it loses its final -n's it's going to turn into Eastern Dutch!

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Wandering Words

I've been thinking more about "separable prefixes," a truly bizarre phenomenon of German, Dutch, Afrikaans, and Hungarian (the last probably acquired the feature from German). The linguistics literati prefer the term "separable particle," which is more apt, since a prefix which wanders to the end of the clause would be a strange prefix indeed. This thing which is not a prefix could not be a clitic, either; a clitic could wander to the end of the clause, but a clitic must hang on some other word, and that is not required of the "separable prefix." Such confusion is not uncommon: the Greeks used the term "tmesis", "a cutting," to indicate a prefix which in certain cases could separate from the verb and go elsewhere in the line of poetry. In that case, however, the Greeks were looking backwards; since tmesis only occurs in forms of the language that tend towards archaism, the separation is actually a conjunction! English has adverbs and prepositions, but the use in a particular verbal phrase must be one or the other. Every grammar of a language is a snapshot, and therefore has features in transition; in the case of German, these features are the "separable prefixes" and a case system on the verge of collapse.

Monday, April 30, 2012

Philip K Dick Month: Ubik

For this month's meeting of the Science Fiction Book Club, namely Philip K Dick month, I have chosen Ubik, because 1) it is a Dick classic and 2) there is no movie of it. In Ubik, telepathy is commonplace and the privacy of the common man is threatened, so there has arisen a breed of men, called inertials, who can cancel the psionic talents of telepaths. The second feature of this future is half-life, a state of preservation in which the deceased (or, rather, the nearly-deceased) slowly fades away. The third thread of this novel is the ubiquitous "Ubik," a product of a thousand uses, which hardly ever seems to be used the same way twice. The plot follows Joe Chip, the ace but broke tester of Runciter's company, which supplies inertials to privacy-seekers, in a Dickian examination of reality, perception, and decay. Dick's telepathic dystopias seem to have less external freakishness than Bester's, and fewer circus geeks, but there is a greater emphasis on alternate realities and pharmaceutical abuse.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Earth Days

It was a busy weekend, but that's normal for Earth Day. Although our merry band pioneered (pun intentional) the Good Turn, its adoption by the District and Council is a mixed blessing. The powers that be decreed that the Good Turn should take place on the weekend of Earth Day, so we went down to Milagra Ridge between South San Francisco and Linda Mar to remove Scotch broom. There were fewer of us than I had hoped, but I assume the absent contributed to Earth Day elsewhere. Scotch broom has vivid yellow flowers and is much prettier than the bane of my early service project days, ice plant, but it grows quickly and the native animals and insects do not recognize Scotch broom as a suitable habitat. The natural enemy of Scotch broom, sheep (Scottish or otherwise), are not a good solution, since they would eat much more than the Scotch broom. I remember when I first saw Scotch broom in its native Caledonian habitat - it took a moment to remember that in these lands it was not a weed to be exterminated. The sheep, with their heavy wool coats and tendency to block the road, were a much greater threat to humanity.

The ridge was steep, although not forbiddingly so, and covered in both Scotch broom and poison oak. Certain members of our party, being more sensitive to poison oak, were not eager to charge into the thicket, much less rig a hammock and nap there. I'm not terribly sensitive to poison oak, so I was not greatly worried, but the GGNRA volunteers had magic outerwear called TYVEK suits. These suits reminded of hazmat suits without helmets, but they were made of paper, albeit a sturdy kind. The clearing took more energy than I had anticipated, but the results of our labor were satisfyingly visible.



After we had finished our share of weeding, we hiked to the cliff edge and ate lunch. We could see Linda Mar, the controversial golf course, and Pacifica in the distance. The tunnel through the hill below us was not yet open, but its presence prompted much conversation. Our return to the city ended a simple outing, but one that has inspired the attendees.



On Sunday, I went to church, where one of our own, rather than the absent pastor, preached the Word. Apparently I am more comfortable than she with Atonement theology, but the ability to disagree is a wonderful feature of my home church. The one thing that really bothered me, however, and this is not the fault of the church per se, since the words were Bob Marley's, was the reference to "the Daughter" in the communion hymn. I have no problem with emphasizing the maternal qualities of the Godhead - it serves as a reminder that God "the Father" is way of describing God's behavior so that our finite minds can grasp it - nor do I object to the nurturing, maternal qualities of Jesus, who, after all, compared himself to a mother hen, and the Holy Ghost always seems too abstract (for lack of a better term) to cause gender-bending chaos, but I cannot understand why anyone would describe Jesus as "Daughter." Provocation? Perhaps I am looking at this through a prescriptivist lens, when it is meant as a stimulation to discussion.

After church, I went downtown for a concert at Notre Dame des Victoires (I had forgotten about the plural article). I stopped at the church, but not to pray - I could not see the crowd thronging into the church for the concert. As it turned out, the concert was in the school auditorium, not the church proper. I had never been inside NDV before, and never before had I realized how cramped the facilities were for jocks (I was a bookish child and would have been fine).

Monday, April 23, 2012

Trials and Tribe-ulations

A while ago, I purchased a small book on the "pidgins" of Oceania - I put "pidgin" in quotes because the languages in question are actually creoles, but pidgins often develop into creoles and retain the former name. Creoles have a characteristically simple grammar, such that a small book could thoroughly describe them; some languages, such as Quechua, are not so learner-friendly. Since all the creoles, except one, are English-based and derive from a common ancestor, the booklet read more as a comparative grammar than a guidebook. The phonologies were blessedly simple, all basic five-vowel systems, although the pronunciation of /o/ and /e/ varied from language to language.

My fascination with these creoles is honest, but the history of exploitation and racism has poisoned any discussion of these languages. This poison is exacerbated by the linguistic ignorance of most people, who automatically equate simple grammar with simple minds. I have to roll words on my tongue to truly absorb the vocabulary, grammar, and phonaesthetics, but whenever I do this with these languages, I am afraid of charges of racism.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Sehen Sie den "N"?

German class last night! We studied the dative, and the bizarre dative plural -n. In general, German declension seems to be "tattered," filled with remnant consonants and half-declined adjectives which are driving my fellow students crazy. Dative is a hard concept for many English speakers, especially since den Mann is accusative masculine singular, but den Frauen is dative feminine plural. 'The young woman" is die junge Frau and "the young women" is die jungen Frauen, but "young women" is junge Frauen. And all adjectives in the dative have n - der jungen Frau, den jungen Frauen.

And then there are the pronouns! Sie and ihr (the Germans may use capitals, but you can't hear a capital letter) overlap a great deal, and ihnen only partially ameliorates this. In context, however, the meaning is usually clear.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Big Kitty, Rare Kitty

Down at the Commonwealth Club, I attended a lecture on mountain lions by Zara MacDonald, advocate for the Felidae Conservation Fund. The pictures, of course, were enthralling, but MacDonald highlighted the plight and rarity of felids. Large cats need large ranges, and many migration routes are blocked or hindered by highways or suburbs. The average size of California cats are about two-thirds the size of the average American cats, which may be reflection of the smaller territories, but could equally well reflect some genetic quirk of the local population. The Felidae project has activities for every age group - the one for kids is a game called PumaWild, where you play as a puma trying to survive.

http://www.felidaefund.org/
http://www.bapp.org/

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Nos Spectaturi Te Salutamus

On a recent Monday, I found myself down at the Commonwealth Club for a talk, "The Ancient Roman World on Film" presented by the Humanities Forum. Dr. Gary Devore from Stanford was the speaker. He spoke about the way directors manipulated the image of cinematic Romans to present them as Us, Them, Both, and Neither. The Romans were Them in The Sign of the Cross (1932), a bland Victorian pseudo-historical piece spiced up and sexed up as only Cecil B. deMille could do. Kubrick's Spartacus (1960) presented a remarkably pro-Communist message for its day, while being aggressively pro-family. Allegiance to a cause and its leader spans the political spectrum. In Anthony Mann's The Fall of the Roman Empire, which Devore described as the "thinking man's epic" in contrast to Ridley Scott's Gladiator (2000), the Romans are both Us and Them, and serve as a warning to our era. Fellini's Satyricon (1969) absolutely rejects the possibility of identifying with the ancient Romans; Satyricon is a reaction to Fascist use of Roman symbols and the Mussolini-penned Roman epic Scipione l'Africano.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Empires and Images

On Thursday, I went with a Meetup group to the art galleries (small but numerous) at the 49 Geary, focusing on the 4th and 5th floors. The art was modern, which meant most of it did not move me, but two galleries caught my attention and my favor.

The Robert Koch Gallery was exhibiting an exhibit called "Photos of Fallen Empires," created by the Israeli photographer Shai Kremer. The Middle East has seen so many empires and kingdoms rise and fall that the detritus from their structures is abundant whenever the next empire did not reuse the materials. The juxtaposition of Iron Age ruins and Israeli military bases raises some questions about the permanency of the current State of Israel.

The other exhibit I liked was in the Gregory Lind Gallery. "Remainders" is an exhibit of Leigh Wells' work in collage. I had never considered that collage could be aggressively three-dimensional: the image of "collage" in my head has always been an image composed of two-dimensional paper. I asked Ms Wells if there were a theme to the exhibit; she said there was not, but that she had listened to the materials and shaped the displays accordingly. I found that interesting, since that is not the way my mind works. I feel the need to impose some degree of order on whatever academic materials I am examining.

I considered buying a copying of Fred Lyon's San Francisco Then, but decided I need to investigate further before buying.

Afterwards, the group went to Pomodoro Pizza, but I'll save those comments for YELP.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Movie Review: "Footnote"

On Wednesday I went to the Clay Theater and watched Footnote, the 2011 Cannes film from Israel by Joseph Cedar about the conflict between two Talmudic scholars, father and son. I assume that the Clay was airing it because it is Passover. The tension between the father and the son is vividly portrayed, and the score dramatizes the highly intellectual scenes. My favorite is a scene shows the elder scholar feverishly researching an insight critical to the plot. A flurry of images, like a mental montage, adds vibrancy to the scene and reflects the way the brain of many scholars function when they are high on research work. I had trouble empathizing with a father who found his son's accomplishments a slight to himself - I am more familiar with stage parents than the reverse. I did NOT like the abrupt ending - it seemed intellectually dishonest.

I plan to return to the Clay to watch The Lady, about Aung San Suu Kyi. I have read about the recent election in Burma and read Guy deLisle's The Burma Chronicles to better understand the conditions inside the country. If they show Monsieur Lazhar at the Clay, I will go there; otherwise, I shall have to find a theater that is showing it.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Gefunden

Another poem (this time German) for your edification and delight
Goethe

Gefunden

Ich ging im Walde
So für mich hin.
Und nichts zu suchen
Das war mein Sinn.

In Schatten sah ich
Ein Blümchen stehn
Wie Sterne leuchend
Wie Äuglein schön.

Ich wollt es brechen
Das sagt es fein
Soll ich zum Welken
Gebrochen sein?

Ich grub's mit allen
Ein Würzlein aus,
Zum Garten trug ich's
Am hübschen Haus.

Und pflanzt es wieder
Am stillen Ort
Nun zweigt es immer
Und blüht so fort.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

A Germanic Fly In Amber

I've been taking a German course over in Berkeley, and my memories of the difficulties are coming back, even if I like the language more than Mark Twain. Cases and genders are like bread and butter for me, but the truly bizarre feature of German is the Separable Prefix, a grammatical abomination in a linguistic Limbo between adverbs and prepositions. The infinitive of the verb "to call (on the phone)" is "anrufen", but "I call the doctor" is "Ich rufe den Artzt an." This example is not so bad, but a sentence with the verb "aufpassen" produces the bizarre sentence "Passen sie auf den alten Hund auf?", "Are you taking care of the old dog?" in which the last "auf" refers to the "passen" at the beginning and the first "auf" governs "Hund" - at least there are no reflexives combined with it!

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Le Printemps

Le Printemps

Charles d'Orléans

Le temps a laissé son manteau
De vent, de froidure et de pluie
Et s'est vêtu de broderie,
De soleil riant, clair et beau ...

Il n'y a bête ni oiseau
Qu'en son jargon ne chante ou crie.
Le temps a laissê son manteau
De vent, de froidure et de pluie.

Riviere, fontaine et ruisseau
Portent en livrée jolie
Gouttes d'argent d'orfèvrerie;
Chacun s'habille de nouveau.
Le temps a laissé son manteau.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Troop Fourteen:Rainy Day Hike

On Saturday, March 24, a small but intrepid band of Fourteeners braved the rain to attend a hike. The weather was bad and would get worse as the day passed. Since so few had dared the weather, the acting Senior Patrol Leader decided to change the hike from Mount Tamalpais to the Presidio; this way, the hike could serve as a test for the rain-worthiness of each Scout's equipment. Most of us ditched our lunches in cars at the beginning of the hike, but some hungry Scouts were unwilling to abandon food, even for a few hours. We walked down Lovers' Lane to the waterline. Then we headed to Fort Point, where the waves were crashing against the rocks. At first it seemed that the fort was closed, and none of us had planned to buy entrance tickets, but Bruce McKleroy spoke with the attendant . The fort opened ten minutes later and the group explored the fort. I had not visited Fort Point since sophomore year in high school, and had forgotten how Spartan the living conditions had been. The struts of the Golden Gate Bridge loomed overhead like a red metallic spiderweb. We left too early for my taste - I suppose I shall return soon on a better day when I can take proper pictures. The Senior Patrol Leader then led us up the hill and along the Ridge Trail past Camp Rob, where one of the first place patrols camped a year or so ago. The Presidio is within the Scout district, so permits are much easier to obtain than for trips beyond (which, sadly, includes Pacifica, which has some nice trails). If anyone plans to camp there, prepare for wind, but even a night at Camp Rob would count as a night for Camping Merit Badge. Bruce McKleroy explained that only the military had access to the area of the Ridge Trail when the military controlled the Presidio. Now it is a pleasant hike, even though the yellow mud along it was extremely slippery. We passed Julius Kahn Playground, a locus for stories of childhood injuries, and returned to Broadway and Lyon before noon. The total distance covered was 6.7 miles, not too challenging for a patrol outing and a breeze for the Troop.


Thursday, March 29, 2012

Review: The Hunger Games

Note (2/24/22): This has been edited to remove an offensive term. Saying what it was would negate the effect of the edit, and seeking to know what it was would prove the seeker more interested in finding offense than reading the remaining content.

Circumstances, related to the rainy conditions of Saturday's Scout hike resulted my double viewing of the film version of The Hunger Games. I do not regret watching it twice, since the Venn diagram of friends and acquaintances with whom I saw it did not overlap. The Hunger Games is a well-made film, and I would watch it again, although I probably would not buy the DVD. The transition from novel to film always entails simplification and externalization of details which books can present in an introspective manner. Although the Treaty of the Treason, in which the Capital set forth the terms of the Hunger Games, appears prominently in the film (an instance of cinematographic externalization), there is no mention of the "reward" that the winner of the Hunger Games earned for his or her District. In the book, the winning District receives extra rations to stave off malnutrition and starvation. Its omission makes the Capital's abuse of the districts more offensive, but also eliminates an obvious motivation for the Districts' complicity in this appalling ritual. The book uses third-person limited narration, and thus ignores the omnipresent cameras necessary for the viewing pleasure of the citizens of the Capital; the film never lets you forget about the cameras, in an attempt to condemn the audience in the theater as well as the Capital. It is a valiant attempt, but the freakish appearance of the Capital citizens, who look like the world's most fashion-challenged parade, compared to the normal (if rustic) dress of the residents of the Districts, creates to much visual dissonance to succeed. The depiction of the reaction of District 11 to a key moment in the movie seems heavy-handed; Rue, the female tribute from District 11, is described merely as dark-skinned in The Hunger Games, but her District is shown as the "black" district with one token white guy. Then the Peacekeepers (who are as ominous as the name suggests) bring out the water cannons. The racism in the world of the Hunger Games is an oblivious racism against all Districts, rather than one predicated on contemporary American racial fears.


Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Romney's Run 2: Religious Rhetoric Run Rampant

As I was browsing the news this week, I noticed an Pew article that claimed Americans think there has been too much talk of religion in this election cycle. The sources for the article seem to have a rather limited view of the term "American," since it talks almost exclusively about supporters of Romney or Santorum. In short, Romney's supporters think that there has been too much rhetoric about religion, whle Santorum's supporters think that there has been too little. The difference between the two, it seems to me, is how far the individual supporter conflates religion and political ideology. Romney's membmership in the LDS is a stumbling block for many evangelical voters, but Romney's heretical tendencies (in the eyes of evangelicals) does not change the fact that the LDS is a powerful, monied, and socially conservative organization which evangelicals would otherwise love.

Even if Romney's views about the nature of the world are heterodox, Santorum's religious affiliations are also problematic. Perhaps Santorum does not feel quite as vehemently about non-Christians as the pastor with whom he recently associated. If, however, Santorum still desires the evangelical vote, a pastor who would rather expel those live in darkness than lead them to the light of Christ might not be the best companion in adversity. This is not a left-right matter: Obama, when he gets around to campaigning, should not associate himself with Louis Farrakhan. The subtext of this pastor's comments is racism, and there are plenty of non-white Evangelicals in the US who might be deterred from voting Republican a

Thursday, March 22, 2012

The Illustrated Man

To call Bradbury a science fiction author is insufficient; it conveys an impression of fascination for technology which he lacks. Bradbury's prose contains a bucolic note, a nostalgia for a rural world long lost, one never known to the science fiction readers playing stick ball on the streets of New York. In this corpus, Mars is not so much a physical place as it is a metaphysical Faerie, and the fear, hatred, and misunderstanding of women by his male protagonists a reflection of an old-fashioned but stunted model of masculinity. The science takes a back seat to verbal magic.

The first story in The Illustrated Man, "The Veldt," is an effective evocation of the savagery in the infantile breast. "Kaleidoscope" suffers from the impotency of the characters (I hesitate to call them protagonists, since they do not and cannot effect any change.) "The Other Front" has some rhetorical power, but suffers from the attenuation of historical change - in this case, the elimination of Jim Crow. Perhaps this story would resonate more strongly for contemporary minorities. "The Highway" displays a nice prose style, but depends too much on the context of the era in which Bradbury wrote it. "The Man" displays the pros and cons of any mid-20th century story involving religion (always Midwest Christian, of course). The idea of the cosmic Christ is intriguing, but all writers who attempt it are too coy for the original audience and too obscure for the current audience. "The Long Rain," set on a Venus which serves as a complement to Bradburian Mars, is a depressing, if compelling, narrative, whose characters slowly decline in the fashion of military stories. "The Rocket Man" illustrates Bradbury's theme of emotional alienation, but may contain the truth of a sea widow's life. "The Last Night of the World" is a mood piece. "The Exiles" features a literal literary Mars. It shows Bradbury's use of Mars as The Other Place, an Aristotelian rather than Platonic externalization of censorship fears. "No Particular Night Or Morning" is the most extreme example of the theme of alienation - the protagonist cannot create emotional attachment to his past self or even what he has made. This ends as well as one might expect. "The Fox and the Forest" is a solid but not extraordinary fugitives-in-time tale, and does not cater to Bradbury's main strengths.

"The Visitor," once again set on Mars, this time a futuristic leper colony, shows the destructive impulse of forsaken men. The gynophobia of many of Bradbury's characters appears clearly here when the William's unusual talent becomes an analog for both food and sex and Williams himself is called "a wife," which means (in in-universe terms) he must be dominated and cannot be shared. "The Concrete Mixer" features an atypical Martian invasion, but I have yet to understand the theme. "Marionettes, Inc." is a fine horror story - I believe it was adapted for The Twilight Zone. "The City" is an effective Cold War-era horror story about revenge and death. The distance, however, is out of proportion to the theme, and might encourage the impression that science fiction writers have no sense of scale.

"Zero Hour" is a tale of children's sight where adults are blind. It is a warm and fuzzy tale with a cold underbelly. "The Rocket" is a bittersweet story of a father's love for his family and the sacrifice of his greatest dream. The last story in the collection, "The Illustrated Man," did not engage me - it is a rather weak framing device for stories that are considerably better and more effective.

Nerd Nite #23: The Squid Boddhisattva

Last night, I went to Nerd Nite #23 at the Rickshaw Stop. The features were brain chemistry, Humboldt squid, and piracy (although I did not stay for the last).  I followed the brain chemistry talk fairly well - certainly the conclusions made sense to me, although I did start out with a bias against the mixture of Buddhist terms and neuropsychology. East and West, never the twain shall meet! It's the same feeling I get whenever scientists talk about the "God particle" - one shouldn't mix scientific and religious terms without precise definition (a precision which both chemistry and theology demand).

The second talk, on Humboldt squid, was my favorite. At this point, I should remind the audience of three things: first, that Humboldt squid are not giant squid; second, that Humboldt squid are named after the Humboldt current, not Humboldt county; third, Humboldt squid are not made into calamari. The cute marine biologist spoke about the "squid invasion," which has extended to Canadian waters from Mexican shores, and whether the squid were marauders or colonists (the difference is the presence of squid babies). Researching the answer proved challenging, since to find anything in the middle of the ocean, much less watery translucent squid eggs, is nearly impossible. Unlike some Nerd Nite presentations, this one left me with a few questions I want to e-mail to the researcher, such as the following: since bear-borne salmon guts are an important source of nitrogen for inland forests, do bear-borne squid (who have already eaten the salmon the bears would have) have the same nitrogen-movement impact as bear-borne salmon?

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Martin Buber's Bagel

 Those who know me well know that I have long had a fascination with clusivity, a highly useful grammatical feature. The two types of clusivity are inclusive and exclusive; which only appear in the first person and the non-singular grammatical numbers - or so I thought until recently. The first person inclusive means "I and you (but not other people)," whereas the first person exclusive means "I and someone else (but not you)." Thus, a Hawaiian translation of the title of Martin Buber's theological treatise I and Thou would be Kaua (first person inclusive dual) rather than Maua (first person exclusive dual). The logic of clusivity suggests a rigid limitation to the plural and whatever other non-singular forms a language may contain; clusivity by its nature is "I and X".

Language, however, is not logical; if it were, Zamenhof would not have needed to invent Esperanto. Clusivity distinctions is the standard for Polynesian languages, but formerly I had thought it well-behaved. Samoan is an ergative Polynesian language, a standard-bearer among linguists for its phonological transparency. Samoan has several form for each pronoun, but only a few concern us. The exclusive dual has forms ma and maua, while the inclusive dual has forms ta and taua (these forms are cognate with Hawaiian maua and kaua). The -ua component of taua and maua is related transparently to the common Polynesian word lua "two," so if one wanted to create a singular inclusive, the form ta would be an appropriate choice, but what would it mean? In Samoan, the first person singular inclusive is used when the subject ("I") has an emotional involvement in the verb.

Now let us apply this distinction to Martin Buber and a delicious lox bagel. If someone else saw Buber eating a bagel and heard Buber say "We (inclusive) are eating a bagel," the other person might think that Buber was sharing his bagel with God. If God can do all things, surely he can share lunch with one of his favorite theologian! If, however, Buber was aware that he alone was consuming the bagel, the dual pronoun acquires a different meaning. The bagel would be in the third person ("he/she/it"), and therefore cannot be the "X" of "I and X." The pronoun does not mask a reflexive; Buber is not eating himself! The first person inclusive singular indicates emotional involvement in the verb. Perhaps he was very hungry from thinking profound thoughts prior to devouring the bagel; perhaps this is the best (or worst) bagel he has ever eaten.

This seems bizarre, but there may be hints to its origin in other Austronesian languages such as Malay. When I was examining a basic Malay phrase book, I found an interesting phenomenon; a sentence which I would have translated as "I see you" was rendered as "We (inclusive) see" - kita, which contains -ta. The object of the sentence, in other words, had been incorporated into the subject. The verb "to see," however, is a transitive verb and therefore requires an object that is seen. The other sentence of this type which caught my attention was "We (inclusive) love," which meant "I love you." From this sentence it appears that the inclusive forms indicate emotional content if they accompany a transitive verb. This is odd but comprehensible from an Anglophone perspective. Apparently, the singular use of the inclusive has stripped away the plurality of the concept and left only the emotional core, a Star Sapphire of pronouns.

Friday, March 9, 2012

Pinnacles Trip

On March 4 and 5, the troop traveled to Pinnacles National Monument, which it had not visited for more than twenty years. The Scoutmaster could not attend, so Beck Diefenbach and I were the uniformed leaders. We left the city early, since the trip to Pinnacles National Monument was far away compared to other trail heads. The campsite lay between a broad parking lot and stream well-hidden by vegetation, so no hiking was required.

When we had struck camp and eaten lunch, we went up to Bear Gulch Day Use Area to meet the rock climbing instructors who would help us in the afternoon. Alas, we disembarked too early and therefore hiked up to the proper site. After the climbing instructors had given a brief orientation, they handed off the climbing gear to the Scouts. We hiked the Moses Spring Trail and Bear Gulch Cave trail, where the instructors split the Scouts into two groups. The less experienced Scouts went to the closer and easier climbing site, while the more ambitious went to a wall above Bear Gulch Reservoir. Some of the Scouts had climbed before and were naturals, one so much so that I compared him a spider monkey (apparently so did my colleague), while others were new to the sport but willing to challenge themselves - one of the latter group accomplished the highest-rated ascent of the day. The Scouts were having an enormous amount of fun, but soon it was time to leave and return to camp.






 
The campfire that night was short but lively.  The requisite skits and yells were done by food groups rather than patrols,  since there were not enough members of some patrols to sustain a skit. Each patrol within a food group received the full amount of points for the group, rather than the insane proportional distribution system briefly used during my Scout career. The skits were short, but I have to give credit for an effort to include as many of the group as possible within the skit. The Troop Staff began the acclimatization of the younger Scouts to the traditions of summer camp and Royaneh by teaching Gazalla. My contribution, The Chickens Get Into The Tomatos, was more frivolous, and the timing of the round was off. That round sometimes works and sometimes does not. The campfire closed rather early. Some Scouts went to their tents, but others remained around the fire for another hour. I told them about the importance of Venus, which was shining brightly that night, and regaled them with the story of how Orion ended up in the night sky.

On Sunday morning we woke up early; some of the Scouts woke up especially early and exercised. The energy of teenagers never ceases to amaze me. On a lighter note, one of the fathers who had set up his tent under a tree discovered that the quail roosting in the tree for the night had expelled their waste upon it. When I saw this, I was glad that I had moved my sleeping bag out from under the same tree!


After a short and inspirational Scout's Own, we traveled to the trail head for the Old Pinnacles Trail. There was a portable latrine, but I was worried (unnecessarily, as it turned out) about the possibilities for changing into uniform for traveling back to San Francisco. We hiked along West Fork Chalone Creek to Balconies Cave, where the trail passes through the cave. We ascended through the cave – the Scouts loved it! When I visited the caves many years ago, I had descended through the cave rather than ascended. It was a slippery experience, especially with the backpacks of the time, which were nowhere near as compact as those of today. Fortunately, all the Scouts helped each other with the backpacks. There were a few wet spots in the cave this time, but nothing that adequate footwear could not handle. When we had almost reached the end of the cave, one of the Scouts, who had experience climbing, could not stay away from the walls. Perhaps he has some gecko in his ancestry!

Here are some more photos taken by my colleague, Beck Diefenbach:

We exited the cave and walked beneath the Balconies Cliff, a massive rock formation with a vertical green channels from the spring rains. Several Scouts spotted people, tiny in perspective, perched upon the rocks above the caves through which we had come. They must have climbed there. One Scout expressed a desire to live atop the rock, while others made the morbid jokes so typical of youth and Classicists. The walk back to the cars felt much longer than the way in, but dreams of In N Out spurred the tired troop onward!



Saturday, February 25, 2012

A Peaceful Sabbath

I'm recovering slowly, but I thought I should get some fresh air, so I went down to Japantown to poke around. I stared at the front of the Kabuki, debating whether I should go to a movie, but there was no way to tell non-electronically what the movies were, and my clunker of a phone can't deal with graphic overload (or scroll sideways). I poked about the mall, purifying myself of the last bad memories there. There were many cute shops, but most were not yet open.  I admired the scale model of Osaka Castle, home of the Toyotomi clan and then the following Tokugawa clan. I love castles, and it's a shame there are so few in the United States. Eventually, I sat in the sunshine in the Peace Plaza and ate my sandwich. The woman on the other side of the stone circle, who was sketching the sculpture in the center, had satchel with Watchmen characters on the flap; she had bought it in Chinatown. A bit later,  I had bought a cup of tea sans lid, so I was forced to walk a fragment of the way home. I passed a line of indigents in front of Macedonia Baptist Church; the Philadelphian Seventh Day Adventist Church lacked such a line, but was open for its service at 11:20. Clearly this corner of San Francisco has a metaphysical connection with the Aegean!

When I returned home, I took Puff the Dog-Sat to the park. I had worried he would have an accident in my apartment, but instead he slept for five hours straight and was ready to visit the nearby dog run.  He was very energetic, and a bit uncooperative, but he showed his age in his feeble dominance display. Even he did not seem convinced. (Right now he's hyper because I fed him several pizza crusts and now he refuses to believe there are no more).

Friday, February 24, 2012

What A Complex Web We Weave ...

There is still a prejudice, broader and more pervasive in the past, that the languages of the "lesser races" are perforce simpler. This supposition, of course, is rank nonsense, as the description below illustrates.

The Hawaiian verb complex has many components. The order of the components, according to Judd, are:
1. Verbal Prefix
2. Verbal Root
3. Qualifying Adverb (any adverb, not just grammaticalized ones)
4. Passive Marker
5. Verbal Directives
6. Locative Particles, Participle Marker, or Relative Marker
7. Strengthening Particle
8. Subject
9. Object

Component 8 may or may not be valid, depending on the stress patterns of Hawaiian, about which I know little, but Component 9 is rank nonsense.

The Verbal Prefixes, which may be misnamed given the disinclination of VSO languages to prefixation, are tense/mood/aspect indicators such as ke, i, ua, and e. Ke is a marker of the subjunctive; i is the marker of the simple past; ua is the marker of the perfect; e is the marker of the nonpast or positive imperative.

The Verbal Root is the basic verb. Not much to say there, except that it need not be a single word.

The Qualifying Adverb is an adverb that modifies the verb. Although some adverbs have gained grammatical status, most are ordinary adverbs which may refine the meaning of the verb or may change it significantly.

The Passive Marker indicates that the subject of the sentence undergoes the action of the verb rather than causes it. Passive sentences are quite common in Hawaiian..

The Verbal Directive are an interesting quartet about which I have written much here
http://anglicanavenger.blogspot.com/2010/02/lesson-15-mai-aku-la-nei.html
These Verbal Directives are aku, mai, ae, and iho. aku indicates "away from the speaker". mai indicates "toward the speaker." ae indicates "on one side of the speaker." iho indicates "downwards," but can also be used as a reflexive. An example of a perhaps pleonastic distinction is ua haawi aku oe i poi i ke kanaka "You have given the poi to the man." The Verbal Directive aku is probably not necessary to describe the giving motion of haawi, but it is true that giving involve moving the gift away from the giver. In the case of hele, however, i hele aku au means "I went" and i hele mai au means "I came," which receive separate verbs in languages that lack Verbal Directives.

Component 6 can be the Locative Particles (nei and la), the Participle Marker (ana), or the Relative Marker (ai). nei indicates here-and-now. la indicates there but not not-now. It worth noting that the form which Judd introduces as the present tense, ke ... nei, is really the subjunctive Verbal Prefix ke tied to the here-and-now by the Locative Particle nei. The Locative Particle la often appears in questions as a contrast to the certainty of nei. ana changes the verb into a participle, but Hawaiian does not care whether it is passive or active. The order of ana and the Verbal Directive shifts the category of the phrase; hele mai ana is a participle; hele ana mai is a gerund. ai changes the verb into a relative form; this maneuver is necessary since Hawaiian lack a relative pronoun and does not seem to love subordinate clauses of any kind..

The Strengthening Particle is no. This is a useful device, but I have little more to say about it.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

The Giving Grammar, Part II

I have examined the languages of the Pacific a little more, since Judd's grammar preceded the concept of the ergative. As it turns out, western Pacific languages, such as Hawaiian, tend to be nominative-accusative system rather than eastern Pacific languages, which tend to be ergative-absolutive. This means that the nominative system of Hawaiian must have developed out of a previously ergative-leaning system. Even in Hawaiian, the "passive" system seems to be favored, such that Ua ai ia puaa e au, "The pig was eaten by me" is the almost the same as Ua ai au i puaa "I ate the pig." In an accusative language, the first sentence would be verb-nominative-ablative, and the second would be verb-nominative-accusative; in an ergative-absolutive language, the first sentence would be absolutive-ergative, and the second would be absolutive-preposition phrase.

Returning to the previous examples, the nouns in the phrase Ke haawi aku nei au i keia ia oe
would be nominative-accusative-accusative. It is not uncommon for languages to mark the direct an indirect object in the same manner, and the syntax here provides the information needed to distinguish the two. The second example, Owau ke haawi aku nei i keia ia oe merely fronts the nominative and add the topic marker o. In the third example, O keia ka'u e haawi aku nei ia oe, the accusative direct object is fronted and the nominative au is transformed into the a-class possessive form ka'u.  Judd translates this as "This is mine to give to you"; although the form ka'u possesses an appropriate case
and degree of control (a-class) suitable for an ergative, the shift from ke to e would not be necessary in an ergative language. If one wished to place emphasis on the indirect object, the indirect object must be fronted. The subject, however, becomes embedded in a structure ka/na mea a'u. The form a'u is the a-class genitive form of au.; thus it contains the degree of control necessary for a subject, and a case (genitive) often associated with the ergative. The word ka mea can mean "person" or "thing," but can also mean "cause," an appropriate form for the agent of the sentence. Given the habitual dropping of mea from compound phrases, I would not be surprised if the forms ka mea a'u and ka'u had the same origin. The last example, Na'u keia e haawi aku nei ia oe, places au in a dative form in front of keia. Although Judd defines na'u as a dative,  it does not serve as a marker of the indirect object, but rather means "for me, concerning me, on account of me." The sense "on account of me" approaches, but perhaps does not reach, the degree of control that an ergative language might use.

Hawaiian is a nominative-accusative language, but with structures that betray its ancestral ergativity.



Monday, February 20, 2012

Virtual Unrealities

In preparation for Wednesday's book club, I scanned my shelves and discovered that my Bester collection d of two books, The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man. Even though these are his two most famous science-fiction novels, it seemed remiss of the organizer to have never read any short stories of Bester. So I headed down to Borderlands Bookstore and a bought a copy of Virtual Unrealities. The majority of the stories were written in the early years of Bester's career, but the explosive creativity.

"Disappearing Act" feels almost like a Twilight Zone episode, with a small cast and the true conclusion left to the intelligence of the reader. "Oddy and Id" has loads of Freudian psychology, and is most interesting as a study for The Demolished Man. "Star Light, Star Bright" reads as an episode of the Twilight Zone. "5,271,009" is about choices and maturity, but with the patented Bester craziness. "Fondly Fahrenheit" is a fun story, but the mystery in it is a little thin; more importantly, there are no clues before the big reveal. "Hobson's Choice" is an excellent reflection on the illusion of a better future or past. I do find the meaning of the protagonist's name, Addyer, refreshingly appropriate. "Of Time and Third Avenue" is a pleasant little time story, dedicated, I suspected, to Damon Knight. "Time Is The Traitor" is my favorite story in the collection, although bythis point I am beginning to suspect that Bester has a probability and statistics fetish. The ending is bittersweet, but utterly logical. "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed" did not strike me especially forcefully, but I'm not fond of those sort of endings - I also may have read it before.  I can't say much about "Pi Man," since I lost interest in it almost immediately.  "They Don't Make Life Like They Used To" is a post-apocalyptic tale in which the protagonist has reverted to a childish mentality. I read "The Flowered Thundermug" and enjoyed it, but am at a total loss how to describe it - comparison to Idiocracy plus a crime caper seems inadequate. "Adam and Eve" is another post-apocalyptic travel narrative, whose smoking gun is one I had never considered. I do wonder, though, why iron features so strongly in many early science-fictional devices when its most dramatic reaction is to rust in the presence of oxygen. "3 1/2 To Go" is a fragment, but gives a sense of what other freaks might be in Guy Fourmyles' Four Mile Circus. The following story, "Galatea Galante," covers the circus angle well, and provides an interesting example of synaesthesia in the musical "speech" of the Siren.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

The Giving Grammar, Part I

Hawaiian is classified as a VSO (verb-subject-object) or VAP (verb-agent-patient) language. Thus a word order of VSOI, where I = indirect object, is the default order. The sentence
(1) Ke haawi aku nei au i keia ia oe (VSOI)
means "I give this to you", without emphasis on any of the nouns. If the important noun is the agent  ("I"), au moves to a position before the verb complex ke haawi aku nei and receives the common emphatic particle o - the w of owau is an excrescent consonant inserted for ease of pronunciation. The sentence
(2) Owau ke haawi aku nei i keia ia oe (SVOI)
means "I give this to you." This transformation is fairly straightforward. If, however, the important noun is the patient ("this"), i keia moves to a position before the verb and receives the emphatic particle o, but this does not produce
(3a) *O keia ke haawi aku nei au ia oe (OVSI)
as "I give this to you." The patient cannot travel to the other side of the verb without the agent (a travel agent, perhaps?). The agent changes from the nominative case form au to the possessive case, a-class form ka'u; thus the phrase O keia ka'u means "This is mine." O keia may be the important noun here, but it is still not the agent, so Hawaiian change the verb complex ke haawi aku nei to the "infinitive" form e haawi aku nei. When the patient is the important noun, the sentence
(3b) O keia ka'u e haawi aku nei ia oe (OsVI)
means "This is mine to give to you," or, more simply, "I give this to you." One benefit of this structure is the clear delineation of the role of each noun. If the indirect object ("you") is the important noun, oe moves to a position before the verb and receives the emphatic particle o. There is a hitch, however, in this part of Hawaiian grammar: both objects, direct and indirect, receive the preposition i and ia. This similarity probably aids in greater flexibility, but it also creates difficulties. If one treated the direct object and indirect object identically in syntax, the sentence
(3b) O keia ka'u e haawi aku nei ia oe (OsVI)
could also mean "I give you to this" as well as "I give this to you." This is not acceptable to Hawaiian syntax. The agent travels with the indirect object to the land before the verb (in the infinitive form); the indirect.object receives the emphatic particle, and the nominative form of the agent, au, becomes the phrase ka mea a'u; a'u is a genitive case, a-class form. ka mea means "the person," "the thing," or "the cause," so it is well-suited to express the agent. The sentence
(4) O oe ka mea a'u e haawi aku nei i keia (ISVO)
means "I give this to you." The phrase ka mea is not a grammatical fossil: "They give this to you" in this structure would be
(4b) O oe na mea a lakou e haawi aku nei i keia (ISVO), with na, the plural definite article rather than the singular form ka. The grammatical ability to distinguish between possessive and genitive cases seems very important in the last two structures.

There is one last sentence structure which Hawaiian uses to place emphasis on the agent. In this structure, the nominative case au moves to a position before the verb and changes to the dative case, a-class form na'u; keia accompanies au, losing the i but not acquiring the the emphatic o , because it is not the important noun. The sentence

(5) Na'u keia e haawi aku nei ia oe (SOVI)
means "By me this is given to you" or more simply, "I give you this." Once again, all three roles are clearly marked.by position and grammatical case.


 

Friday, February 17, 2012

Conditional Love

I'm writing this in response to a comment about my post très romantique on Facebook, since there is much confusion between the imparfait, the futur, and the conditionnel. I recieved a lesson on the conditionnel on Thursday, and there is no better teacher than explaining it to others.
The imparfait is formed from the first plural present root (the third plural present works most of the time, but not always - the imparfait of of aller is allait, not *vait) and the endings -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, and -aient. Since this is French, the first three endings and the last are pronounced identically (for a long time, I have wanted to ask a typologists about French). So, if we take the verb danser (which, I am ashamed to admit, I misspelled in the post), the first plural present is nous dansons and the root is dans-. If we attach the imperfect endings, we get:
L'Imparfait
je dansais
tu dansais
il dansait
nous dansions
vous dansiez
ils dansaient

The futur, on the other hand, is formed from the infinitive and endings drawn from the present form of avoir: -ai, -as, -a, -ons, -ez, and -ont. Some endings, of course, are homophonous; in this case, the first and fifth, the second and third, and the fourth and last. If we attach these endings, we get:
Le Futur
je danserai
tu danseras
il dansera
nous danserons
vous danserez
ils danseront

The conditionnel is formed from the infinitive and the imparfait endings. So, one conjugates the conditionnel thus:
Le Conditionnel
je danserais
tu danserais
il danserait
nous danserions
vous danseriez
ils danseront
 

The irregular verbs are a source of confusion for the conditionnel. The imparfait of il va is il allait, the futur is il ira, and the conditionnel is il irait. These four forms have distinct pronounciations. In the first person singular, however, the forms are je vais, j'allais, j'irai, and j'irais. The futur and the conditionnel have the same pronunciation but different spellings. Homophony in spoken language is more common than many realize, and does not significantly inhibit comprension, but the overlap of the forms of the futur and the conditionnel illustrates the conceptual connection between the conjugations. The forms of aller are laid out below:
Le Futur
j'irai
tu iras
il ira
nous irons
vous irez
ils iront
Le Conditionnel
j'irais
tu irais
il irait
nous irions
vous iriez
ils iraient

The tense structure of a conditional clause is a bit bizarre to those of us accustomed to Latin and Greek. The conditionnel is not used in the protasis (the if-clause, the clause which actually establishes the condition), but in the apodosis (the then-clause). The French protasis uses the imparfait. Thus, Si j'avais d'argent, je voyagerais à Hawaii means "If had had money (but I don't), I would have gone to Hawaii." My professor anthropomorphizes this match between the imparfait and the conditionnel as les temps qu'ils s'aiment, "the tenses which love each other."

The other use of the conditionnel is one that my professor did not describe as conditional, but certainly seems so to me: the phrase au cas où, "if it be the case that," establishes a condition. The verb after au cas où must be conditionnel. So, the sentence J'ai acheté les etiquettes au cas où tu voudrais voir l'opéra means "I have bought the tickets in case you would like to see the opera."
 
I hope that clears up any confusion.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The Stars My Destination

The Stars My Destination - formally known as Tiger! Tiger! - an apocalyptic, pyrotechnic proto-cyberpunk novel, explosive in its language. The story of Gully Foyle, a worthless piece of meat in human form who transcends his inutility. A treatise on the potential of the common man.

The Stars My Destination is an enjoyable read. It incorporates many of the motifs of cyberpunk without overwhelming the reader without singularity self-pleasuring. The sociological examination of the fallout from a revolutionary discovery (jaunting) is detailed and well thought out. The inversion of the usual direction of one-way telepathy is ingenious, and the neo-Skoptsy sect sends shivers down the spine. The pace leaves one breathless.

There are, however, certain portions which have not aged well. The preoccupation of science fiction writers in the 1950's and 1960's with clowns and circuses lacks the same resonance in an age when the only well-known circus is pretentious and French-Canadian. Although the theme of corporate clans is remarkably relevant today, the use of actual company names in a work of fiction tarnishes the facade. The social attitudes are remarkably dated for the Western World, but at least Bester provides an in-story explanation.

When a book opens with a poem, it's never an accident, but often a thesis or an indication of the flavor of the narrative. Ignore it at your peril.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

The Worlds of Jack Vanth

Yesterday, I did some back-of-the-napkin exercises (with the aid of Wikipedia) related to my Teylothia 'verse. When I created it, the Pluto-Charon system was (to quote a favorite series) "all alone in the night." This isolation required that I create a string of O'Neill stations at the Lagrange points. I named them thematically after Greek words beginning with "far." Now, however, this setup is no longer feasible (I'm not referring to the space station design, which was always a stylistic choice). If the Orcus-Vanth system were the only other system in the classic Kuiper Belt, I could have reduced the five stations to four and rested. There are, however, an abundance of minor planets which occupy what I once called "Pluto-orbit." The name "Hadean League," however can remain, since IAU naming rules still allow it to be appropriate. The minor planets under the (provisional) version of the Hadean League, in order of perihelion, are:
1. Pluto (29.65 AU)
2. Orcus (30.27 AU)
3. Makemake (38.509 AU)
4. Ixion (39.68 AU)
5. Varuna (40.494 AU)
6. Quaoar (41.69 AU)
7. Haumea (43.132 AU)
That makes seven worlds, rather than my original six. Sedna (76 AU) is too far out, even at perihelion. Eris is a toss-up. It is certainly within the sphere of the Hadean League at perihelion (37.77 AU), but at aphelion (97.56 AU) it is much farther out. Perhaps that is the key to Eridian conflict with the Hadean League. Scenario: the Eridians are proud of being big and different; the Plutonians are proud of being the first-discovered, but resentful of the demotion; the Orceans think the Plutonians are full of BS, and prefer to side with the Eridians; the Eridians, however, have almost as much contempt for the Orceans and the other Hadean League members as they do for Plutonians. The Quaoarites (Quaoarians) are stereotyped as prudish and judgmental, the Ixionidae are back-stabbing, ungrateful philanderers, the Varunans are good upright people, the Makemakeans are the most attractive, and Haumeans are short, fertile, intensely loyal people.

If the chronology of the Teylothia 'verse remains the same, Sedna is at about 160 AU, or a journey of over three decades by my original reckoning, in which Luna to Pluto is a five-year journey.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Which Way Which?

Now that I've finally reached the chapters in Judd that deal with more interesting grammar, I am much happier.

A monolingual English-speaker (aka "American") might not realize this, but the structure of the relative clause in English (who/whom/whose/which/what) is remarkably free. English allows nearly component of a clause to become the pivot on which the subordinate clause hinges. Other languages, such as Biblical Hebrew, have only one form; thus the English sentence "I saw the fish which the man caught" becomes "Saw I the fish which the man caught it." Biblical Hebrew's construction is fairly simply compared to the hoops some languages jump through: languages that have cases but insist that the relative particle be in one case (nominative or ergative, depending on the overall linguistic structure) can twist themselves into knots if the pivotal noun is not the actual subject of both sentences.

Hawaiian uses a relative particle, but is not a fan of relative clauses. In many domains, places where one could use a relative particle prefer a particle associated with the main clause. There are, however, three places where a relative particle is mandatory. The first case:
Na mea ana i ike ai. The things which he saw.
A rougher, but perhaps more illuminating, translation would be "The things of him (inalienable), past see which." The subject of the subordinate clause ("he") cannot stand its normal main clause position directly following the verb within the subordinate clause, since the relative particle ai is occupying that slot; nor can it take its normal main clause position in the main clause, since the noun phrase na mea occupies that position. A relative particle, however, is useless without a noun or pronoun to relate to, so the subject of the subordinate clause ("he") transforms and becomes an a-class genitive modifying the subject of the main clause. A-class genitives and possessives seem to be popular choices for grammatical transformations in Hawaiian.
The second case:
Eia ka mea i make ai na kanaka. Here is the cause from which the men died.
The rough translation would be "Here the cause (mea is a remarkably flexible word, meaning person, thing, or cause) past die which the men." Ai is used here because it replaces means, cause, or instrument. I am not entirely sure why ai precedes na kanaka - perhaps it is part of the verb complex, or perhaps the relative particle needs to be as close to its antecedent as possible.
The third case:
I ka la a makou i hiki mai ai. On the day when we came.
A rough translation would be "On the day when we (plural, exclusive) past come away-from-speaker which."The prepositional phrase i ka la has been fronted and its position occupied by ai. The conflation of time and place, when and where, is so common in language that I wonder if it is not a fundamentally human way of understanding the world. It is worth noting that the subject of the subordinate clause, makou, here precedes its verb, i hiki, even though the default order of the original sentence would be I hiki mai makou i ka la. A different word order in subordinate clauses from main clauses is quite common in the world's languages, but I am not certain why *I ka la a i hiki mai ai makou would be a challenge to a native Hawaiian speaker. It might mean something slightly different, or it might just be one of those things about a language that a tyro must learn.

If these three examples are typical (and I cannot imagine why one would use atypical examples in such a small sample in a teaching grammar), I would not be surprised if ai batted for the verbal team rather that the nominal one, insofar as any Hawaiian word has a firm verbal/nominal distinction; the possibility of replacing ai with the gerund-making particle ana supports this idea. If this were the case, then the three sentences have the following rough translations: "His things seen-which", "Here the cause died-which the men," and "On the day when we (but not you) came-away-from-speaker-which." Additionally, if ai were verbal in this way, it also seems to trigger a loss of valency, changing the verb from transitive to intransitive.



Friday, February 3, 2012

St James Art Show

This Saturday, I attended an art show at St James Episcopal for some very local artists. St James is a pretty little church in its own right, unlike the nuclear plant of St Mary's downtown. It has stained glass windows and dark wooden pews which evoke the comfort of a small traditional church rather than the grandness of Grace Cathedral or the large-university-class feel of some evangelical churches. The plethora of wooden furniture makes the church space more elegant, but also heavier to move. The liturgical space was transformed into a visual spectacle that would have made an Orthodox architect proud.

The three featured artists were Patrick Vennari, John Foster, and Pat Meyer, all of them congregants. Foster practiced the art of what he called keigo, the juxtaposition of image and text, which can include Japanese poetic forms. When I looked up the term, I only found information on Japanese honorifics, so perhaps this is a homophone or perhaps actually a Chinese or Korean term. In general I find it diffiult to correlate East Asian poetic forms and the English language.

Patrick Vennari presented a variety of paintings, including one of a restroom in the park. One would thinki that the restroom would not be a suitable object for painting, but a judiciouscombination of colors and the natural beauty of the park transformed the watercloset into a beautiful watercolor.

Several of the paintings were produced using a procss called giclee, which uses special printers and backing to make photographs seem like paintings. I am reading up on the process, but there is much about visual art that I do not understand. A lot of the giclee images were of local landscapes, and many of them made me yearn for the end of the rain so that I could take a walk out to Ocean Beach.

Pat Meyer makes collages. I don't know where the line is between fiddling and art, but she is on the side of art. I would compare her to Dave McKean, but I'm sure a "serious" artist would take the comparison as an insult. Unlike McKean, her art doesn't give nightmares.

The art show was a success. People mingled. Many paintings and collages sold and there was talk of inviting other artists to do another show. If any artists are interested, Vennari took a film of the show which soon will be on the Saint James website.

Monday, January 30, 2012

My Forgotten Universe

I was so happy about the success of my science fiction book club that I rented some more episodes of The Big Bang Theory. As I was watching, the Asimovian currents continued to percolate in my brain, along with a recurrent nagging born from a lecture I attended at the Commonwealth Club. Then I remembered I had written three stories in what is generally referred to the Teylothia Universe inside my head - I have several now, all structurally different, including the Haven Universe (one finished story, one fragment), the Semiramis Universe (two finished stories, several fragments), and the Fortunate Islands Universe (no stories per se, but instead one two-and-a-half-years post-by-post world-changing adventure on CONCULTURE).  I went to one of my drawers and removed a translucent blue folder that contained my Branson Senior Project and related material in 1994. Three of the stories were in the TU, although the set was different from that which I remembered. Certainly, In His Own Land, set on the namesake O'Neill colony, was there (the colonies of the 'verse were based on '70s science fiction). The second story, X, set on the Teylothia's fellow Hadean (NB: in-universe term) colony of Telebios, was there also. The third story was not the twenty-page fragment  (all political dialogue - perhaps I'd been reading Dune) set on Pluto, that I had thought.  It was a post-by-post story, Third's the Charmer , written on VEBLEN, set on yet another Hadean colony (Telemachus), featuring an murder charge against a member of a yet another colony (Telephorus). Given the set up of the colony ring structure, that leaves me with two options for the last corner of the hexagon: another O'Neill colony with a name starting with Tele- or the dwarf planet system of Orcus and Vanth. I'm tempted to "complete the set" and leave Orcus-orbit for a different theme. It would be easy to expand the 'verse to include the new dwarf planets in a natural fashion, but I still have one colony space left in Pluto orbit before I need to expand.

So far I have only skimmed the stories. I need to re-read them for several reasons. I need to examine the style. Although I have a timeline for In His Own Land, I need to prepare a rough timeline/summary of events. It really is a 'verse, so the interactions are significant, and my original notes are long gone. I also need to brush up on the technological terms and "current" social structure of the 'verse - I haven't calculated it precisely, but a cursory glance at birth dates and vaguely expressed ages suggests that Third's the Charmer occurs almost a century after the events of In His Own Land.

There were two other stories in the packet, Cogito and Those Who Wait. Cogito is a hologram story (written before Voyager aired), and might fit well with one possible development of the Teylothia Universe. It would be a dark development, but then the whole 'verse seems to lean that way - so far there have been incidents of suicide, fanaticism, murder charges, and botched experiments, and mentions of vandalism, promiscuity, and potential political unrest. Enjisi, the protagonist (and I remember Mrs. Moore disputing the term) of Those Who Wait, are on a wholly different scale, and may a different 'verse altogether. She (Enjisi, not Mrs. Moore) may require a different tack.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Calvinist Confession

I relented and read the latest Robot book authorized by the Asimov estate - although its presence on the Mechanics Institute Library new acquistions shelf might have been a factor. I, Robot: to protect is the first in a trilogy featuring Susan Calvin. This volume's author is Mickey Zucker Reichert (I do not know if the plan is similar to the Foundation series additions, in which each volume had a separate author). Prequels in particular activate my skepticism gland, since predetermination can sap the suspense from a story, or even worse, make additions that violate the ethos of the pre-existing corpus (I'm looking at you, midi-chlorians!).

In this case, however, the plot and background feel like a much-needed updating of Asimovian history of robotics - he admitted and rued many of the errors in conception that he made before the invention of the computer field. The reset of the timeline does not bother me - there is a little-known timeline in Let's Buy Jupiter and Other Stories, an admittedly pale imitation of Heinlein's Future History, which featured a Solar System-centricity and the presence of numerous alien species, and is thus fundamentally incompatible with the Robot-Empire-Foundation universe established later. Compared to that contrast, the change of chronology in I, Robot: to protect is a soft reset, even if it demolishes my favorite conceit that Susan Calvin (b. 1984) is in my same age set and intellectual impi. The temporal reset unfortunately will not discourage some fans from trying to shoehorn the new timeline into the Robot-Empire-Foundation series. I, on the other hand, regard it as a new timeline.

I do not reach these conclusion on Calvin's birthdate alone. The modus operandi of to protect seems to be incorporate and tighten the various strands of the original stories as much as possible, as reboots of a franchise often do. Susan lives with her father, John Calvin (an Asimovian joke indeed), a roboticist at U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men, who bears a resemblance in his eating habits to Stephen Byerley. Susan already possesses the waspish tongue that was one of her first character traits. She is, of course, plain, but no so much that all men overlook her. The Society for Humanity is present and performing its dramatic function as an all-purpose extreme protest group. The original profession of Susan is psychologist, which is a logical ex post facto  extrapolation, but the hospital in which she works contains several threads from the short stories. The nanobots (did Asimov coin that term too?) are deployed differently than poor Mike the nanobot, and Nate the hospital robot seems to fulfill the role of romantic rival and enabler of Susan's (as yet) mild robophilia, more Herbie than Lenny. Even Susan's interest in the oppositie sex has precedent in the short stories, although there it remained unrequited.

Most of the action in to protect establishes Susan's intelligence and personality, and creates a mystery of nanorobot and human interaction for following volumes. Reichardt, thankfully, writes dialogues that is a little less flat than Asimov - in short stories, Asimov's prose works well, but it becomes tedious in longer works (such as Robots and Empire). In short, it accomplishes the fundamental tasks of the intial volume of a trilogy: establish the main character, the main conflict or mystery, and entice the reader to return.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Hawaiian Grammar Review, Part 2


Judd's pseudo-Latin approach leads him to construct a table pronominal declensions. This table is limited to the singular; at this point I can only speculate that the duals and plurals do not have “cases.” Judd might have said that the dual and plural forms in all “cases” are identical, congruent with the nineteenth century belief that English was a marginal case language because the pronouns distinguish subject, object, and possessive.



First Singular Second Singular Third Singular
Nominative owau
au
oe oia
ia
Genitive a'u
o'u
au
ou
ana
ona
Possessive ka'u
ko'u
kuu
kau
kou
kana
kona
Dative na'u
no'u
nau
nou
nana
nona
Accusative ia'u
io'u nei/la
ia oe
i ou nei/la
ia ia
i ona la
Ablative 1 (Agent/Means) ma o'u nei/la ma ou nei/la ma ona nei/la
Ablative 2
(Separation)
mai o'u aku/mai mai ou aku/mai mai ona aku/mai
Ablative 3 (Accompaniment) me au me oe me ia
Ablative 4
(Agent with Passive Verb)
e au e oe e ia

The Genitive, Possessive, Dative, and Accusative cases are conflations of the simple prepositions a/o, ka/ko, and na/no with a following pronoun, with the exception of the 'affectionate' possessive first singular form kuu. The alienable/inalienable distinction percolates through these forms. The separation of Genitive and Possessive is a marginal but understandable feature of Indo-European languages (my/mine, vester/vestri/vobis). The surprising feature is the four types of ablative, since the first two types are merely a simple preposition plus an alienable Genitive, and the last two are a simple preposition plus the nominative form (nei and la, aku and mai are particles called directionals, and are not limited to these pronominal structures).


Prepositions, in all languages have both simple and compound forms. The compound forms in Hawaiian have this structure: ma/i- + a grammaticalized noun + o (the alienable genitive). This structure is, in essence, no difference from the English compound preposition because of, which is derived transparently from the phrase be the cause of. The diminution of the locative forms from three to two is not surprising, since the Ablative (mai) is always the first to be sacrificed on the altar of Simplicity. The usual choice of o rather than a as the connecting preposition is logical; if an object (e.g., a spearhead) that is inside you must be specified to be inside you, it is probably not an inherent part of your body! If it is an inherent part of your body, you could just use a possessive. Thus, Ke ike nei au i ka pahi maloko o ka maka a ke kanaka, "I see the knife in the eye of the man," in which the knife does not belong in the eye, but the eye is an intrinsic part of the man.

The article in Hawaiian has two allophones (variants), ka and ke. The determination of which one to use differs in Judd from modern sources, but that could be the result of local variation; the differences have never caused me any problems in identifying the article. I have laid out Judd's distribution below, in which # indicates the beginning of the noun, and C indicates that a noun begins with a consonant (except k or p), which receive their own entries. Most entries in the first column use only one form, although three use both, either for euphony or semantic distinction.



Ka Ke
#a x x
#e x

#i x

#o x x
#u x

#C x

#k

x
#p x x


Hawaiian articles come in three flavors: definite (the), semi-definite (a certain, some), and indefinite (a).These articles have only two grammatical numbers, singular and plural. Do you notice that something is missing? In languages with dual number (such as Greek and Hebrew), the dual is often absent outside of the pronominal system and the plural provides for singular and dual. The definite singular articles, ka and ke, you have already met. The definite plural is na, which occurs the name Na Pali, the Cliffs, a particularly scenic royal preserve on Kaua'i.
The semi-definite plurals are kekahi, kahi, hookahi, and wahi. All of these forms are based on the increasing compound of wahi. One of the compound prepositions is kahi, "there where," a conflation of ka wahi. kekahi prefixes the definite article, while hookahi adds a primarily verbal prefix.
The indefinite singular article is he; there are four different indefinite plural articles, the distinctions of which Judd does not describe, consistent with his purpose of instilling basic comprehension of the language. They must have different connotations, however, because the example sentences use a variety, both alone and in combination.




Singular Plural
Definite ka
ke
na
Semi-Definite kekahi
kahi
hookahi
wahi


Indefinite he mau
poe
pae
puu