Poem (One More Year)

I want to post my last poem. It was written to my wife to commemorate our wedding anniversary. I hope you enjoy it.

One More Year

Life can go fast
With you by my side,
One more year has passed
Since the day you were my bride.

With you I see my hopes and fears,
Moments experienced together,
Sorrow and joy in our tears,
As we journey through life further.

With you our world becomes wonderful,
Filled with fragrance and colour.
With you I feel so grateful,
We have so much to discover.

Though barriers can slow our journey,
We can conquer every problem and fear.
You are my love, my strength, my energy.
Thank you for treasures of one more year.

The poem consists of four stanzas with four verses each. The odd and even verses of each stanza rhyme with one another. In the poem One More Year I compare time spent together to treasure.

L-vocalization in Italian

One of the phonological features which differentiates Italian from other Romance languages is l-vocalization. Many languages have l-vocalization in the syllable coda, but Italian exemplifies the process in the syllable onset. The original consonant cluster of Latin became a sequence of a consonant and vowel in Italian. L-vocalization in Italian can be illustrated by comparing the vocabulary of French and Italian. Here are examples:

blanc bianco (white)
clair chiaro (clear)
clef chiave (key)
fleur fiore (flower)
fleuve fiume (river)
plaisir piacere (pleasure)
plat piatto (plate)
pluit pioggia (rain)
plus più (more)
temple tempio (temple)

The examples illustrate that many consonant clusters in French are a consonant and vowel in Italian. This is the result of l-vocalization. The consonant clusters are also preserved in Spanish in words such as blanco (white) and flor (flower). In Portuguese the consonant cluster often has an r as in branco (white) and prato (plate). The feature of l-vocalization is one which serves to distinguish Italian from other Romance languages.

Resignation after 13 Moves

In a game of speed chess, my opponent resigned after only 13 moves. He was Anotherperson99 of the USA, who played white. Here are the moves of the game along with my commentary:

1. d4 Nf6
2. Bf4 d6
3. Nf3 Bf5

White usually plays Nc3 before Nf3. This allows the move e4.

4. e3 Nc6
5. c3 e6

I have more development than white.

6. Nh4 Bg6
7. Nxg6 hxg6

I have doubled pawns, but I have opened the a-file for my rook.

8. Be2 Qd7
9. Nd2 Be7
10. Qb3 0-0-0
11. Bb5 a6
12. Be2 e5

I play e5 in the hope of creating a double attack.

13. dxe5 dxe5

Black's move is a blunder. He should play Bg5.

Now the bishop on f4 and the knight on d2 are under attack. White cannot save both pieces. Unable to avoid the loss of a piece, white decides to resign.

Feminine Gender in Norwegian

The use of feminine gender in Norwegian varies from one dialect to another. In the dialect of Bergen, it is not used at all. In west Oslo, many speakers also never use feminine gender. In these cases, only the common and neuter genders are used. In other dialects, however, feminine gender is often used.

For the vast majority of Norwegians, feminine gender is common in the following words:

bygd (town)
dame (lady)
geit (goat)
hytte (cottage)
jente (girl)
kone (wife)
ku (cow)
myr (marsh)
stue (living room)
øy (island)

The definite article for nouns with feminine gender is -a. For example, the sentence I like the cottage is Jeg liker hytta. For speakers who do not use feminine gender, the suffix is -en. This is the same suffix that is used for nouns with common gender. With this suffix, the sentence I like the cottage is Jeg liker hytten.

Most Norwegians use three genders- common, neuter and feminine. However, the use of feminine gender varies from one dialect to another. In Oslo, it is used far more in the east than in the west.

Genitive Semantic Types

Many associate genitives with possession, but in fact only a fraction of genitive constructions express a possessive relationship. Five genitive types can be identified. They are possessive, subject, object, part/whole and measure.

The following sentences provide examples of possessive genitives:

The child's bicycle was stolen.
Their yacht is beautiful.
Mary's shoes are new.

Subject genitives express a relationship similar to that of a subject and predicate. Here are examples:

William Shakespeare's plays are famous.
The professor's lecture was boring.
The man's explanation was not credible.

In object genitives, the relationship of the genitive to the noun that it modifies is like the relationship of a direct object and its verb. Here are examples:

Carl's promotion made him happy.
She was shocked by her friend's murder.
The city's devastation was unprecedented.

The following sentences provide examples of part/whole genitives:

The roof of the house was damaged by the storm.
The top of the table is new.
The cover of the book is torn.

With genitives of measure, the term of measurement is the noun head. Here are examples:

The circumference of the earth is 40,075 kilometres.
He forgot the weight of the package.
The length of the trial surprised many.

Genitives are often identified with possession. Possessive genitives can be further divided into two types, alienable and inalienable. Besides possession, however, four other types can be expressed. English used to mark all genitive nouns with the inflection suffix -s but after the Norman invasion, Modern English uses both inflection and the preposition of to mark genitive relationships.

Foot-Strut Split in England

The foot-strut split refers to the different vowels in the words foot and strut. In early modern English the vowel of strut changed from rounded to unrounded. The foot-strut split is common in most varieties of English. However, in England many speakers do not have the split.

In southern England, the vowels of foot and strut are different. However, in central and northern England, the words are pronounced with the same vowel. It is the back unrounded vowel of book. The dialects of central and northern England retain an older form of English. The words foot and strut have the same vowel because words such as strut preserve the original foot vowel.

The following words have the foot vowel in the dialects of central and northern England:

but
cup
enough
flood
love
luck
nut
one
plum
us

Most dialects of English have the foot-strut split. In central and northern England, however, the split does not occur. Though the split is common in Ireland, it is neutralized by many Irish speakers. Speakers of central and northern England lack the foot-strut split because they preserve the original foot vowel.

Bahamian English

Bahamian English is a variety of English spoken in the Bahamas. Despite the proximity of Bahamas to the United States, the accent is non-rhotic and shares a number of features which are different from those of American English. As with other forms of Caribbean English, the dialect has been influenced by African languages and has its own creole.

In Bahamian English, the interdental fricatives of words such as the and through are often replaced with alveolar plosives. This process is known as th-stopping. The /v/ of words such as village is often pronounced as a /w/ and the /h/ is often dropped. The final vowel of words such as happy is often pronounced with a lax vowel. As in parts of the United States, the pin-pen merger occurs.

Bahamian English is a variety of Caribbean English. Phonological features of the dialect include h-dropping and th-stopping. The dialect has the pin-pen merger and is non-rhotic.

Belarusian

Belarusian is a Slavic language, which along with Russian, is official in Belarus. Though Belarusian is an official language of Belarus, the majority of Belarusians speak Russian as their first language.  Belarusian is closely related to other East Slavic languages, especially Ukrainian.

Though Belarusian and Russian are similar, the two languages differ significantly in orthography. Belarusian has a phonetic orthography that closely represents the surface phonology, and Russian orthography represents the underlying phonology. This can be seen in akanye, the merger of unstressed /a/ and /o/, which exists in both Belarusian and Russian. Belarusian always spells the merged sound as /a/, but Russian uses either /a/ or /o/, depending on the underlying phoneme.

Belarusian, Ukrainian, Russian and Polish share a high degree of mutual intelligibility. The Belarusian language has 80% mutual intelligibility with Ukrainian, 75% with Russian and 41% with Polish.  Belarusian is thus most closely related to Ukrainian.

The Belarusian language has two main dialects, the northeastern and the southwestern. The northeastern dialect is characterized by a soft /r/ and strong akanye, and the southwestern dialect by a hard /r/ and moderate akanye.

Belarusian and Russian are both official languages of Belarus. Though Belarusian and Russian are similar to one another. Belarusian is closest to Ukrainian. Belarusian and Ukrainian both share akanye, the merger of unstressed /a/ and /o/, a feature which does not occur in Ukrainian.