• Solo • [FRA] What Happens If I Do This?

aka: It's a dog's life.......

Stronghold of education and learning, this fortress is in one of the coldest areas of Idalos and home to many knowledge seekers in a variety of disciplines. However, unknown to most, below the city are those who suffer for the sake of science. While all are welcome, not everyone will be treated as they expect.

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Virikai Talius
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Posts: 365
Joined: Wed Jun 03, 2015 12:03 am
Race: Eídisi
Profession: Researcher/Student
Renown: 154
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[FRA] What Happens If I Do This?

47th Day of Ashan
718th Arc

Virikai sat once more with a pile of unmarked parchment in from of him, and a damaged book to one side. He certainly could not say that he liked copying books, mundane as it was. To preserve such knowledge beyond the lifespan of the paper was an important and sacred task, but it was a task for green students and Assistant Researchers… not him. But Cognitive Linguistics was an excellent choice of book, and not only because he had not been told which book he had to copy down. The choice was his to make, and so he had chosen something that would help him in his studies, rather than wasting time transcribing something that would ultimately be useless to him.

It wasn't as if copying out the book would be exactly like those hours spent on his knees in front of the fire, pouring over whatever his father had forced him to read anyway. Virikai carefully opened the book, and winced at the damage on the first page. Some words were barely legible - it was as if some barbaric sod had used the old tome as a coaster. sighing, he began to copy out the decipherable parts of the Table of Contents. many of the words were deformed beyond recognition, but he would know them when he hit the relevant chapters. Dreary and dull work, when he thought about it, being a scribe. But Virikai was in no rush, and was excited at the prospect of expanding his own knowledge.

The book turned out to be a sort of encyclopaedia, with a page or two dedicated to each of the major concepts within the world of linguistics. It was huge. He knew that copying it out would be no mere night's work. At least, the young scholar thought to himself as he reached for a new piece of paper, there were no illustrations. Had this been a medical text book, with drawings of the anatomy, or plant sections, Virikai would not have enjoyed this nearly as much.

Linguistics was a vast area of study, he was fast discovering, with a hierarchy of concepts that built a language. First, the smallest units of language were grouped into the categories “phonology” and “phonetics”. Phonology was about the sounds of a language, and how they could be used to convey meaning, an abstract concept: the internal linguistic patterns of sound. Phonetics was slightly more concrete: a term used to describe the sounds of speech, taking into account individual variation, as well as the study of physical production, like manner and place of articulation.

Then came syntax and morphology: the smallest units of… Virikai frowned and stopped writing, confused. He had just written that phonemes were the smallest units, and now this page was telling him something different? He flicked between the pages a few times before uttering a sound of dawning comprehension. Morphology was about grammatical meaning. Morphology described the changes words undergo to reflect meaning in different contexts, whereas syntax denoted the ruled which govern the structure of a language.
word count: 517
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Virikai Talius
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Posts: 365
Joined: Wed Jun 03, 2015 12:03 am
Race: Eídisi
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Renown: 154
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[FRA] What Happens If I Do This?

The bottom of the fifth page (if it was the fifth - Virikai wouldn’t be surprised if he discovered that pages were missing) was difficult to make out; water had deformed it and spread the ink. Virikai copied what he could, doing his best to preserve the spacing and page position of the words as well as the words themselves. A well-copied document should look as much like the original as possible. He didn't know how long it took him to note down the full description of syntax, but he did his best, all the while knowing that there was a gaping hole in his knowledge already forming.


With his reservoir pen poised with new droplets of ink, the young tails scion stared at the next page. His first thought was about who on Idalos decided to come up with all of these abstract terms to describe linguistics. It all made sense, in a way… but at the same time, the scholar finally realised that learning enough about linguistics to dedicate appropriate resources to the new project would be immensely challenging. Still, he was not one to admit defeat, and plundered on, back into this new world his sister so dearly loved.

As he went, so engrossed by the concepts forming in his head, he made a lot of mistakes. Beside him, a pile of errors on parchment grew. He resolved to take it home with him and use the leftover space for theories and interlinking them with what he already knew about medicine. It was the best way to learn, he thought.

Semantics, the next term in the hierarchy, now look at full words, and even larger units (like phrases or discourse). It was the study of signifiers and the relationships between them. It talked about the denotations of signifiers, as well as looking at how meaning is constructed in expressive language and how it can be interpreted and understood by an interlocutor. Leaning back in his chair, Virikai scraped a hand through his hair and sighed. This seemed to be most key to his planned research, yet all of the other areas were also interwoven. there didn’t seem to be any black or white, just multiple shades of grey…

And this was only the beginning - what would happen when Virikai started to dig more deeply into looking at specific languages, which he was going to have to do.

Virikai filled in the last few details on semantics, momentarily grateful for his unwavering endurance and discipline. His desire to constantly learn more, to make a name for himself, to prove himself to Yvithia and to rise in her esteem much like his father had done… it drove him onwards. Eventually, Virikai’s candle burned out.

word count: 459
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Virikai Talius
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Renown: 154
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[FRA] What Happens If I Do This?

He was tempted to light another one and keep going. There was no reason not to. He had not tired yet, and was not hungry. Glancing out of the window, he saw the sky’s light had not yet dimmed. At this season of the arc, it was not late, and he knew Maebella would not be back in their apartments for a number of breaks yet. If he went home, he would probably only end up doing more research, so why not do it here, where he would not have a slave hounding him and asking if he wanted to be served any food or drink every few trills.

No, much better to stay here. Reaching into the drawer, Virikai pulled out another candle and struck the match to relight it. The flickering light didn’t really make much difference to his ability to see the tome or the pieces of parchment, but it soothed him. There was something more intimate about working by candlelight. When he was younger, Virikai had always imagined himself to be one of the first scholars, struggling with merge resources in a world too preoccupied with survival to worry about expansion or knowledge.

He did not hold the same fancies, but the habit had remained with him nonetheless. The final area of linguistics in the hierarchy he was copying down was an area known as pragmatics. It was a subcategory, and very closely related to semantics, it seemed. It examined how context could contribute to meaning, thus studying the true realisation of signifiers in speech. It was about implication, and the connotations of what someone said, how they said it, and how it was interpreted by an interlocutor. Virikai supposed it used not only the words, but the paralinguistic features, body language, expression, tone, to look at the structure of discourse and interaction.

And what it all boiled down to was… this hierarchy, Virikai supposed, was what separated Immortals and the mortal races from animals. Less sentient creatures communicated, of course, but not in the same manner. Abstraction was key - the mortal races had developed higher brain function and ability to learn and grow beyond the natural instincts of survival, territory, food, and carnal activities. Animals were less creative too, though some races also trumped others, Virikai though wryly. Language allowed for arbitrariness and dualism… all of these things allowed for their ultimate dominance of the land, even if they weren’t the strongest of creatures.

Smiling to himself, the lordling thought that it all might slowly be coming together. A lot of it was still lost on him, and the neat intricacies would take a while to truly decipher and retain, but he had no doubt that he would some day succeed, and that day would not be too far in the future. Resting his reservoir pen beside the stack of unused parchment papers, Virikai reached over to screw the lid back onto his ink pot. Then, he delicately closed over the great tome he had been copying from. the desk was his to use, so he knew that, if he left his work out on the desk, it would not be disturbed by any of his colleagues. He could go home and enjoy an evening with his fiancée - whose relationship with him was as strained as ever and needed a fair amount of his attention to maintain a semblance of stability in Maebella’s upturned world. He would return tomorrow, and could then return to the internal debate about whether or not he wanted to enquire about taking on a formal linguistics qualification too.

word count: 603
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Doran Cooney
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[FRA] What Happens If I Do This?

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Virikai Talius, Ice Prince
Knowledges
Discipline: Doing as Told by Superiors
Linguistics: Phonology
Linguistics: Phonetics
Linguistics: Syntax and Morphology
Linguistics: Semantics
Linguistics: Pragmatics

Loot: N/A
Injuries: N/A
Renown: N/A

Points 10
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Highly relevant to my interestsssss! I always love reading about language; especially through the lens of a PC who is able to break things down and mull things over along-side me. Very nice mix of his scribal duties in with his research-oriented proclivities. Good read, and by far the most informative thread I've read to date!
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[center][img]/gallery/image.php?album_id=39&image_id=7932[/img]Doran Cooney[/center]
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