Panini Linguistics Olympiad 2014 (SENIORS)

Round 1, 11th January 2015

Solutions to the Problems

Problem #1: Evolution of Nna

The bottom-most form of the phylogenetic tree are the modern scripts. The Bengali glyph seems most

similar to the Odiya glyph. Therefore, 18 must be Odiya. Tamil and Malayalam glyphs are similar and have

3 loops; so does the Kannada and Telugu glyphs. (You could also argue that the four South Indian scripts

are likely to evolve from a common ancestor, and the same must hold true for the five North Indian

scripts). Therefore, 19 and 20 are Tamil and Malayalam (in any order). Gujarati and Hindi glyphs are

similar, and should fit in boxes 16 and 17. The remaining one Gurumukhi/Punjabi should then occupy box

15. Then work upward the tree by choosing the forms which is most similar to all its successors. For

example, glyph H is most similar to Hindi and Gujarati. Therefore, it is the obvious choice for 12. Similarly,

B and E are most similar to Malayalam and Tamil glyphs (3 loops) and are a natural choice for box 14 and

its predecessor, 11.

Box Number

Glyph letter (A-N) or Language Name

Box Number

Glyph letter (A-N) or Language Name

1 F 11 B or E

2 I 12 H

3 J 13 N

4 D or M 14 E or B

5 G 15 Punjabi/Gurumukhi

6 M or D 16 Hindi/Devanagari or Gujarati

7 C 17 Gujarati or Hindi/Devanagari

8 K 18 Odiya

9 A 19 Tamil or Malayalam

10 L 20 Malayalam or Tamil Assignment 2:

Printing Technology In the ancient times, manuscripts were hand-written. Minor changes in the glyph forms introduced during copying accumulated over time and eventually the forms of the glyphs changed significantly leading to different scripts from a single ancestor. However, with the advent of printing technology, glyph forms were copied and transmitted down the generations faithfully. There were no change in the forms thereafter and the natural evolution of scripts stopped.

Problem #2: Pashto

If you group the sentences according to tense and aspect (“have broken” is perfect aspect, whereas “is

breaking” is imperfect or continuous), you would observe the following patterns:

● The verb form depends on tense and aspect.

● In the imperfective aspect, there is only one verb – the main verb.

○ In the present imperfective, the verb agrees with the subject.

○ In the past imperfective, the verb agrees with the object.

● Window and door belongs to two different noun classes (similar to Hindi – where window or

khirki is feminine and door or darwaazaa is masculine), so they agree with different verb forms.

● In the present perfective, there is a main verb (e.g., broken) and an auxiliary verb (e.g., has).

○ the main verb agrees with the object

○ the auxiliary agrees with the subject.

The verb forms for “break” are as follows:

Subject Object = door Object = window

Aspect You (2nd person)

Sangin (3rd person)

Singular Plural Singular Plural

Present Imperfect

maatawey maatawi -- -- -- --

Past Imperfect

-- -- NA maatawel NA maataweli

Present Perfective

-- -- maat NA maata maati

Auxiliary key ki -- -- -- --

NA: Data not available to infer these forms.

Assignment Pashto Translations 1) You have broken the door. Taaso war maat key

2) You have broken the doors. Cannot be translated because the verb form cannot be inferred from the data.

3) Sangin has broken the windows. Sangin kerkeyi maati ki

4) Sangin is breaking the doors. Sangin waruna maatawi

5) You are breaking the door. Taaso war maatawey

6) Sangin was breaking the door. Cannot be translated because the verb form canot be inferred from the data.

7) You were breaking the windows. Taaso kerkeyi maataweli

Problem #3: Mnemonic Major System

In the Mnemonic Major System, each digit corresponds to a consonant sound (which might be

represented by one or more consonant letters). The vowels (a, e, i, o, u), as well as the semivowels (y, w)

are not encoded in the numbers; rather they are used appropriately so as to form meaningful words

from the consonant sequences derived from the number. Other rules are as follows:

The letter h is also ignored during encoding. The pronunciation of the letter is considered during the encoding. Thus, the sequence ph in the

word elephant is encoded as 8, which is for the sound f.

The mappings of the sounds to the digits are as follows.

Digit Consonant Sound (in IPA)

0 /s/ /z/

1 /t/ /d/ /θ/ /ð/

2 /n/

3 /m/

4 /r/

5 /l/

6 /ʃ/ /ʒ/ /tʃ/ /dʒ/

7 /k/ /ɡ/

8 /f/ /v/

9 /p/ /b/

Problem #4: Turkish News and Conversation

In Turkish,

1. There are two forms of the verb in past tenses: direct and indirect

2. The suffixes di/dı/dü indicate the direct form

3. The suffixes miş/mış/müş indicate the indirect form

4. The form of the suffix that is used depends on the vowel preceding it.

Preceding Vowel Vowel in Suffix

a ı

i i

ü ü

Assignment Answer Assignment 1: Which is the original

report? 1 or 2 Report 2

Assignment 2: Translate to English From the data provided in the problem, it should be possible to translate the underlined phrases, except for the parts in the parenthesis.

Bakan yorum yapmaya müsait değilmiş. The minister was not available (for comment).

Daha önce hastaymış, şu an iyileşiyor. He was sick (and) is (now) recovering.

12 Mart'ta şehir merkezinde görülmüş. He was seen at the town centre on

12th March.

Bakan en son 12 Mart'ta şehir

merkezinde görüldü.

The minister was (last) seen at the town centre on

12th March.

Gazetemiz ona ulaşmaya çalıştığında

yorum yapmaya müsait değildi.

(When our newspaper tried to contact him, he) was not

available (for comment)

Daha önce hastaydı, şu an iyileşiyor. (He) was sick earlier, but is recovering (now).

Mnemonic Phrases

Numbers Mnemonic Phrases

Numbers

short striped

zebra 64,101,491,094 cat dog 7,117

moon cash 3,276 grey elephant

745,821

Problem #5: Duna Numerals

Duna numerals follow a base 14 system. Malura is the word for 14.

malura X means 14X

malura X­da Y is 14X + Y

Otherwise, space means addition

Apart from the above form, a number B can also be stated as A A B, where o A is a single word number. o B can be single word or multi-word number o B = A+A

o In such cases, A cannot be malura.

The numbers are: 2 = yaba, 5 = rebu, 6 = raga, 8 = pou, 10 = rabagia, 12 = konane, 14 = malura

Duna Translation Duna Translation Malura yaba 28 Malura-da yaba 16 Konane 12 Rebu rebu rabagia 10

Pou pou malura-da yaba 16 Malura yaba-da pou 36

Malura-da rabagia 24 Yaba 2

Raga raga konane 12 Malura 14

Konane konane malura-da rabagia 24

Assignment 2 70: Malura rebu 112: Malura pou 196: Malura malura

Problem #6: Finnish

Observe that there are three words ending with “kone”: lentokone, hautomakone and tietokone. Three words

beginning with “sähkö”: sähköposti, sähköinen raha, and sähkönkirjoitus; and three words having the

morpheme “puh”: puhua, puhelin and matkapuhelin. Among the English words, to talk, telephone and

cellphone are related. Similarly, computer, incubator and possibly airplane, cellphone and telephone are

related (all some sort of machines). Email and e-cash are also related (and possibly blog); write and type

are also related. Furthermore, observe that the word “posti” sounds similar to post, tekniikka sounds similar

to technology. Based on these observations, you can try to make assumptions of the type: puhua = talk, or

kone = electronic or digital, or tietotekniikka = Information Technology. Then try to relate all the words

based on your assumption. Eventually, you can arrive at the correct mapping.

Finnish English Translation Finnish English Translate. hautoma to hatch lentokone = lento

+ kone airplane = flying + machine

aikamatkailija =

aika + matka + ilija Time traveler = time + journey + doer

sähkönkirjoitus =

sähkön + kirjoitus to type = electronic + write

sähköposti =

sähkö + posti Email = electronic + post

aika time

linja Service tietokone =

tieto + kone computer = information + machine

hautomakone =

hautoma + kone incubator = hatching + machine

puhelin telephone

matkapuhelin =

matka + puhelin cellphone = travel + phone

puhua to talk

nettipäiväkirja =

netti + päiväkirja blog = net + diary

linja-auto Bus

sähköinen raha

e-cash = electronic money

tietotekniikka =

tieto + tekniikka Information Technology

kirjoitus to write Assignment 2 Finnish Translations

Diary PÄIVÄKIRJA

Journey MATKA

Flight / To Fly LENTO

Assignment 3 English Translations

matkatietokone =

matka + tietokone Laptop or tablet (travel + computer)

sähkön electronic or electricity

tieto linja Information Service or Information line

kirjoituskone =

kirjoitus + kone Typewriter (writing + machine)