Re: Telona grammar, part 1

Wow - thanks to all for your comments - there are so many things I want to
say, but I'll have to keep it brief for today as I've just got in after a
long day and need to sleep :(

Jim Grossmann wrote:
<<<
1)    Even if every root in your language can fill any slot in a
clause--from verb to argument to modifier to connective--have you really
eliminated word classes?   Even if a given word can't be identified as
belonging to a certain class when considered apart from the sentence,
wouldn't the syntax of a given sentence specify what class that word belongs
to in that sentence?
>>>
Absolutely not!  <sorry ... calms down>  That's effectively a circular
argument - if Telona syntax behaved like that of languages that do have
distinct parts of speech, then you would be right; but it doesn't.  Telona
syntax is particularly simple, in part because it doesn't need to take
account of parts of speech.  I haven't told you the most important aspects
of it yet - see part 2, posted yesterday, for more details, but I'm afraid
it would take too long to explain properly now - watch this space for part
3!

<<<
a) Remains poison water.
b) Water poison remains.
c) Poison water remains.
d) Water remains poison.
>>>
I love this example (and might add that (b) and (c) can also be read as
imperative-verb + attributive-noun + noun).  But to me, it relies on
relationships of homonymity between words, the semantic relationships
between which are incidental - compare (a) and (d) with 'Bears poison
water.' and 'Water bears poison.' respectively.  To translate these
sentences into Telona, one would effectively proceed via intermediate
sentences such as:

a) Things that are left over cause water to become poisonous.
b) A poisonous thing intended for water is left over.
c) Poisonous water is left over.
d) Water continues to be poisonous.

The point is that Telona would not use the individual translations of
'remains', 'poison' and 'water' in the translations of the sentences,
because the exmaple depends on carefully exploring the semantic spaces of
the English words, which are not necessarily congruent with those of the
Telona words.  Once semantic fields are defined which fit naturally with the
Telona syntactic rules, the problem disappears.

Perhaps it would be clearer with a real Telona example.  Bearing in mind the
binary branching structure of the Telona phrase, there are (by coincidence!)
four legal permutations of the phrase 'man eats apple':

T:  Týha lome enechini.
Ti: týha lome + cechini
Ei: ((man) (eat + apple))
E:  The man is eating an apple.

T:  Lome týha enechini.
Ti: lome týha + cechini
Ei: ((eat mán) + apple)
E:  Of the eaters, the one who is a man is eating an apple.

T:  Lome enéchini tyha.
Ti: lome + céchini tyha
Ei: ((eat + apple) man)
E:  The eater of the apple is a man.

T:  Céchinos lome tyha.
Ti: céchini - lome tyha
Ei: ((apple) - (eat man))
E:  The apple is being eaten by a man.

Each of these sentences refers to the same situation, and so this example is
not really analogous to 'remains poison water'.  Indeed, there is a very
good reason why it couldn't be -

<<<
I'm skeptical about the prospects of eliminating all distinctions
between word classes even when words are considered apart from sentences,
because I think that semantic constraints would prevent some words from
having the potential to play any grammatical role in a sentence.
>>>
- oh, you got there first!  Yes, this is true, but only insofar as not all
words can meaningfully take +objects.  In the example above, only 'lome'
(eat) can really take a +object, while 'tyha' and 'cechini' will not usually
do so.  However, this is emphatically *not* a syntactic constraint - 'tyha'
and 'cechini' are free to take +objects in metaphorical or poetic language
(cf. the occasional poetic English use of nouns as transitive verbs: 'man
enough to man a woman' is an example (genuine - from the libretto to
Tippett's 'King Priam'), although I'm struggling with 'apple').  So, OK,
there is one constraint on the syntactic equivalence of Telona words - but
it is a semantic, almost a pragmatic constraint.

It would be perfectly possible to design a closer Telona equivalent to the
'poison water remains' example, where each word could take a +object and was
therefore truly free to take any syntactic role.  Erm, let me see:

love = 'nala' ; hate = 'core' ; intolerant (of) = 'besaro'

T:  Bésaro core naula.
Ti: bésaro core + nala
Ei: intolerant hate + love
E:  Intolerant people hate lovers.

T:  Córe nala efasaro.
Ti: córe nala + besaro
Ei: háte love + intolerant
E:  Those who hate love the intolerant.

T:  Nála besaro anire.
Ti: nála besaro + core
Ei: love intolerant + hate
E:  Lovers are intolerant of those who hate.

There are really only three syntactically distinct roles in Telona,
corresponding to the three roles in the above example, and any word which
can take a +object can fill any of them.

<<<
But how can a univocal word meaning "apple" function as anything other than
a noun or an adjective/attributive noun?
Conversely, how can univocal words meaning "in," "because of," or "and"
refer to entities?
>>>
The first question I've already answered.  As for the second: 'in X'
translates as 'thing contained by' + X, and 'because of X' as 'event whose
occurrence is due to' + X.

'And' is quite interesting.  A couple of examples:

T:  se-chèibe s'anèlipi sa-nóimice
Ti: se + chèbe se + càlipi se + nómice
Ei: ((and + lion) ((and + tiger) (and + bear)))
E:  lions and tigers and bears

T:  s'elùhal da sáucha
Ti: se + tyha - da + sácha
Ei: ((and + man) - (remainder + woman))
E:  a man and a woman

In the first example, the possibility is open that there may be other
members of the group, while in the second, it is explicit that the whole
group is described.  The word 'se' (and) refers to the entire group, and
takes as its +object a part of that group.  So, 'se-cheibe' literally means
'a group of entities, one of which is a lion or a number of lions'.  Then,
another similar 'se-' phrase is made to co-refer with the first, so that
'se-chèibe s'anélipi' means 'a group including a lion, which is also a group
including a tiger'.  In the second example, 'da' (remainder) operates on
'se', so that:

T:  da seilúha
Ti: da + se + týha
Ei: (remainder + (and + man))

...means 'the remainder of a group which includes a man'.  Thus, 's'elùhal
da sáucha' means 'a group including a man, of which the remainder is a
woman'.

Yeah, I was quite pleased with 'and'. :)

<<<
3)        If the semantic relationships among your words, like
coferentiality, are all implicit, all specified by context, how can you
avoid rampant ambiguity in utterances of three or more terms?
>>>
Oh, but they're not - as you've probably noticed in the above examples.  One
of the best things about Telona grammar, IMHO, is the way it indicates with
(potentially) absolute unambiguity the precise binary branching structure of
a sentence and the place of each word within it.

<<<
TALL-ONE       WOMAN       EATER        JUMPER

Which interpretation does this utterance have?

a) The tall woman, who is eating, is jumping.
b) The tall one and the woman, who are eating, are jumping.
c) The tall woman is eating the one who jumps.
d) The tall one and the woman are eating the one who jumps.
>>>
Well, the examples involving 'and' will be dealt with by the and-
construction I just mentioned.  As for the others, they could be translated
while keeping the words in the same order, as follows:

T:  Tewe sàcha lóme nerula.
Ti: tewe sàcha lóme nerula
Ei: (((tall woman) eat) jump)
E:  (a) The tall woman, who is eating, is jumping.

T:  Tewe sácha lome neurula.
Ti: tewe sácha lome + nerula
Ei: ((tall woman) (eat + jump))
E:  (c) The tall woman is eating the one who jumps.

These translations are not necessarily particularly idiomatic, but I think
I've made my point. :)

I'll go into detail about the way that the word accents show the sentence
structure in my next 'official' Telona grammar post ... but it's half past
two in the morning now and I have a ward full of sick people to cure
tomorrow.  :))

If anyone's got this far - I hope it helped!

More soon if you wish,
Jonathan.

'O dear white children casual as birds,
Playing among the ruined languages...'
W. H. Auden, 'Hymn to St. Cecilia'
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