Re: Simple translation exercise?

Quoting Roger Mills <romilly@...>:

> OnTopic:  Perhaps I'm overly literal-minded, but if you're trying to devise
> or figure out the grammar of your language, you have to start with _really_
> simple (indeed, simple-minded) sentences--
> (Name) ran.  (name) went to (place).  Where is (name/place)?, (name) saw
> (name/object), (name) gave (object) to (name) and so on.  Galba agricola
> est, and it's all uphill from there.
I dunno.  I find that a certain amount of knowledge about
typological tendencies and universals helps out a lot. Got an
SOV language? You have bunches of parameters already set out
for you right there, if you want to follow those lines. Detailed
study of some wacky natural language also helps.

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Thomas Wier            "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
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