Re: Sawilan Constructions

On Tue, 10 Aug 1999, Ed Heil wrote:

>
> They might not be.  But I'm very interested in the *how* of language
> use -- what is actually happening in our heads when we use language --
> and not just in writing grammars.  (Yes, I know, it is the duty of all
> young linguists to go out and record dying languages, and so on, but
> I'm not a young linguist, I'm a person who is interested in how
> language works.)  CG and related theories feed those needs far better
> than anything else I've seen.
>
Not only of young linguists - there's no reason an old linguist
couldn't do fieldwork! I'm mainly interested languages and their
variety, I guess. I just love reading about a language that has
suffixes for insistive focus, exclusive focus, restrictive focus
and contrary-to-expectectation focus (Yamphu). What I like best in
any grammar are the interlinear examples...

> I'm not quite sure what a "more standard grammar" would look like,
> but you're welcome to give it a shot.
I'll see - I've written grammars of other people's conlangs before ;-).
Got it all wrong, of course.

>
> If I can trouble you with another short paper, this one fairly meaty
> -- but again, it is not really a linguistics paper, it is more of a
> cognitive science paper with serious linguistics applications.
>
I'll check this one out tonight.


Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt