Re: Sawilan Constructions

On Mon, 9 Aug 1999, Ed Heil wrote:

> Well, read _Foundations of Cognitive Grammar,_ Vol. I & II, and then
> tell me if you still think it's a notational variant.
>
Perhaps - but I first want to finish Palmers _Grammatical Relations_,
Nichols _Diversity in Time and Space_, and LaPollas _Syntax_ is coming
from Amazon, as is part II of Holms Pidgin. And I think I had quite
enough after reading the paper - it's really not my cup of tea. I
think I need my fix of interlinear examples ;-).

When I was very young I was interested in Functional Grammar, even to
the point of actually buying a book on it, and the FG claims are not much
different from the CG claims - but it hasn't been a lot of use to me,
and I wonder whether my experiences with CG would be different.

> Or wait till I go back to school and become a *real* linguist
> someday, and see whether in the process I realize that Cog. Gram. is
> just a notational variant (since I've already read FOCG; that would
> save you the trouble).
>
Now that's a deal - or when you find a grammar of an obscure language
written using the CG framework, you can alert me, and I'll try to obtain
and read it.

> As for Sawila, all the Sawila that exists is in my Chanan Linguistics
> paper and the poem "Sila Samu I."  However, Rob Nierse (whom I believe
> you know) has taken an interest in expanding the language, and to that
> end I have sent him all the information I have on it and the rules by
> which I constructed words for it.   Perhaps he will take it new
> places!
>
Yes, Rob had told me he had become active again, thanks to Sawila. His
Duzgur was really a very nice language. Perhaps it would be a nice
exercise to write another, more standard grammar of Sawila on the basis
of the available evidence, contrast the two?

I really hope I haven't offended you, by the way - by being not very
enthousiastic about CG, or the paper you pointed out to me (for which
I'm grateful, since I wouldn't have seen it otherwise).

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