Re: Difficult language ideas

On 9/19/06, David J. Peterson <dedalvs@...> wrote:

> (2) For verbs of experience, the six word orders reflect the
> attitude of the speaker towards his parents.
> Indefinite: kolu mena ita-N\ /man-INDEF. woman-INDEF. see-PAST./
> "A man saw a woman (and the speaker respects and reveres his parents)."
> or
> "A woman saw a man (and the speaker despises his parents)."
This seems a bit too low-bandwidth.  Presumably
the attitude of speakers to their parents would
not change much in the course of a single
text or conversation, so after the first sentence
the word-order of all the other sentences conveys
no new information.  Better if the word order
conveys the attitude of the speaker toward the
subject of the sentence, or the situation described
by the sentence.  Maybe a dummy object
is thrown in to otherwise intransitive sentences
to further distinguish or disambiguate this attitude
when necessary:

SV = positive attitude
VS = negative attitude

SOV = affection
SVO = respect, admiration, worship
OSV = approval
VSO = annoyance
VOS = contempt
OVS = disapproval

--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry