> > This would serve to make the listener's job a little simpler. Watch ou=
t,
> > though: often the speaker may not know just how many objects he/she wis=
hes
> > to list (e.g. "I gave a speech yesterday... to some college students.")=
.
>=20
> That's a typically English way of saying that, but I see your point.
> Although who said talking was easy? The same problem exists in every lang=
uage
> with some sort of agreement.
Add it to the list of knots to untie with your unambiguous language ;-)
=20
> E.g. in Swedish (which you seem to speak) if you say:
> "Har du sett min nya bokhylla?" (Have you seen my new bookshelf?)
> and wish to change "hylla" to "sk=E5p" (cabinet), you also have to
> change "min" to "mitt".=20
>=20
> My point is that you almost never make this mistake. You know
> from the beginning what you want to say. And if you want to change
> what you are about to say, you can go back and rephrase the
> sentence or just go ahead and make the error and hope no one
> cares.
But you only need to think of the gender at the moment you decide on your
noun -- by marking your verb for # of objects you have to know *all* of you=
r
nouns at once. Doable, but could be inconvenient at times. German has an
opposite sort of inconvenience -- much of the time the speaker gets to wait
until the very end of the sentence to decide just what verb he/she want to =
use,
but the speaker then has to wait just as long to discover the purpose of al=
l
the words before it :)
Josh
_/_/ _/_/ _/_/_/_/ Joshua Shinavier =20
_/ _/ _/ Loorenstrasse 74, Zimmer B321=20
_/ _/ _/_/_/_/ CH-8053 Z=FCrich =20
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ Switzerland =20
_/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ jshinavi@g26.ethz.ch
Danov=EBn pages: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Crete/5555/ven.htm