Re: Hatasoe online

>> Comment:   Why would we not consider "nehaso" an attributive adjective?

>I don't know; what's an attributive adjective?  "nehaso" is just a form of
>"nehasa", a participle, actually.  I know it's confusing with animate
>nouns.

Jim wrote:    Well, attributive adjectives come before and modify nouns.
What makes your words participles instead of adjectives?   Are they
identical in form to certain forms of the verb?   Do they contain any
information about voice?

>Why the restriction?  Well, gee.  That's a little like asking "why use a
>dental suffix to make the past tense?" in English, isn't it?  *shrugs*

Jim wrote:   There is a difference between choosing a certain sound for a
past tense suffix and restricting word-order.    When you restrict
word-order, usually you get some trade-off in return, e.g. less need for
elaborate morphology.   One possible benefit of your restricted word-order
for prepositional phrases is less ambiguity.

In English, this sentence is ambiguous:

The killer shot the captain in the house.

If "in the house" modifies "captain," then the killer might have been in or
out of the house according to this reading.

But if "in the house" modifies the verb, then the killer must have been in
the house when he was doing the shooting, according to the latter reading.

Your restriction eliminates that ambiguity by placing verb-modifying
prepositional phrases always after the verb.

A:    The killer shot the captain in the house.    (PP modifies noun.)

B:    The killer shot in the house the captain.    (PP modifies verb.)

Since English doesn't generally allow prepositional phrases between the verb
and object, your syntax also offers a touch of the exotic.


>It's a pronoun refering back to "what" or "that."  For instance, "ea
>onimesha ni nenifazea."
>ea o-ni-mesha ni ne-ni-fazea
>I  I it love  that you it did.

>Realize that, in English, where we'd say "I gave you what
>you wanted" in Hatasoe you'd say "I gave it to you what you wanted it."

Now I'm beginning to understand.   Hatasoe uses "ni" instead of gapping.
The structure of the clauses is preserved;   the relationships look a little
more explicit.   That's kinda cool!

Though your structures are fine, I question your description of them.   It
looks to me like "ni" doubles as a subordinator AND as a pronoun that refers
to whatever the subordinate clause in which it occurs describes.   What
you've created looks like an alternative to English "what" clauses.

I-love-ni-you-did-it.

pronoun-verb-pronounA-subordinator-pronoun-verb-pronounA.


Should you take a second look at "that" clauses?   How do you handle cases
like this?

It bothers me that Millicent won't marry Johnathan.


{re:   SVO word-order}

>Grr.  Don't be picky.  :)  You knew what I meant.

Guilty as charged.   I'll expect my wet noodle soon.   :)

Jim