Re: my grammar (and a little of Word Order Indicating Tense)

On 31 Dec 2004, at 11.05 am, # 1 wrote:

>> as for dropping of arguments, there are some language like Japanese
>> where
>> you can drop the subject, object etc if they're obvious without
>> marking on
>> the verb, and without any verbal agreement, so for instance you could
>> say:
>>
>> have car
>>
>> for "I have a car", "you have a car" etc if the subject was obvious,
>> or:
>>
>> "I have"
>>
>> if the object (for instance car) was obvious. If your language freely
>> allows the dropping of arguments like the subject or object without
>> some
>> marking that this has happened then I don't think your system is
>> workable.
>> But since this isn't the case....
>
> Is it a dropping of argument in something like
>
> - Do you have a car?
> - I do
>
> "You do what?" would ask someone who arrives and didn't heard the
> question
>
>
> Does a language need a capacity to drop arguments?
>
> I can't find an example ef that kind of thing in French
>
> - As-tu une voiture? (Do you have a car?)
> - J'en ai une (I have on)
>
> In french it needs a pronoun to replace the word car ("en")
But if a person walked in when you said '_J'en ai une_' (or whatever
the grammatical sentence is), you would ask 'You have a what?'. It's
the same as the English example; we just have a 'pro-verb', so to
speak, that also takes up its arguments (the objects).

Dropping arguments (or using pro-forms i.e. pronouns and pro-verbs) is
useful because otherwise not dropping arguments or using pro-forms
would begin to sound a bit repetitive, as in this sentence which
doesn't drop arguments or use pro-forms. It also makes sentences quite
a bit shorter. But you don't need both; one is sufficient (Japanese is
much more reluctant to use its pronouns than English).

--
Tristan.