charles wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Mar 1999, Edward Heil wrote:
>
> > I've been thinking about this, and while at first I thought of these
> > RPN-ish grammars as dreadfully unnatural, they seem to be variations =
on
> > the following theme:
> >
> > As symbols come in through your ears, you're sitting there building
> > conceptions. You try to fuse the meanings of those symbols together =
as
> > they come in. Sometimes a given meaning has several possible places
> > where other meanings could fit into it -- multivalent verbs are examp=
les
> > of this. That's where you need things like case marking, morphologic=
al
> > or syntactic.
> >
> > It strikes me that natlangs are probably nothing more than examples o=
f
> > this process, optimized according to parameters we don't understand t=
o
> > maximize communicative value and ease of use.
>
> Both RPN and SOV orders may seem unnatural to those who speak
> English, French, Spanish, or other mostly SVO or VSO languages,
> even though the "parent" languages were actually SOV.
> The relation between high- and low-level programming languages
> is similar in that most assembly langs are OV, etc.
Aren't they VO?
add r1,r2
> I am attracted to OV order because relative clauses are easier
> (maybe) and machine parsing/understanding might be also.
> Another reason is the spontaneous Nicaraguan sign-language
> invention event, and the "elegant" way it first defines
> its objects and assigns them to a spacial location,
> then references them by simply pointing to that spot.
> (A sort of switch-reference.)
I remember one conlang project I begun, I was thinking in SOV, and
noun-adjective order... it turned out being a RPN language... then a Rupi=
n
language is not that unnatural, at least as the level of branching multiv=
alent
verbs is restricted. (I even experimented by using the same glossing for=
PN
order and infix order with a small particle telling appart dative from
acusative in trivalent verbs).
--
Carlos Eugenio Thompson Pinz=F3n
ITEC-Telecom, Colombia
cthompso@alpha.telecom-co.net
http://alpha.telecom-co.net/~cthompso/
Di mi beh em je lok mi ju je kom lon vu am je