Re: Requesting some challenging sentences

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Gary Shannon <fiziwig@Y...> wrote:
>
> I recently picked up an odd grammar that I first
> started working on a while back, and made some updates
> and modifications to it.
>
> What I'd like to do is test the notion that this
> grammar is adequate to express just about any complex
> (but reasonable) utterence that can be devised.
Interesting question; I don't know the answer yet.

> So I'd
> like to ask if anyone has some challenging or
> difficult sentences that they have collected for the
> purpose of "stress-testing" a grammar to see if it
> breaks.
1) There's an East European cumulative story that, IIRC, is about a
loaf of bread that I bought for two kopecks but left under the seat
on the train to Grozny.  Either I've misremembered something, or it's
just plain hard to find on-line.
2) Translate "The House That Jack Built" into SOALOA.
3) "There's a hole in the bottom of the creek" (Entire song
translated -- this is just the first line.)  (I think if you can do 1
and 2, and just a couple of verses of 3, you can probably do all of 3)
4) Translate Lincon's Gettysburg Address into SOALOA.
5) Do you know the one about the guy who unfortunately fell out of an
airplane but fortunately had a parachute which unfortunately didn't
work but fortunately there was a haystack under him which
unfortunately had a pitchfork in it which he fortunately missed but
unfortunately also missed the haystack?  Begin as he tries to wake up
on time to leave the house to get to the airport to catch the plane.
6) The prophetic answers given by the Pythia (the Oracle at Delphi)
to her querents.
7A) "All around the cobbler's bench, the monkey chases the weasel;
and, every time he pulls its tail, 'POP!' goes the weasel."
7b) "Jenny's got the whooping-cough, and Johnny's got the measles;
that's where all the money goes."
8) The Declaration of Independence; "When, in the course of human
events, it becomes necessary for one people to sever the political
bands which have connected them with another, a decent respect to the
opinions of mankind ... "
9) The Preamble to the Constitution.
10) Euclid's Elements
11) The Ten Commandments
12) What the three witches say in MacBeth.
13) "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace
from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all Our
yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death."  (Or whatever
the correct quotation is.)
14) "To be, or not to be?  That is the question -- Whether 'tis
nobler in the mind To endure the slings and arrows of outrageous
Fortune; or, to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by
opposing, end them." (Or whatever the correct quotation is.)
15) "But hark!  What light through yonder window breaks?  It is the
East, and Juliet is the sun!"
16) Portia's judgment (between Antonio and Shylock) from "the
Merchant of Venice".  (I really think "Oh, hell, what have we here?"
is probably not complex, but you should also be able to state it in
SOALOA.)
17) (from Neil Gaiman's and Dave McKean's "Mirror-Mask", a Jim Henson
film:)
Q: What's green, hangs on the wall, and whistles?
A: I give up.  What?
Q: A herring.
A: Herrings aren't green!
Q: They are if you paint them green.
A: Herrings don't hang on the wall!
Q: They do if you nail them there.
A: Herrings don't whistle!
Q: Yeah, I know, but I had to throw something in to keep it from
being too obvious.

> My goofy grammar can be found at
> http://fiziwig.com/soaloa.html
Interesting grammar.

>
> --gary
>
I hope some of the above help.

I don't expect you'll want to translate all of all of my suggestions;
but the quality of the suggestions should give you an idea of where
to find sources for challenging sentences.  (E.g. legal judgements,
technical/scientific works, and folk-rhymes deliberately constructed
for complexity.)  Of course, famous quotations are also part.  And
don't forget those which were famously ambiguous.

I could have suggested Newton's Principia, or Russell and Whiteheads
Principia Mathematica, or some modern quantum chromodynamics text;
but I figured you'd get the idea from Euclid's Elements, or
Appolonius of Perga's Conic Sections, or Archimedes's "The Sand
Reckoner".

Tom H.C. in MI

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