Re: Introducing Paul Burgess and his radioactive imagination!

Sally Caves wrote:

>> Same thing with Sohlob.  Its WO is VPA (Verb-Patient-Agent) which is of
>> course quite sensible for an ergative language, and works fine when I
>> write, but as soon as I try to speak/think without writing I slip into
VAP
>> -- not that bad considering that there's case marking, but to a putative
>> native speaker it'ld sound like I was emphasizing the agent all the time,
>> which is not the correct idiom.
>
>Well exactly... when I speak Teonaht, it turns into an SVO language in my
>mouth.  Which sounds to the Teonim like a subordinant clause. (well,
>actually, a subordinant clause has VSO structure in T.)
  You know, I have exactly the *opposite* problem (no, I don't mean I start
speaking English in SOV...) with Rhean, in that its word order tends to
drift even further from what I'm used to. When translating a piece from
English, I will usually stick to SOV, but when composing original material,
I find a lot of things sound better as OSV or even OVS!
  The underlying SOV is the same, but it is as if the subject is emphasised
by putting it directly in front of the verb, or added as an afterthought.

M