re[2] feature ?

Dac> I love the
Dac> passive.  What of humor?  When people try to tear down the passive, I berate
Dac> them so that they no longer wish to argue (this is when I'm lazy and don't
Dac> want to have to put together a real argument).  And I applaud laziness.  It's
Dac> what drives Southern California pronunciation, in my opinion.
the argument focussing humor, doesnt convince me yet,
since humor is for me related to contents, not to passive..
anyway the first aim for my conlang is of course effeciency and logic.
and perhaps getting rid of an old humor prepares the way for a new kind
of humor.

Dac> Also, what
Dac> about in sentences like, "Ray Allen drove down the lane and was fouled by
Dac> Tyrone Hill"?  Would your language say, "Ray Allen drove down the lane and
Dac> Tyrone Hill fouled him"?  I say that's bad style.
well yes but we notice: the subject is specified here.
whats making it bad style is the syntax.
the "foul" is the main-meaning-carrier (sorry for this term)
it is forward-pressed, its what i call "forward-pressing"
e.g. "fire ! fire in the house" and not "the house is on fire !"
fire is here forward-pressed as well, because it is the most important
word.
"tyrone hill fouled him" and "he was fouled by tyrone hill"
shows just that people want to have the freedom to set the syntax just
as they like to.
and therefore speaks for explicit S-markers, O-markers, V-markers,
instead of a fixed order like SOV or VSO.

Dac> Most of the people that
Dac> I've found who think of the passive as bad style (readers who grade papers)
Dac> are the victim of two things: 1.) They see so many people who are such
Dac> terrible writers that they over generalize, and/or 2.) They're stupid (my
Dac> bias).
Dac>     I think the main argument is for style, though.  Take your example:

Dac> <<this is nice but alas, the passive gets abused of lazy speakers,
i know my english is bad ... on the other hand it helps me to analysize a
language with more distance and without the fuzzy-feeling of my
mother-tongue
Dac> who dont want to tell the subject,
Dac> which is confusing and less information for the listener.
Dac> example : "lena has been kissed"
Dac> who kissed lena ? we want to know it. but perhaps the author dont
Dac> know it either. we have to figure it out with questions !
Dac> "can you tell me who kissed lena ?"
Dac> case 1: author : "well it was me">>

Dac>     What if the speaker is trying to baring "Lena has been kissed" and
Dac> knowing the surrounding details, would actually get angry and say, "You've
Dac> not given enough information!  Why did you use the passive?  It was
Dac> counterproductive!"  After all, if English speakers didn't like this passive
Dac> so much, it simply would cease to exist, for no one would use it in speech.
yes and no.
as i said before: i guess the passive got its  advantages and disadvantages.
i just like to split both up, keeping the advantage to omit the
subject (and even the object)
offering an universal dummy-word:
something-or-someone-either-plural-or-singular.
(with the addional distinction between determination or
un-determination of it. -> marker1 or marker2)

all i do is reflecting on and for accurate meanings, analysing them
and isolating them,
which is imho the first step in creating a conlang if it shall not become a
1:1 copy of a natural language (boring) and therefore building a base to experiment with the
sapir-worf-theorem (interesting).

Dac> :)  For instance, I believe in Russian there is a passive, but nobody uses it
Dac> because there's not much of a point to, or very specific circumstances have
Dac> to come up (someone who knows more Russian than I, help).  So, it just
Dac> depends on what you like, and what the speakers of the language like.  I
Dac> don't think there's any grounds for saying that the passive, as a...thing, is
Dac> bad and should be done away with.  And so forth...

Dac> -David




regards,
c.s.

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