Re: me and my languages

> > Phrase "The man hit the boy" type word order in such languages may
> be free.
>
> Your example:
>
> Az ember megutotte a fiut. (The man hit the boy)
> Megutotte az ember a fiut. (Hit the man the boy; the man HIT the boy)
> A fiut az ember utotte meg. (The boy the man hit; The MAN hit the boy)
> Az ember a fiut utotte meg. (The man the boy hit; The man hit the BOY)
> Megutotte a fiut az ember. (Hit the boy the man; the man HIT the boy)
> A fiut megutotte az ember. (The boy hit the man; The man hit the BOY)
Yet in none of these can you (apparently) separate the definitely article
'az' from the noun 'ember.'  This would be possible in a language with
*true* free word order and no adjacency constraints, but I'll bet a
fairly large sum of money that no natural language is like that.
(Syntactically, I think this has to do with the no-crossing-branches
constraint and some other stuff, if anyone cares.)


Jesse S. Bangs     Pelíran
jaspax@ juno.com
"There is enough light for those that desire only to see, and enough
darkness for those of a contrary disposition."  --Blaise Pascal

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