Re: A Language built around a novel grammar

Hi!

Gary Shannon writes:
> <snip>
>
> > That language only has
> > one mandatory operator (basically your +/- operator) and leaves the
> > rest to the imagination of the listener, i.e., it is highly ambiguous.
>
> > **Henrik
> >
>
> How about letting everything be implied by using adjectives to describe the
> roles of the participants. A sentence might be: "John the giver, Marsha the
> receiver, and a book." No action was stated, but an action was implied by the
> stated roles.
Well, that's exactly what S11 does -- this is essentially a serial
verb construction of intransitive verbs (only 'a book' would also
require a verbal marker).

That's not exactly what I meant here.  My question was more about
embedded clauses.  How does your conlang handle the following
sentences?  Does it need more than the two/three operators already
mentioned?

  - I read the the book that John gave to Mary.

  - Mary likes reading books.

  - John likes to give books to Mary.

  - When it is raining, I drink tea and read a book.

I'm also interested in possessives:

  - Mary liked John's book.

For these, S11 needs more operators than the two handling the internal
clause structure; mainly markers for clause boundaries
(e.g. 'brackets').  Have you managed to do it without additional
operators and still having an unambiguous structure?

**Henrik