Re: Conlang-to-body-shape connections

----- Original Message -----
From: "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 2:10 PM
Subject: Re: Conlang-to-body-shape connections


> On Tue, Mar 25, 2003 at 09:41:57PM +0100, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> > I'm afraid I'm unable to extract much amusing info from the data I got
> > on peoples heights, weights and conlang preferences. This is, presumably
> > mostly due to the low number of respondents and the disparate
> > descriptions of their conlang preferences; the theory can't possibly be
> > wrong!
> >
> > Big people apparently tend to stick accusative languages, with shorter
and
> > thinner ones being more in favour of active ones and similar odd stuff.
And
> > VSO is unreasonably popular.
> >
> > The short-people-are-more-prone-to-bounce theory seems to hold water.
> [snip]
>
> I am 6'4" (that's about 2m I think, I can never figure that part out), and
> about 160lb (sorry, no idea how many kg that is), which is way underweight
> for my height. As far as preferences go... you might say I go for the
> radically different. Not only is Ebisedian non-accusative, it defies all
> existing classification by not operating based on the S, A, P noun
> function model. Word order is free; so far the only tendency that has
> arisen is that verbs don't like being final.
I tried, once.  In my attempted classification, Conveyant is S.  There is no
A or P Originative is an Ellative noun, Receptive a Dative, and the other
two are the same as normal classification.  Ebisedian verbs form two
functions at once: in non-conveyant sentences,  it is a combination of a
noun and an (imaginary) verb. The noun is declined as a verb, though, to add
to the confusion.  In the sentence "eb0' zotww' pii'z3du', it would perhaps
be literally translated 'from me, to the man, goes looking".  and "ebu'
fww't3 pii'z3d0" would be 'from the man, to me, comes seeing'.  In a
conveyant sentence, however, the verb is a normal verb: "lyy's eb3' loo'ru"
means, simply, 'I went to the outside'.  An important thing about Ebisedian
is it's lack of transitive verbs, so there is no A or P.

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