Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Inadvertent combinations

From:Wesley Parish <wes.parish@...>
Date:Monday, August 5, 2002, 11:57
I have a little book, and it is named "Teach Yourself German", dating back
from before the Second World War.  Inside the little German textbook there is
a set of sentences to be translated, ie:

Ich dankte ihm fur seinen Brief.  Er starb an Gicht (gout).  Er argerte sich
uber meine Atwort.

Translated in the Key to Exercises in the back of the book as

I thanked him for his letter.  He died of gout.  He was annoyed at my answer.

Quite apart from warning me never to thank a German for his letter, because
he might get annoyed at my answer and die of gout as a result - I was
wondering, English has a simple juxtaposition of sentences/clauses to
indicate cause and/or result.  Classical Latin and Classical Greek never have
such a simple juxtaposition.

How many conlangs have simple juxtaposition to indicate cause/result?  With
the use of one pronoun ("he" in the sad case quoted above.) being understood
as the "topic" of the juxtaposed sentences/clauses?

Wesley Parish

P.S.  I also have a very old Italian textbook which I bought for the very
appropriate reason that it had some hairy juxtapositions in its exercises,
one of which mentioned the French wine industry, compared it with the Italian
one, and in the very next sentence, repeated some salacious gossip about
overall French health and French life expectancy.  Old language textbooks are
worth more than their mark-up, so you never heard it from me.
--
Mau e ki, "He aha te mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."