Re: GROUPLANG : POLL2 (Re: cases, modifiers, pron

Pablo Flores bez:
> I'm trying to make sense of all the possible distinctions, of course.
> But I'm beginning to find the case system too logical, and certainly
> not very natural (I mean not natural in the sense that I have to *think*
> hard sometimes to use case X in situation Y; it doesn't pop out).
Well, that's true with any foreign language, unless you're fluent in a
language, you have to think about what case/adposition/whatever you need
to use, and that's especially true when dealing with a fundamentally
different system.  Even ergative-absolutive doesn't come naturally if
you're used to an accusative-nominative system, and that's a relatively
small difference between those two systems.

> I'm starting to think
> the idea of merging nouns and verbs wasn't so good after all.
Ditto here, but for different reasons.  I have no problems with sharing
roots, heck, English does that all the time (e.g., water, comb, run),
but to indicate verbs by means of cases just strikes me as unnatural.

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