THEORY: Re : Re: Re : THEORY: Natural language change (was Re: Charlie and I)

Dans un courrier dat=E9 du 21/09/99 20:54:50  , Charles a =E9crit :

>=20
>  I'm not going to get this right, but my 2 centimes say:
>  There are several items required for an unambiguous relative clause:
>  start marker, stuff, resumptive particle, more stuff, end marker.
>  That is too many, so every natlang merges or drops a few of them.
> =20
>  "the guy who i usedta date his sister comma is angry now"
>           ^^^ ............. ^^^ ...... ^^^^^
>
one natlang does so : indonesian :

"orang YANG saya biasa meminang kakak perempuan-NYA  ITU
man WHO i use_to date younger_brethren female-HIS END

dia marah semarang."
he angry now.

too easy to get credit from esperantists, indeed.
did you notice the stupid sound of "kakak", and the primitive
use of juxtaposition to express general genitive ? and the
absence of tense ? and of article ? and they don't even have
a word for "sister" ! how can 150 million people express and
print newspapers that way ?
chinese do sort of, but at least they've got tones and ideograms
to make it look scientific.


> =20
>  I think the comma is the coolest device of all, but it is neglected.
>  I can almost-just feel a tone-lang coming.
> =20
> =20
any (stress) natlang is a tone lang (tone) in that regard.

mathias