Re: Vocab lists

Alex Fink and other wrote:


> >Hi,
> >In the past people have posted urls to various lists of basic vocbulary.
Those
> >have been fairly useful. What I could really use, however, is a corpus of
> >sentences comprised of that basic vocabulary (and only that basic
> >vocabulary). The vocab exercises have been somewhatly useful in this
respect.

Yes, but as many have pointed out, "evil bunnies" does not always translate
well cross-culturally....:-)))

> >However, I'm thinking of something closer to the kinds of sentences that
> >appear in linguistics books. Good example sentences. Lots of 'em.
> >Thanks,
> >-Sylvia
>
> I've often longed for a similar thing.  It would be nice to have a
> collection of sentences which exemplify particular bits of grammar.....
I'd be particularly interested
> in sentences that any of you found difficult to translate into your
conlang
> for whatever reason (other than the vocab), or that illustrate interesting
> features of your conlangs
I found it difficult in Kash to figure out how to distinguish "John is
taller than he [John] thinks" vs. "John is taller than he [Harry] thinks".
The various relays and trans. exercises have presented problems of their
own...........

A somewhat non-serious reply-- In the McCawley Festschrift, there's a little
playlet by the pseudonymous Fom Pop, Univ. of Alberta, based entirely on
sentences culled from the literature.  Each of the 97 sentences is footnoted
to the source.  Here's a sampling:
QUOTE
Bill:  John laid his plans very cleverly.  He was driven on by his love of
power.
Harry:  John is easy to please.
Bill:  John annoyed Mary with his persistence.  Mary began to doubt John's
intentions.  She had a curious sinking of the heart.  John loosened Mary's
dress.
----
From scene II
Harry: Does John have a chance to live?
John's Mother: John is having a banana split.
END QUOTE

Then there's the famous McCawley couplet:
"They named their child Fafnir"
"They named their child something strange" (This distinction was also a
problem in Kash)

There is of course no reason at all why clever and inquisitive people like
we shouldn't be able to come up with comparable (or even better) sentences.
Use your imagination.

Away back in 1968, at the height of the Vietnam furor, a student in our
dept. presented a paper in which most of the examples were like "I saw a
president who resembled a rat" and worse.

> Anyway, if nobody knows about an existing website which has a collection
of
> these, I'd be eager to create one.  So do any of you have any such
sentences?

Incidentally, there is a collection of 20-or-so sentences, so-called
Bongo-bongo, used by members of the Spanish lang. Ideolengua list.
Personally I don't like them, but for those who read Spanish I'll hunt up
the ref.

If there is great demand, I'll webify the "playlet" quoted above.

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