Re: OT: free word-order conlangs (was: Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar

From: "And Rosta" <and.rosta@...>
Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2006 8:41 PM

<< 1. How free is free? Is freedom limited to within some
subsentential domain such as the clause? Within the domain
of freedom are all orders permissible, or just very
many/most? >>

Ayeri in fact could move around sentence consituents, and
adjective could also appear anywhere in a main sentence, but
shuffling is Just Not Done. VAP is the preferred order.
Also, modifiers usually come after their heads.

<< 2. What mechanism allows the freedom (without ambiguity)?
Rampant concord? Or something else? >>

Case marking and -agreement all over the place.

<< 3. Is the freedom structural or just 'informational'? By
'structural freedom' I mean that linear precedence is of
little importance to syntax. >>

Structural.

<< By 'informational freedom', I mean that even if syntax is
highly sensitive to linear precedence, the grammar
nevertheless has resources such that for any combination of
a meaning and an order of content words, some syntactic
structure is available to express that combination. (An
example of 'informational freedom' would be "The farmer
killed the duckling" vs "The duckling was killed by the
farmer", allowing both F-K-D and D-K-F orders, but with
structural changes.) >>

Ah, no, even if you change the word order, the meaning of
the words keeps the same -- due to case marking.

Carsten

--
"Miranayam kepauarà naranoaris." (Kalvin nay Hobbes)
Tenena, Tyemuyang 7, 2315 ya 06:06:46 pd