Re : Re: Tunu Nouveau

Dans un courrier dat=E9 du 08/09/99 18:03:55  , Boudewijn a =E9crit :

> On Fri, 27 Aug 1999, Charles wrote:
> =20
>  > The long-missing Tunu tribe has been tracked down:
>  > http://members.aol.com/manishtusu/hoax.html
>  >
>  > Last words of the French researcher before cooking:
>  > "someone may have useful critics that could help us"
>  >
> =20
>  I've been reading way too much linguistics lately - I
>  misread this for "someone may have useful clitics" ;-)
> =20
>  I'm not entirely sure I understand the meaning of the
>  section that starts with:
> =20
>    clitics merge with pronouns to make verb voices :
> =20
>  Perhaps a bit more examplification would help :-).
> =20
Charles and i are busy  trying to make the easiest possible
grammar reconciliating SOV jap and SVO indonesian through
a common topic/comment structure.

years ago as i was forced to translating job in tokyo as a freshie
gaijin, i realized that a common structure topic/comment could
be contrived by matching main voices and clitics.
in other words, you can make agree typical SOV and typical SVO
languages.
for instance i could match indonesian clitics "oleh, pada, di, etc.",
japanese clitics "ga, ni, wo, etc", indo. voices "me-, memper-, di-, etc."
and jap. voices "-aru, -eru, -oru, -asu, etc." in the following way :

let's take indo "ME-KAN" and jap "-ASU" factive voices (not factitive).
i call them "KAY-".
let's take an imaginary "levizing" factive clitic "(made) by" -
indo "(di-kan) OLEH"; japanese "-NI (saserareta)".
i call it "KAW-".
-Y is like active and -W is like passive (just stupid dummy
words i've made up =E0 la conlangueur) of a KA- auxiliary
(not a plain verb for reasons i can explain).

now i take a verbal root - preferably a noun of action, state, or result=20
because both languages have verbal voices based on different base-voices.
if you make a topic/comment construction, the topic is
not necessarily the subject or the object of the verb :
confer French :=20

"le papier, l'homme =E9crit dessus"
the paper (TOP) the man (S) writes (V) on it (O =3D TOP).
"la lettre, l'homme il l'=E9crit".
the letter (TOP) the man he (S) it (O =3D TOP) writes (V).

what you need is identifying "it" and "he" as TOPIC or SUBJECT.
let's make a TOPIC/COMMENT sentence :

"man TOP write on paper COM".
"paper TOP man write on it COM".=20

an now let's make construct iusing clitic or/and voice :

"man TOP paper TOP write on it KAW he".
"paper TOP man KAY write on it".

what i mean is that matching the 3 or 4 voices
and 3 or for clitics already available in both languages
and merging them in a TOPIC/COMMENT structure
with resuming pronouns make it possible to fuse
the two SOV and SVO syntaxes.

i believe that's what a good IAL should do.
in such a system, subclause is nothing more than
a switch of pronouns referring to preceding or next
items.
with 2 topic&comment tags, 5 pronouns
and 4 voice/clitics (=3Dprepositions) you can make
a grammar that can be used either SOV or SVO
according to one's trend and still be easily understood
nonetheless. jap., indo. and french use spacial deictics
instead but making a specific set of deictics for that
would work no less i'm sure (i can explain why).

and you can trans-late that structure in compound
& construct level without any problem.

i can't explain things quite well on this post, but Charles
will make that into an easy page soon.
it's not "scientific" at all as you can see, only a guess
from my own experience with the asian languages i know
and french.

critics and scolding welcome - they help a lot.

>  Boudewijn Rempt  | http://denden.conlang.org/~bsarempt
mathias