Re: nouns-verbs

On 29 Dec 2004, at 7.55 pm, # 1 wrote:

> One of them was the fact that all languages divided nouns and verbs in
> two
> types of words
>
> In every tongue there is a difference between a verb and a noun
>
> In ALL dialects we can take a sheet and write nouns on one side and
> verbs on
> the other side
>
>
> Is that true? Do you know or have heard of a language where this is not
> true? Did one of you invent a conlang without that thing?
I suppose it depends on quite how you look at it. Does it mean that
everything that's a noun in one language is a noun in another? Not true
then; some languages have a separate category of adjectives (as
English); some lump adjectives in with nouns (as a popular form of
Proto-Indo-European); some lump adjectives in with verbs (as various
South American langs, I believe). Thus, there is some overlap.

I believe (but am not a linguist!) that all natural languages do have a
basic division between adjective and noun, even if they have no other
word categories though, which is perhaps what you mean.

> I passed a long time to think how such a similarity could have hold in
> ALL
> human languages
>
> first possibility: all languages are evolved from a single language
> wich
> invented that concept and its use since our birth makes us incapable of
> changing it in our language
I doubt it. Even if all languages did come from a single primordial
source (a possibility I won't discount), if adjectives can waver
between independent class, noun and verb, why couldn't verbs between
independent, noun and adjective?

> second: the human brain can't think of a way to describe the world
> without a
> division of "things" and "actions"
I like this plan.

> third: other ways have appeared in the history (when humans begun to
> speak)
> but their speakers have been unable to function with it and changed or
> died
Possible, but the chances of it always dying out unrecorded seem
awfully slim.

> fourth: the human brain can think an other way but that other way is
> so far
> of the one in usage that it can't be reached by a natural evolution
> because
> their is no forms between by wich an evolution can pass
I feel my response to your first adequately covers this objection.

> If the solution is the fourth explication, what can't be reached by
> language
> evolution may be by conlanging
It can be. Almost anything your imagination can do, a conlang can do.
I'm sure you could make a 2048-bit encrypted conlang which solved pi to
fifty decimal places* but could only be understood by the person you're
talking to (and not even by yourself!), though this is probably a wee
bit difficult and more in the domain of cryptography than conlanging.

* That is to say, every sentence in order to be grammatical had to be
somehow analysable as providing the next digit in pi or something---let
your imagination work it out.

(PS: If you do object to corrections to your English, ignore this
paragraph and/or politely inform me to that fact. If you don't object
to corrections, explication isn't a word (explanation is however, and
means what you want it to mean), and a better expression is 'If the
solution is the fourth explanation, why couldn't it be reached by
language evolution through conlanging?', though that's a little
awkward. I'm sticking to your basic formula because a friend's going
back to London and I've had a few.)

> Someone has a conlang concept without "verb-noun" division????
Allnoun presumably qualifies. Also Lojban, I believe, doesn't, but a
traditional grammarian might look at it and say 'ho, what we really
have is some form of zero-derivation converting between nouns and
verbs'.

HTH,
--
Tristan.