Re: Introduction and Þēwthàj Phonology

Hi!

Kevin Athey <kevindeanathey@...> writes:
>...
> >Ah, that's a nice feature -- optional role marking for non-topics.  Nice!
>
> The poetic register allows post-verbal topicalization (Verb Topic
> Non-topic-noun-phrases), with no role-marking on the verb and free order of
> noun phrases after the topic.  Ambiguity is fun!
Yes, I like ambiguity, too.  Although in my Tyl Sjok, I think I pushed
it a bit too far, as I mentioned on the list a few times: almost all
particles are optional and the words are not marked for word class and
are not inflected, and word order does not mark the nesting of
clauses/phrases.  So the whole structure of the sentence is ambiguous.
I now regard it as a proto-language for this reason -- derived
languages will force a lot more explicit marking.

**Henrik

Reply