Re: Circumfixes?

En réponse à claudio <claudio.soboll@...>:

> hi when im allowed to freely answer to your mail , which i read with
> interest.
> i think as well that VSO is a more natural syntax, since the verb is
> the most important part usually. i know that pushing the verb to the
> end of a sentence will make it less readable.
> however i hear that some linguists think of SVO as most natural
> syntax.
> also placing the adjectives behind a noun i think is more natural way,
> following the rule again: the most important words come first, and in
> this case nouns are more important than adjectives.
>
> regards,
> c.s.
>
Well, probably the Japanese would disagree completely with you. Japanese is
strictly SOV (very strictly) and head-last, and the Japanese don't have any
trouble talking to each other, nor do they have any problem learning to talk
their language. The problem with those explanations about one feature being more
natural than the other, is that since languages have evolved for millenia now,
if there were really features that are more natural than others, why do modern
languages still show them. If those features were really that unnatural, they
should have disappeared of all languages by now.

Still, I agree that SVO, and specially VSO orders are more _practical_ than SOV
orders, because in SOV the last slot has to be taken by the verb, and obliges
the sentence to go to an end quite fast, so that you don't forget the beginning.
VSO and SVO orders are freeer to add things and make long sentences, full of
afterthoughts, without losing track too easily. In fact, my personal experience
in conlanging (I've tried nearly everything: SVO, SOV, VSO, VOS - still have to
try OVS and OSV -, head-first and head-last, as well as incredible mixings and
mismatches of all those :)) ) says that at the end, when the system is well
balanced, the practicality of every system is quite the same and no system is
more difficult to handle than the other.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Reply