Re: Soaloa - A goofy little grammar/syntax

--- Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> wrote:

> Hi!
>
> Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...> writes:
<snip>
 >
> > In spite of its simplicity I am inclined to make
> the
> > rash and unproven assertion that it is complete
> enough
> > a grammar that any sentence in any natural
> language
> > can be accurately translated into a single
> sentence in
> > Soaloa.
> >...
>
> Hmm, if you consider natlangs to support potentially
> arbitrarily deep
> tree-type syntax structures, then this is not
> enough, since embedded
> clauses are missing.
<snip>

I'll have to think about that, but off the top of my
head, your example:

Mary, who is 40 years of age and who is my wife which
means I am her husband, reads a book about cooking
that is good, which means she liked it.

This can be a nested structure:

Mary
  she is 40 years of age
  she is my wife
     implies I am her husband
  reads a book
     book is about cooking
     book is good
        implies she liked it.

But it seems to me it can also be a sequential,
non-nested, relating of the facts such as what might
be found in a child's elementary reader:

Mary is 40 years of age.
Mary is my wife.
That means I am Mary's husband.
Mary reads a book.
The book is about cooking.
The book is good.
That means Mary likes the book.

As long as we keep explicity naming the principles in
this drama in each statement then there is no need for
esoteric linking of the statements. But any sequetial
stream of statements can be linked together in the
Soaloa syntax using (I think) only one layer of
linking L words. So it seems (and I could very well be
wrong here) that as long as an English sentence,
regardless of its nesting, can be re-written as a
series of simple sentences like the above example,
then this series can be re-assembeled into a single
Soaloa sentence with the same meaning, if not the same
structure, as the original nested English sentence.

In other words, while nesting is certainly a common
feature of natlangs, the real question is this: Is
nesting necessary to convey the same meaning?  Can any
aribitrarily deep tree be parsed and re-stated in a
strictly linear fashion without loosing any meaning?
My hunch is that it can be done, and that nesting is
convenient, but not a necessary feature of language.

(Disclaimer: I've studied a dozen languages, and
became reasonably fluent in 3, but I have never
studied linguistics, so there is always a very good
chance I don't have a clue what I'm talking about. My
only real expertise is in computer languages.)

--gary

>
> **Henrik
>