Re: Question

I just checked some old work I'd done learning Arabic via the Colloquial
Arabic threesome - Colloquial Arabic (Levantine), Colloquial Egyptian Arabic
and Colloquial Gulf Arabic, and in Gulf Arabic the only time you get a SVO is
in a subordinate sentence, eg, "gilt lih ina Jaasim  raaH il-bayt" - "I told
him that Jaasim had gone home."  The rest of the time it is straight VSO.

As far as other Semitic languages go, I know a bit of Hebrew - Classical, aka
Biblical, not modern `Ivrit.  And that is strictly VSO - but one thing you
have to watch out for in Classical Hebrew is its wonderful coordinated
sentence structure.  VSO, and VSO, and VSO, and VSO ...  that is allied to
the incorporation of a w/u- modified "imperfective" tense/aspect as a
strictly narrative tense.

I would dearly love to add Moabitic, Phoenician, Aramaic, Syriac, Ugaritic,
Eblaic and the Akkadian/Assyrian/Babylonian conglomeration to my repertoire
of Semitic languages -  fingers crossed, here's hoping!!!

Wesley Parish

On Wednesday 17 April 2002 18:19, you wrote:
> En réponse à David Peterson <DigitalScream@...>:
> >     As for sentences, in the Arabic I learned, it's plain SVO: First
> > comes
> > the subject (unless it's a pronoun, in which case you leave it out),
> > then
> > comes the conjugated verb, then comes the object: ar-raZul jaqra
> > al-kita:b.
> > The-man reads the-book.  I heard it used to be VSO in the olden
> > days...
>
> Well, not only in the olden days. When a Tunisian friend of mine taught me
> the basics of Arabic (Tunisian dialect), the word order was definitely VSO.
> And it was only 8 years ago... Same with my Teach Yourself Arabic. It
> features a few lessons in different dialects from all over the Arabic
> world, and in all those dialects the word order is basically VSO, with SVO
> only used for emphasis.
>
> I'm really wondering what strange dialect they teach you there...
>
> Christophe.
>
> http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
>
> Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.
--
Mau e ki, "He aha to mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata!"
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people!"

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