On 3 Jun 99, at 21:26, Joe Mondello wrote:
> I was thinking about the cross-cultural problems of having a standard
> text for translation, and I came up with the following proposal. A list
> of sentences in which the actual vocabulary is user defined but the
> tense/aspect/verbs/etc. are standardized is created. Or many proposals
> could be made and subsequently voted on. the series of sentences would
> seek to demonstrate the way in which a basic set of variables operate in
> each language. That way, if I was curious to see how Peoughk=EFps=E9=E1=
=E0f=EA=EB=EC
> would say "X[noun] doesn't want Y[noun] to Z[verb} A[adverb]" I would kn=
ow
> where to look in the sequence of sentences to find such a construction o=
r
> a similar construction. Of course it woulodn't work in every example fo=
r
> every language, but I think it would give a fair idea of some of each
> language's traits. So what do you think?
That's cool... we could start the list by taking some short
sentences or aphorisms that have already been translated into
many languages and abstract their grammatical structure. The
original sentences could then be default texts where they are
culturally appropriate.
"I can eat glass, it does not hurt me." -> I can [v-transitive-active]
[object-noun], it[the object] does not [verb-transitive] me[object
pronoun].
A language is a dialect with an army. -> A [subclass noun] is a
[superclass noun] with an [attribute/possession noun]
Jim Henry III
Jim.Henry@pobox.com
http://www.pobox.com/~jim.henry/gzb/gzb.htm
*gjax zaxnq-box baxm-box goq.