Re: allnoun

At 2:40 pm -0800 19/4/99, Ed Heil wrote:
>>>Well, you certainly can't accuse AllNoun of having poetic vocabulary!
>>>Whether its syntax is incredibly refined is arguable (but not worth a
>>>flamewar!!).  I was looking at it again yesterday - as far as I can see, it
>
>>
>>>ain't all noun. I seriously wonder if indeed a language can have just one
>
>>>part of speech.  I rather think not.
>>
>The trick in AllNoun, IMHO, is that the other parts of speech besides nouns
>
>have been disguised as punctuation marks.
Not only that but, e.g. in {table:on} {on} looks like and acts like a
postposition.  I know 'officially' it is a noun meaning
"thing(s)-something-is-on" but as Gary Shannon said of his 'nouns' which
some thought were verbs: "If it looks like a verb, and walks like a verb,
and quacks like a verb ... YIKES! it's a verb!"

I say that {on} looks like a postposition, and walks like a postposition,
and quacks like a postposition....YIKES!..........

But I go further:
{.act-of-throwing Joe ball:patient what:time.}

How essentially is {patient} different from an object marker?  Why cannot
{act-of-throwing} be construed as a verb?

OK - it may be possible to define these morphemes as nouns in some
theoretic, abstract way.  But to me at least a lot of the definitions seem
contrived.  It is also possible, surely, to define the same morpheme rather
differently?

But let's return to what Ed said: "The trick in AllNoun, IMHO, is that the
other parts of speech besides nouns have been disguised as punctuation
marks."  I think Ed is right.

I should make it absolutely clear that I do not for one moment mean 'trick'
in some underhand, machievellian way.  I'm quite sure this is a _genuine_
effort by Tom Breton to create an all-noun language of minimal grammar;
I've no doubt of that.  And I also think that it was an experiment worth
making.  Until something is actually tried one is arguing in the dark. But
personally, I've concluded that it is not likely to possible to produce a
language with what everyone is going to accept as a single part of speech.

OK - back to the main argument - those things 'disguised as punctuation
marks'.  That is what they are: disguised.  Tom in fact refers to them as
punctuators, not punctation marks, and, I quote: "As I see it, the best way
is to treat groups of one or more punctuators _infixed between part and
role_ as pronounceable words, and also include single parentheses."
[Italics are not mine]

I would say 'pronounceable morphemes' rather than 'pronounceable words',
but that's probably just a matter of semantics.

Tom then gives an unofficial proposal for the sounds (in my version -
things may have changed since):
: awf       ): af      :( oof     ):( if
^: as       )^: as     ^:( oos    )^:( is
^ awsh      )^ ash      ) ath       ( ooth

They're pronounceable - Tom calls them infixed words; I think of them as
infixed morphemes.  However you read them, they don't look like nouns to me.

But, I repeat, I enjoyed reading the experiment; I think it was worth
making; it certainly gets one thinking - but IMO it ain't 'all noun'.

Ray.