Re: Rating Languages

CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU writes:
>No.2 in my list is Tagalog. Mainly 'cause I don't know if it's still
>nominative-accusative, and I don't understand how its four passives
>interact with word order, and no grammar I've seen cared to describe
>the exact rules for secondary stress/vowel length/vowel deletion...

Odd, i found it pretty easy to learn when i was taking an intensive course
in it (towards the end i was able to write a page long essay in simple
sentences). To me it seemed like you just had to memorize how a word order
went with the passives (although the focus system looked nice and simple
to me). The part that got me was the lack of marking of stress, which IS
important for distintion in meaning. Kaibigan for instance, can have four
different meanings depending how you stress it, ranging from "friend" to
"lover".

I probably would have given up if we had gotten into more complex bits of
grammar.




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Ancient Goth: someone who overthrew the Roman Empire.
 Modern Goth: a vegetarian pretending to be a vampire.