Re: OT: PL/I was Re: Please welcome . . .

At 01:29 PM 12/18/03 -0500, you wrote:
>On Thu, Dec 18, 2003 at 09:47:56AM -0800, Gary Shannon wrote:
> > An interesting idea.  I did try, about 3 or 4 years
> > ago, to design an RPN (Reverse Polish Notation)
> > conlang inspired by the Forth programming language.
>
>There is an alien conlang that operates on this principle, although
>its name escapes me.  Interesting cultural notes about politicians
>pushing a word and then forgetting about it until the end of their
>speech when it changes the whole meaning of what they were saying, etc.
>Comments about humans generally being unable to speak the language in
>real time because we can't keep a deep enough mental stack.
I doubt that humans are truly unable to keep a deep enough mental stack,
but it may take some practice to be able to keep a stack that deep.  Both
Cicero and his hearers were presumably able to.  (And I do mean hearers,
because many of his works were originally presented orally as speeches and
only later read.)  Do any of our Latin experts in the list have a figure
for how many verbs Cicero tended to pile at the ends of his periodic
sentences?

Isidora