Re: THEORY: Word Order In Phrases

Thanks for finding that! It helps, and I no longer have access to those
archives, so I couldn't have found it myself. Unfortunately, your final
comment was truncated by listserv.

Jeff


On Sat, 28 Sep 2002 17:57:16 +0100, Tim May <butsuri@...> wrote:

>Jeff Jones writes:
> > I have a question about word order in Natlangs. How common is the order
> >
> > Noun  Adjectives  Quantifier  Determiner
> >
> > where Quantifier includes exact and approximate numbers and fractions
> > as well as logical quantifiers, and Determiner includes things like
> > definite articles?
> >
> > It seems odd to me, but is what I came up with in avoiding ambiguity
> > (in relation to other aspects of a syntax I'm working on). I notice
> > that it's the reverse order of English (e.g. "the 3 hungry wolves").
> >
> > I have another question: is there any theoretical reason why or why not
> > (depending on the answer to the first question).
> >
> > Thanks, I hope
> >
> > Jeff J.
> >
>
>I remember reading something about this in the old archives...
><time passes>
>Here we are... on Mon, 26 Apr 93 23:14:44 -0400 lojbab posted part 4
>of a summary of a discussion of the complexity of Esperanto syntax,
>held mainly on sci.lang.
>The participants in this section are denoted as follows:
>
>MR:  From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
>DH:  From: donh@netcom.com (Donald J. Harlow)
>ID:  From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
>
>The last paragraph here is what's relevant - the stuff on Esperanto is
>provided merely for context.
>
>>  MR2:
>>  * Adjective order.  One can say "granda rugha libro" 'big red book', or
>>  "tri blindaj musoj" 'three blind mice', but surely "rugha granda libro"
>>  or "blindaj tri musoj" sound odd.
>>
>>   DH2:
>>   An interesting point.  "Rugha granda libro" does not sound odd to me at
>>   all, but "blindaj tri musoj" does indeed.  Could this be because "tri"
>>   is not an adjective but a numeral (a completely different type of
>>   bird)?
>>
>>   (To relatively new English-speaking Esperantists, "tri unuaj lecionoj"
>>   also sounds odd; they favor "unuaj tri lecionoj".  As you can see, this
>>   is the exact opposite of the "tri blindaj musoj" vs.  "blindaj tri
>>   musoj" situation.  I think what we have here is simply first-language
>>   interference.)
>>
>>   ID1:(on MR2:)
>>   Wait a minute.  "Tri" is a numeral, not an adjective.  One of
>>   Greenberg's universals says that if the demonstrative pronoun, the
>>   numeral and the qualifying adjective precede the noun, they go in this
>>   order, and if they follow it, the order is either the same or the
>>   opposite.  This relieves Zamenhof from the responsibility for "tri
>>   blindaj musoj".  Since "granda" and "rugha" are both qualifying
>>   adjectives, the problem with "rugha granda libro" can't be up to the
>>   language.
>
>So, it looks like your order is admissable, in the sense that it
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