Re: Italian Particles

Sally Caves wrote:
>
> Tim Smith wrote:
> >
> > FWIW, my guess is that those few natlangs that do have default
> > object-initial order (e.g., Hixkaryana) may be going through some sort of
> > temporary transitional stage, and that, left to itself, such a language
> > would probably evolve out of this stage fairly quickly.
Is it?  Did it?  Where can I get a look at Kixkaryana?
What if certain brain structures dictate speech patterns?  I have
wondered
about that.

 ("Quickly" of
> > course meaning relative to language evolution in general, which even at its
> > fastest is still so slow that it's usually almost imperceptible within a
> > human lifetime.)  But if it happened to acquire a writing system and
> > develop a literary tradition while in that transitional phase, maybe that
> > could cause a word order that would otherwise have been unstable and
> > short-lived to be artificially frozen, at least in the "high" literary
> > register of the language.  (Prescriptive grammar tends to be a side effect
> > of literary traditions.  But prescriptive grammar has only a very limited
> > effect on the everyday spoken language.)  Does that sound like a plausible
> > explanation of what's happening in Teonaht?
Post script... I think that Teonaht has an exotic structure that is on
the
verge of adapting itself because these are an alien people who have
recently
emerged into the Black Sea area of the world... like me: I just emerged
into CONLANG three years ago, bringing my subterranean tongue out into
the
light and among civilizing and analytical forces.  I don't want T. to
lose
too much of its strange origins.


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SALLY CAVES
scaves@frontiernet.net
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves (bragpage)
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html (T. homepage)
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/contents.html (all else)
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Niffodyr tweluenrem lis teuim an.
"The gods have retractible claws."
                                from _The Gospel of Bastet_
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