Re: [txeqli] Basic idea - ceqli messages

Rex >>Go xaw to pezo hu dwel zisa dom pake zi dwel ca. I see the man that lived in your house before you lived there. Otherwise, it has to be: Go xaw to dwel zisa dom pake zi dwel ca sa pezo. Which has got to be more confusing. How would Mandarin render something like that?

Ray >> In Japanese word order it would be:

GO (topic-of-main-phrase postposition - "WA" in Japanese)...

ZI SA DOM (position/time postposition - "NI" in Japanese)...

PAKE (this time phrase won't need any postposition-particle if it is an adverb like the English word "beforehand", although the use of the position-time postposition is allowed here if I change this part to "ZI SA DOM SA PAKE NI" where "pake" would be a noun - Is "pake" an adverb here or a noun - Do I have to add something to it if I want to make it an adverb?)

DWEL PA PEZO (accuzative postposition - "WO" in Japanese) XAW PA.

Unlike Mike I really like the choice between "hu" and "sa". It make the conversion from Japanese word order into English word order really easy! Can anyone tell me what postpositional particles would have been appropriate for replacing "WA", "NI" AND "WO" in the above sentence in order to maintain the above Japanese word-order, and what should I have done with "PA" if I want to make it post-positional ("xaw pa")instead of the normal Ceqli "pa xaw".

> I would prefer to see a relatively simple, internally consistent > grammar (including syntax, phonology, word structure, and prosody) > laid out in the abstract, then tested by plugging in lexical items in > realistic situations. (I'm now beginning my fifteenth year as a > professional computer programmer, so that's probably why the > design-implement-test-modify-test-... paradigm appeals to me.) I understand the need to have a basic word order pattern similar to that of Chinese and English, but then that flexibility is really important for languages that have word-order radically different from those. Another particle I wanrt to ask about - Besides the topic post-positional particle "WA", Japanese has an emphasised subject post-positional particle "GA". For example in the sentence "Amongst my friends John is really the smartest." in Japanese word order would be (using a mixture of Ceqli, English Mandarin and Japanese - which is just about the way I speak with my Japanese flat-mate: GO SA FREN-MEN SA INSIDE/AMONG "NI" "WA" (Meaning: The general topic that I AM TALKING ABOUT in the PREDICATE OF THE SENTENCE (which is the rest of the sentence without the part ending in "WA") ....WA (all of that I've just said is what I am talking about in this present sentence so I've just inserted another "WA" here!) is "Amongst my friends", and the really important part of the sentence now follows in the PREDICATE THAT FOLLOWS which is what I WANT TO SAY WHAT HAPPENS "Amongst my friends"): JON-SAN "GA" (Within the predicate, Master John is the emphasizied subject) NUMBER-ONE SMART BI. (Does "BI" need to change if I want the verbs to always be at the ends of words and phrases?)