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>>
>> No. As we have it now, the modifiers just line up as in Mandarin or Loglan.
>>
>> To pobon felin ga pokway ja.
>> The bad cat very (largely) slowly goes.
>>
>> Now, in a sense, the addition of usually-optional 'sa' sort of makes it into
>> an unambiguous modifier.
>>
>> To pobonsa felin gasa pokwaysa ja.
>>
>> And if we want, ever, the English word order here for any reason, we can use
>> 'hu'.
>>
>> To pobon feliin ja hu gasa pokway.
>
> "The bad cat ran which very fast."
>
> I don't get it.
What I'm wanting is for 'hu' to simply mean that what follows modifies what
precedes. X Y = Y hu X. Probably unfortunate that I took it from english
'who'. I'm trying to treat verb phrases exactly like noun phrases. So
the sentence means the same as
To pobon felin gasa pokwaysa ja. Or
The bad cat went very fast.
>
>> And I see that happening because:
>>
>> 1. It's comfortable for English speakers.
>
> Not for me, apparently.
Well, "To pobon felin ja hu gasa pokway." Mocks English word order, using
the 'hu' to make that order possible. That's what I meant. And, actually,
I'd discourage its use for that reason. I'd want hu-phrases to be used only
when they are necessary to make things clearer.
>
>> 2. As an afterthought Ð you say what happened and then you modify it as an
>> afterthought.
>> 3. Occasionally as a clarifier, when you have more than one adverb modifying
>> the verb. To clarify _that_:
>>
>> Go gasa kwaysa soma. I very fast read. Gasa modifies kway, not soma. But
>
> Don't care much for "gasa" meaning "very". It seems that it could mean
> "mostly", as "largely" sometimes does in English. I'd rather see a
> unique word here. How about "veri" or "strimli" from English, or "jin"
> from Hokkien, or "muy" from Spanish?
I wondered about that myself. Mainly because 'To gasa brawnsa kan' can mean
either the very brown dog or the big, brown dog. So I think you're right,
and I'd pick 'tre' from French thru Esperanto.
>
>> in
>> Go bonsa kwaysa soma. I well, fast read. Bonsa modifies the verb, not the
>> other adverb.
>>
>> Now, context here is probably sufficient, which is in keeping with the basic
>> Ceqli idea to keep it simple and terse unless you need to disambiguate. To
>> disambiguate this case, you could say:
>>
>> Go bon kay kwaysa soma. or Go bonsa soma hu kway, or Go kwaysa soma hu
>> bon.
>>
>> and I don't know how the latter two would differ in meaning, if at all.
>> This could help, maybe, with the question of how to have an adverb apply to
>> one verb or both.
>
> I much prefer the one with "kay".
>
> Another way would be:
>
> Gosa somaka bon kay kway.
>
>> Da kwaysa skri kay pokwaysa soma. Is clear. But
>> Da kwaysa kom kay ho dorm. Is ambiguous. does it mean he both ate quickly
>> and went to sleep quickly, or just the former? I'd say it's ambiguous in
>> Ceqli as is, but can be disambiguated thus:
>>
>> Da kom hu kway kay ho dorm. Here kway only applies to the first verb.
>
> "He ate which quickly and went to sleep."??? To quote Pogo, "Ooog!"
>
> Now I see why "hu" throws me. "Da kom hu" feels like a noun phrase to
> me, with "kway" as a stative verb. This seems to divorce "kay ho dorm"
> from "Da".
>
> I thoroughly detest "hu". Perhaps it reminds me of Arabic "huwa"
> ("he"), which is sometimes used as a kind of copula.
>
>> Da kom kay kwaysa ho dorm. Here only to the second.
>
> You could use the nominalized version of the first verb:
>
> Da komka kway kay ho dorm.
That seems to mean "His eating is fast and goes to sleep". I'd want the da
repeated. And somwhow I especially want the sa there with 'possessive' forms
"Dasa komka kway, kay da ho dorm."
>
> Or, the subject could be repeated in order to prevent the adverb from
> applying to the second verb:
>
> Da kway kom kay da ho dorm.
Yes. I like it.
>
> Or, we could simply require that the adverb immediately precede the
> verb in order to apply--even if it means repeating the adverb:
>
> Da kwaysa kom kay kwaysa ho dorm.
Certainly.
>
> This last is the one I'd prefer. In most cases, the second adverb
> could be omitted if the meaning would be clear from context.
Agreed. I'm in an eternal struggle to keep Anglo-Sinic simplicity with the
option of Loglanic preciseness.
>
> Actually, for linking sequential actions, "kay" doesn't seem right. We
> need a word for "then--next". We should avoid overloading words with
> all the derived meanings that they might have in any particular
> natural language. So, "then--next" should not be the same word as
> "then--at that time". In many languages, verbs are not connected with
> the conjuctions that are used to connect nouns.
Yes. How about using the 'just said' word, which, I think, given the length
of your 'gaq' word, should revert to 'co' after all. It'll be a very
frequent word, and shd really have a CV form. So it's co(vo). Now, I
think we can coin the compound 'fuco' meaning 'after that which has just
been said,' So.
Da kwaysa kom fuco ho dorm. He quickly ate, then went to sleep.
as opposed to
Da kwaysa kom kay ho dorm. He quickly ate, and went to sleep, not
necessarily in that order.
This latter would seldom be what we mean.
>
>> Now, about these moveable adverbs:
>>
>> I've always felt that some adverbs are clearly verb-modifiers. Go fast,
>> sleep well, etc., but that many feel more like _sentence_ modifiers. I eat
>> today, Clearly, the dog is asleep, etc.
>
> Reminds me of "Gladly, the cross-eyed bear."
>
> Do you see any difference between the two following sentences?
>
> "Clearly, the dog is asleep."
> "The dog is clearly asleep."
No. Hm. I think the difference I see is semantic. The dog eats fast, it
tells how the dog eats. How the eating is done. The dog clearly eats
doesn't tell us anything about the style of eating, but about the truth of
the whole sentence. That's what I mean by sentence modifier, I guess.
>
> It seems to me that it's simply a matter of emphasis. The situation
> described is the same in each--the dog is asleep, and that fact is obvious.
>
> One of the most common uses is with adverbs of time:
>
> Gosa kan padei jaka kway.
> Padei, gosa kan jaka kway.
>
> The first is a simple statement of fact. The second emphasizes "yesterday".
Yes, I think that's an okay movement of the adverb. That shd be 'dey'.
Sorry about all the fits and starts with the alphabet.
>
>> Seems like the former have to be
>> right there with the verb, the others can move around. Any thoughts?
>
> It's possible that an adverb in sentence-initial position is simply
> the topic. If nouns and verbs can be topics, why not adverbs? If this
> is the case, it may not be necessary to list which adverbs are
> movable--it may just be obvious from the meaning.
One thing I want, I think, is to clearly distinguish attitudinals from
adverbs. An attitudinal is about the speakers feelings about the sentence,
as in "Happily, the lion died." Obviously, it doesn't modify the verb as we
understand it, and is totally different from "The lion died happily." But
the distinction in English is awkward, and I want a clear way to make
attitudinals in Ceqli, probably with a suffix particle. It would be short
for:
Go joy bekaw to siq ho poji.
So:
JoyX to siq ho poji. Means the same thing.
Ah, here's an illustration of what I was trying to say:
Clearly, the woman sang. The woman clearly sang. The woman sang clearly.
The first two are sentence-modifiers, or an attitudinal, the second an
adverb.
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