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on 4/4/02 8:51 AM, kevinbsmith at yahoogroups@hidden.email wrote: > --- In txeqli@y..., "John Schilke" <doc@c...> wrote: >> Glosa has this business of "fu," "du," "pa" for tenses (only >> if needed) and often it remains unused. > > As a semi-fluent Glosa speaker, I have to chime in here. On a > side note, there is some substantial disagreement on the Glosa > list right now about tense, aspect, etc. It seems that the Glosa > system isn't quite complete. > > Anyway, the real point I wanted to make is that in Glosa, these > tense markers (plus "nu" [now]) double as verb phrase markers. > When you encounter one, you know you have left the subject and > are entering the verb. Similarly, "u" and "plu" are the main > noun phrase markers that let you know the verb is finished. > There seem to be others, like "mi", but there is no concrete list > so it is open to interpretation. > > Unfortunately, because these markers are optional, it is often > difficult to parse sentences correctly. Generally it is possible > by context, but often it requires one or more restarts because > you hit a dead end. > > One example was when I recently said "mi volu auxi". I intended > the meaning as "I want to-help", but it can equally be > interpreted as "I want assistance". Even if I had said "mi nu > volu auxi", it wouldn't have helped. > > The only way my meaning would be clear would be if the NP marker > was required instead of being optional. Then, because I didn't > say "mi nu volu u auxi", readers would KNOW that auxi was still > part of the verb phrase. > > I hope Ceqli is able to avoid this confusion. I strongly believe > that you should be able to parse almost any sentence in one try. > It may take some context to grasp the intended meaning, but not > the intended structure. Hm. That is a problem. Let's see. In Ceqli it would be Go vol pomo. which is short for. Go vol ke go pomo. Now, to say I want asstance.... Go vol bepomo. I want to-be-helped. short for Go vol ke go bepomo. Of course, pomoka is an act of helping, so could say Go vol pomoka. If you mean some kind of tangible help, like money, could say Go vol pomoxo. However, this whole thing leads me to wonder if maybe the thing to do is go with the Loglan system, which started this whole thing anyway. If we did, here's what we'd have: 1. Except for some grammatical particles, everything is a verb. Go pomo. I help. To pomo sa kan The help dog. dog who helps. To pomo. The helper, one who helps, which we now signify by 'pomovo'. In this case, the rule would have to change and there could be no more sentences like Kan pomo felin. Dog helps cat. We'd have to make it explicit that a noun is a noun. Te kan da pomo te felin. Dog helps cat. Te being the default noun marker that can be definite/indefinite, whatever. And if we do that, why not go ahead and reserve CV(V) for grammar words that do _not_ behave that way? I say not because it's just too darn arbitrary. The number of grammar words should be small enough to memorize. Anybody want to Loglanize the predicates of Ceqli this way? Mike, this wd maybe give it some internal consistency that you feel a lack of. > > In a language like Glosa, where any word can be used as (almost) > any part of speech, and where you don't know a word's part of > speech by the way it is spelled, I think the best way is to have > mandatory markers between the subject, the verb, and the object. > This could be a single marker, or it could be a specific list of > types of words that can serve that purpose. > > Just my opinion, based on real-world Glosa experience. > > Kevin > > > > > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: > txeqli-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com > > > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > > -- >PLEASE NOTE MY NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS: rmay@hidden.email > Rex F. May (Baloo) > Daily cartoon at: http://www.cnsnews.com/cartoon/baloo.asp > Buy my book at: http://www.kiva.net/~jonabook/gdummy.htm > Language site at: http://www.geocities.com/ceqli/Uploadexp.htm >Discuss my auxiliary language at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/txeqli/