From marob!hombre!uunet!marob.masa.com!cowan Mon Dec 10 07:47:07 1990 Received: by magpie.MASA.COM (smail2.5) id AA17243; 10 Dec 90 07:47:06 EST (Mon) Received: by marob.uucp (/\=-/\ Smail3.1.18.1 #18.1) id ; Mon, 10 Dec 90 07:10 EST Received: by hombre.MASA.COM (smail2.5) id AA04354; 10 Dec 90 04:05:29 EST (Mon) Received: from cbmvax.UUCP by uunet.UU.NET (5.61/1.14) with UUCP id AA24918; Sat, 1 Dec 90 22:48:36 -0500 Received: by cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (5.57/UUCP-Project/Commodore Jan 13 1990) id AA28350; Sat, 1 Dec 90 22:39:46 EST Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (/\=-/\ Smail3.1.18.1 #18.14) id ; Sat, 1 Dec 90 22:07 EST Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (/\=-/\ Smail3.1.18.1 #18.14) id ; Thu, 29 Nov 90 07:08 EST Received: by cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (5.57/UUCP-Project/Commodore Jan 13 1990) id AA01516; Thu, 29 Nov 90 06:15:15 EST Received: from RUTGERS.EDU by uunet.uu.net (5.61/1.14) with SMTP id AA17464; Thu, 29 Nov 90 02:32:54 -0500 Received: from phri.UUCP by rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.4/3.08) with UUCP id AA26012; Wed, 28 Nov 90 22:14:39 EST Received: by phri.UUCP (smail2.5) id AA09818; 28 Nov 90 22:11:39 EST (Wed) Received: by marob.masa.com (/\=-/\ Smail3.1.17.5 #17.4) id ; Wed, 28 Nov 90 15:46 EST Message-Id: Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 15:46 EST From: marob!uunet!marob.masa.com!cowan (John Cowan) To: j8ij@vax5.cit.cornell.edu, lojban-list@snark.thyrsus.com Subject: Re: Weather verbs Newsgroups: sci.lang In-Reply-To: <1990Nov27.125756.1178@vax5.cit.cornell.edu> Organization: The Logical Language Group, Inc. Status: RO In article <1990Nov27.125756.1178@vax5.cit.cornell.edu> you write: >Does anyone know of a language or languages in which weather verbs >(rain,snow...) take "real" subjects. > >If there are such languages is there any correlation with a belief in weather >Gods? In Lojban, a constructed human language (see previous postings, or write me for more details), the main weather term is >carvi<, which means: A rains from B to C So the "subject" here is what is raining: i.e, water, ice, snow, methane, etc. B would typically be "the sky" or "a cloud" but might even be "my watering can". C would typically be "the ground". Of course, any of the three arguments can be left off, so "carvi" by itself means "It's raining". As far as I know, none of the inhabitants of Lojbanistan (an imaginary country) believe in weather gods. However, I wouldn't put it past some of them. :-) -- cowan@marob.masa.com (aka ...!hombre!marob!cowan) e'osai ko sarji la lojban