Return-Path: Message-Id: <9110251912.AA03955@relay1.UU.NET> Date: Fri Oct 25 19:56:24 1991 Reply-To: "Mark E. Shoulson" Sender: Lojban list From: "Mark E. Shoulson" Subject: "Reversed Japanese" as a model for a conlang syntax? X-To: gilson%61510.decnet@ccf3.nrl.navy.mil X-Cc: conlang@buphy.bu.edu, lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann In-Reply-To: "61510::GILSON"'s message of 25 Oct 91 08:30:00 EDT <9110251604.AA17507@buphy.bu.edu> Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Fri Oct 25 19:56:24 1991 X-From-Space-Address: cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN Hmmm. Interesting idea you have there, Bruce. Looking at it using ideas from Lojban, I'm not sure it'll hold water: You'd want markers for just about every "modal" (BAI) and then some. I fear that may start to get infinite. But not necessarily; the Japanese do fine with their finite set and the language is still fairly clear. Perhaps a large but finite set will do. I'll have to try to find a good way to talk about this; I need some examples. I think there are some problems, but it's still worth discussing. As to your different ways of expressing "the house" when it existed only after the action was finished vs. only before vs. not necessarily ever etc. I seem to think that Loglan, or at least one of jimc's variants (nalgol?) had distinctions like that. I get this from comments on an old story jimc wrote in Loglan. Bob, jimc, can you enlighten us?