Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by nfs1.digex.net with SMTP id AA17686 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5 for ); Fri, 16 Dec 1994 05:57:10 -0500 Message-Id: <199412161057.AA17686@nfs1.digex.net> Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 0856; Fri, 16 Dec 94 05:57:01 EST Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UGA) by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 4306; Fri, 16 Dec 1994 05:57:01 -0500 Date: Fri, 16 Dec 1994 12:56:25 +0200 Reply-To: veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI Sender: Lojban list From: Veijo Vilva Subject: Re: Q-kau X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Bob LeChevalier Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Fri Dec 16 05:57:13 1994 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu > la lojbab cusku di'e > Date: Thu, 15 Dec 1994 01:34:34 -0500 > From: Logical Language Group > Subject: Re: Q-kau > > BTW, I am also interested in how a language with totally free word order > handles the quantificational problems. Esperanto claims to have totally free > word order - how does it deal with "Everybody loves somebody" with object > first? Any other order-free languages provide insights? Finnish has a relatively free word order as the parts of speech can usually be identified by the case endings. Quantification is a headache. To start with, it is often quite impossible to tell what a simple quantified sentence means, and if you change the word order, the meaning can change or remain the same - which really doesn't matter if you don't know for sure to begin with :-) You have to formulate your sentences very carefully if you want to be sure that you'll be understood correctly (I have done a lot of proofreading of graduate and postgraduate level academic dissertations, and it seems that many people have only a very limited grasp of the intricacies). Personally I think that Lojban ought to have available such forms of quantified sumti that the meaning of a bridi involving these sumti survives SE conversion, i.e. the distributive properties of quantifiers ought to be controllable so that a desired distribution doesn't dictate the ordering of sumti. For both stylistic reasons (free topicalization) and syntactic reasons (economy of constructs) it would be nice to be in total control. I've done my share of restructuring NL sentences to contorted forms in order to get the quantificational aspects down just pat - I'd like to avoid that kind of unnecessary inelegance in Lojban. > lojbab -- co'o mi'e veion --------------------------------- .i mi du la'o sy. Veijo Vilva sy. ---------------------------------