Date: Mon, 19 Dec 1994 15:58:16 +1100
From: Nick Legend Nicholas <nsn@SPEECH.LANGUAGE.UNIMELB.EDU.AU>
Subject: Re: Q-kau
In-reply-to: <no.id> from "Logical Language Group" at Dec 15, 94 01:34:34 am
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To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Reply-to: Nick Legend Nicholas <nsn@SPEECH.LANGUAGE.UNIMELB.EDU.AU>
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Hu'tegh! nuq ja' Logical Language Group jay'?

=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?

Esperanto, do something non-ropno? Come on! :)

Both Esperanto and Modern Greek yield no surprises when it comes to
quantification:

Modern Greek:

Oli        tus     aghapane  kapion
all (nom.) of them they love somebody (acc.)
All of them love somebody (\A x \E y)

Kapion aghapane oli tus
Somebody is loved by all of them (\E y \A x) --- defeasible, I think. (i.e.
context can force the other reading)

Kapios          aghapiete ap' olus tus
somebody (nom.) is loved  by  all  of them
Somebody is loved by all of them (\E y \A x)

Esperanto (the Full Analytic Grammar doesn't bother to investigate this
behaviour):

Cxiu             amas iun
everybody (nom.) love somebody (acc.)
All of them love somebody (\A x \E y)

Iun amas cxiu
Probably same story as with Greek.

Iu              estas amata de cxiu
somebody (nom.) is    loved by everybody
Somebody is loved by all of them (\E y \A x)

Of course, the best place to ask is something like the massively
non-configurational (i.e. anything goes in word order) Australian languages.

Btw, yes, I'm still here. It's been a very hectic month with my thesis,
and it will be another couple of hectic months programming at Microsoft
coming up. But when all is done, I think I'll have a couple of tidbits from
Greek to report, concerning the veriidicality and presuppositions with
lonu vs. lenu...
--
 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @
 Nick Nicholas. Melbourne University, Aus. nsn@speech.language.unimelb.edu.au
                                    ---
"Some of the English might say that the Irish orthography is very Irish.
Personally, I have a lot of respect for a people who can create something so
grotesque."
-- Andrew Rosta <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>, <9307262008.AA95951@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk>