Date: Tue, 11 Nov 1997 13:37:18 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199711111837.NAA29251@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: And Rosta Sender: Lojban list From: And Rosta Organization: University of Central Lancashire Subject: Re: terminators and bilingualism X-To: LOJBAN@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1180 X-From-Space-Date: Tue Nov 11 13:37:32 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Lojbab(in private mail): > If you are still on Linguist List (I'm not) perhaps you could query whether > any language has the circumpositions/terminators that you are discussing. > Lots more comparative langauge expertise there than elsewhere. OK: Ivan or I could ask. But first could we agree among ourselves what would count as a terminator/initiator? As a first go, without crafting the formulation, I would suggest: [X Y Z] where either X, Y or Z is the head of the phrase, and X must be the first word in the phrase and Z must be last word, though they needn't be obligatory. Does that get to the essence of it? (Ivan? Anyone? - what do you reckon.) However, it occurs to me that if an XP, which is head-initial, systematically selected a YP, which is head final, then you would get [X [[Z] Y]]. Such an analysis is available for Lojban terminators, and perhaps what really marks out Lojban is the pervasiveness of the construction type. > (And if you happen to mention Lojban, it might not hurt %^) On the other hand, if the query came from LLG, the Lojban URL could be included in the sig. (Or maybe I could just give the Lojban URL parenthetically.) --And