From pycyn@aol.com Tue Jan 29 18:35:24 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: Pycyn@aol.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_1_3); 30 Jan 2002 02:35:23 -0000 Received: (qmail 28764 invoked from network); 30 Jan 2002 02:35:23 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.167) by m4.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 30 Jan 2002 02:35:23 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO imo-r05.mx.aol.com) (152.163.225.101) by mta1.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 30 Jan 2002 02:35:23 -0000 Received: from Pycyn@aol.com by imo-r05.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v31_r1.26.) id r.6c.1694b9b4 (3958) for ; Tue, 29 Jan 2002 21:35:19 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <6c.1694b9b4.2988b5e7@aol.com> Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 21:35:19 EST Subject: Re: [lojban] Bible translation style question To: lojban@yahoogroups.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="part1_6c.1694b9b4.2988b5e7_boundary" X-Mailer: AOL 7.0 for Windows US sub 118 From: pycyn@aol.com X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=2455001 X-Yahoo-Profile: kaliputra X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 13098 --part1_6c.1694b9b4.2988b5e7_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 1/29/2002 7:58:25 PM Central Standard Time, ragnarok@pobox.com writes: > to summarize the sporadic but relevant bits of Anthony Fox's _Linguistic > Reconstruction: an Introduction to Theory and Method_: SVO languages are > more likely to be prepositional; SOV tend to be postpositional. OV tend to > be agglutinative, with (C)CV syllable structure, vowel harmony, and pitch > accent, while VO tend to be inflecting. OV languages have adjectives before > nouns, VO have them after. Verb-final languages will have a case system. > This gives us the following for the two styles: > > Pro-SVO: prepositional (1) > Anti-SVO: isolating, adjectives before nouns. (2) > Pro-SOV: CCV syllables, adjectives before nouns. (2) > Anti-SOV: prepositional, isolating, no pitch accent, no vowel harmony, no > cases. (5) > > In other words, lojban doesn't really fit either mold. but it has some of > both. however, since 1/2 is slightly larger than 2/5, I conclude that it is > closer to an SVO language - but not by much. > These sound like statistical groupings, not implicative connections. English is almost as "peculiar" as Lojban in this. The percentages are only signifcant if all the factors have equal weight, which I doubt (the positional factors are more likely associated than the morphophonology, say). --part1_6c.1694b9b4.2988b5e7_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 1/29/2002 7:58:25 PM Central Standard Time, ragnarok@pobox.com writes:


to summarize the sporadic but relevant bits of Anthony Fox's _Linguistic
Reconstruction: an Introduction to Theory and Method_: SVO languages are
more likely to be prepositional; SOV tend to be postpositional. OV tend to
be agglutinative, with (C)CV syllable structure, vowel harmony, and pitch
accent, while VO tend to be inflecting. OV languages have adjectives before
nouns, VO have them after. Verb-final languages will have a case system.
This gives us the following for the two styles:

Pro-SVO: prepositional (1)
Anti-SVO: isolating, adjectives before nouns. (2)
Pro-SOV: CCV syllables, adjectives before nouns. (2)
Anti-SOV: prepositional, isolating, no pitch accent, no vowel harmony, no
cases. (5)

In other words, lojban doesn't really fit either mold. but it has some of
both. however, since 1/2 is slightly larger than 2/5, I conclude that it is
closer to an SVO language - but not by much.


These sound like statistical groupings, not implicative connections.  English is almost as "peculiar" as Lojban in this.  The percentages are only signifcant if all the factors have equal weight, which I doubt (the positional factors are more likely associated than the morphophonology, say). --part1_6c.1694b9b4.2988b5e7_boundary--