From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Mon Sep 24 12:35:18 2007 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:59:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1IZti9-00043I-Sl for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Mon, 24 Sep 2007 12:35:18 -0700 Received: from wr-out-0506.google.com ([64.233.184.224]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1IZti3-000435-Ia for lojban-list@lojban.org; Mon, 24 Sep 2007 12:35:17 -0700 Received: by wr-out-0506.google.com with SMTP id 36so551688wra for ; Mon, 24 Sep 2007 12:35:10 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; bh=2ouZ8yyHg/8F/fOICVI21tvRw0FlwffwePeOkB5924A=; b=uWJZK19DZLfjKWP83pQ9mXwllY5oSXh3y24RXisFG/xNAt3MOo5svBPh/KF6sdR+yDR3QBbOdhlA6nJbY6VvzV6p/gZPcKFYBrHNW7O0mJ5PCzzMNHdAmt3lqNPiHBYMvYs3u7sc3TJ9oPtCjmTqh5u3aqDgke+u2aKrvPnWWOY= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=gaHw8rwXC5qVlwSoT0j8gTYhGc+RBjFcNdTQTBOHz4q181zble/z5pKfL1uKsHNM+zKQPG5yMSJS3JLfhKFj+VjtPNW0/LIytQ237FFYxHWFVqF+/XCbihqn58qHCcVgSbaS7ZlqNztg4SISdyCO6hTO17whsXUwEEDbol7Z8Uw= Received: by 10.142.99.21 with SMTP id w21mr7645wfb.1190662508997; Mon, 24 Sep 2007 12:35:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.142.83.13 with HTTP; Mon, 24 Sep 2007 12:35:08 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <975a94850709241235x6c460075pdb2f0554e2ce40da@mail.gmail.com> Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2007 12:35:08 -0700 From: "Joel Shellman" To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: Question to native English speakers In-Reply-To: <925d17560709241214q46429ef1p35560a4c1ad3c001@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis Content-Disposition: inline References: <3ccac5f10709240731m128e16bbu376cf0191d37a110@mail.gmail.com> <975a94850709240904p3f6e633csb49205991f4fc827@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560709241214q46429ef1p35560a4c1ad3c001@mail.gmail.com> X-Spam-Score: -0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 13849 X-Approved-By: rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: jshellman@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list On 9/24/07, Jorge Llambías wrote: > I doubt that's the reason. I think for any pair of nouns, > "another noun1 noun2" can only be read as "another (noun1 noun2)". "can only be read"? No, not in American English anyway--anything goes here. The original poster did not ask what is grammatically correct, but rather, how a native English speaker would interpret. Also, considering that "native English speaker" covers people from many nations across the globe, it's quite likely to get very different perspectives. After googling, I found one non-authoritive account stating that adj-noun-noun combos should always be considered adj (noun noun) unless there is a hyphen between the first two words. Regardless of what is proper grammar, though, and considering that most people don't know it, and that most high school Japanese students know more about the rules of English grammar than most American college students (ok, irrelevant but a curious piece of trivia), I would say that adj-noun-noun combos will be intended and interpreted either way depending on the context, intonation, etc. in casual conversation and writing. To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.