Re: [lojban] Re: logo

[John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net>]

--- Craig Daniel <craigbdaniel@gmail.com> wrote:

> > > pity about the place in the head in my
> opinion.
> > > Subject, Verb, rest of
> > > sentence is so Standard average European.
> In
> > > fact, it's strange how
> > > many European languages almost always have
> the
> > > verb in 2nd position!
> > >
> > > Greg
> >
> > Why strange? European languages -- with a
> couple
> > of exceptions (and I don't know their
> standard
> > word order) -- are all related, many fairly
> > closely.  On the 9other hand, many European
> > languages do have a common SOV pattern --
> with
> > pronoun objects for example.  And,
> Sapir-Whorf
> > test notwithstanding, Lojban is very much an
> SAE
> > language (as is First Order Predicate
> Calculus,
> > although it is usually VSO not SVO).
> 
> Ah, but many of them developed SVO order
> independently; it wasn't
> inherited from PIE. Anglo-Saxon was a VO
> language, but Latin was
> primarily OV; this order remains in certain
> situations in Spanish,
> which is a default VO language.

"Independently" does not make much sense in a
place as small as Europe or as full of constantly
marauding bands.  To be sure, it is not clear
that PIE was SVO (and it probably wasn't) nor
even Latin and Gothic, etc. but we can follow the
rubbing off one another that led to the common
pattern today (and for some considerable time in
the past).

> OTOH, my Lojban uses SOV order a bit more than
> is typical.

Interesting.  Have you had any problems with
this?  VSO gets incomprehension at least occasionally.