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Re: [lojban] SAE was lojban and PR
I see I should have used "allegedly" more freely in that note, especially since
this is a "SWH is false" week. I'm not sure what a sentence from each such
language would do, but I can cite the standard languages of the various types.
The plug-and-socket types are shown by SAE languages, Chinese is usually given
as a mass language (individuals as slices of the bulk), Trobriand Island as kind
(whole present in all its 'manifestations') is usual. Whorf's choices for flux
languages are Menominee and Hopi. Another type of language often talked about,
but rarely (if ever) seen, is the language which takes the world to be mere
sense data popping into and out existence instantaneously (maybe a kind of flux
language).
As for missing the class, this stuff is often not in classes (I had courses from
both Leonard and Goodman and never saw any calculus of individuals) but in stray
reading (xorxes is a pro at this, thank God, so the stuff does get down to us
fairly rapidly). There used to be a course on Whorf at UCLA, though, whence
many of these jokes (although with a Scandanavian like Harry Hoijer it is hard
to be sure which ones are the jokes).
As for characteristic instances, the Pidjin "one piecee man" does for masses,
"gavagai" for kinds, and for processes, the Hopi name for Weeping Springs is
literally "flowing downward whitely". Whether there is anything to all this
remains the question (Hoijer's last lecture "Any way you slice it, it's still
baloney").
----- Original Message ----
From: Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thu, October 27, 2011 8:47:36 PM
Subject: Re: [lojban] SAE was lojban and PR
On Thursday 27 October 2011 12:52:52 John E. Clifford wrote:
> SAE is a Whorfian term and has very little to do with the specifics of word
> class and paradigms. It has more to do with the metaphysical view of the
> language. SAE languages are based on things doing stuff and having
> properties. Other languages are based on processes going on or masses
> dividing or kinds manifesting themselves. The issue in which all the
> unfortunate weird stuff turns up is more or less an effort to see what sort
> of language Lojban is and to what extent it can mirror the other kinds. As
> spoken first (or so) order logic, it is clearly SAE in its most
> Aristotelian form, some say it can be viewed as a mass/ kind language as
> well.
Could you give examples of sentences showing these other kinds of languages?
I found the Wikipedia page. Going down the lists:
1. Definite and indefinite articles ✓
2. relative clauses are postnominal but don't have inflected pronouns ×
3. periphrastic perfect: there are no participles ×
4. predicates to encode experiencers ✓
5. passive participle ×
6. anticausative verbs × I think, since the transitive is derived
with "-gau, -ri'a, -zu'e"
7. dative external possessors ×
8. negative indefinite ✓ though it's two words
9. particle comparative × (there is "me'a" but it's not the usual)
10. equative adverbial ×
11. verb inflected for subject ×
12. differentiation between intensifier and reflexive ✓
Further features:
1. verb-initial yes/no ×
2. comparative inflection × it's a compound
3. A, B, and C ×
4. comitative and instrumental ×
5. second/two ×
6. no alienable/inalienable distinction ×
7. no clusivity distinction ×
8. no productive reduplication ✓
9. topic focus intonation word order × (focus can be expressed by word order,
but topic is expressed by prenex)
10. SVO ✓
11. only one gerund ×
12. neither-nor ×
13. phrasal adverbs - not sure what, "still" is a single word
14. replacement of past by perfect ×
The third list: The first six items, which are all phonetic, all ✓. Morphology
is both suffixing and prefixing and is not fusional at all. There is no
morphosyntactic alignment.
Pierre
--
li ze te'a ci vu'u ci bi'e te'a mu du
li ci su'i ze te'a mu bi'e vu'u ci
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