Subject: Re: [lojban] Bible translation style question

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 09:49:36 EST

In a message dated 1/28/2002 7:35:51 AM Central Standard Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> Lojban is already quite SAE. There is no way that you are going to tell me
> that it is oligosynthetic, which if I understand Whorf right is the other
> alternative. Furthermore, it distinguishes past, present, and future tenses
> (as opposed to Hopi, for example, which has past+present material things
> versus future+present immaterial things)
> 

Oligosyntetic is not the only alternative, just the one that Whorf had the 
most experience with -- it's fairly common in American Indian languages 
("oligosynthetic" presupposes "polysynthetic."). Of course, that depends on 
what your definition of "SAE" is as well -- is it necessarily toward the 
isolating end of that particular spectrum (is Chinese, as the example of 
maximum isolation -- among natural languages, many artificial go beyond it -- 
closer to SAE than Mennominee (SP!), say)? Is tense significant? -- having 
it obligatory or optional is presumed to be, but the pattern may not be. 
Ditto singular, dual, trial, plural.