From ragnarok@pobox.com Mon Jan 28 15:55:17 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: raganok@intrex.net X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_1_3); 28 Jan 2002 23:55:17 -0000 Received: (qmail 315 invoked from network); 28 Jan 2002 23:55:16 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.171) by m5.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 28 Jan 2002 23:55:16 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO intrex.net) (209.42.192.250) by mta3.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 28 Jan 2002 23:55:15 -0000 Received: from Craig [209.42.200.98] by intrex.net (SMTPD32-5.05) id A4B3470026C; Mon, 28 Jan 2002 18:54:27 -0500 To: "lojban" Subject: RE: [lojban] Bible translation style question Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 18:55:14 -0500 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) In-Reply-To: Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 X-eGroups-From: "Craig" From: "Craig" Reply-To: X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=48763382 X-Yahoo-Profile: kreig_daniyl >There are more languages in the world than SAE and Hopi! Of course. However, Hopi is the standard example of a non-SAE language. And one of the big defining characteristics of SAE, as Whorf explains it, does seem to be (IMVHO) being unlike Hopi. >If I remember rightly (and I may not), oligosynthesis is when a language >possesses a very small and closed morpheme inventory, which morphemes >may be combined together to form compounds. If that is correct, then >- ironically - Lojban is probably one of the world's most oligosynthetic >languages, oligosynthesis being relatively rare, cross-linguistically. Not at all! The term 'Oligosynthesis' with regard to languages originally refers to Nahuatl - which, if we accept Whorf's view (the one that first describes oligosynthesis) has only 35 elements - which is two less then the number of gismu has for specific animals! >Where I do see a SAE bias is, say, in the choice among the following: >1. lo broda cu brode >2. da broda gi'e brode >3. da ge broda gi brode >These are equivalent, but the first is the most favoured and the last the >least. Why is that? Might it have something to do with it being the most succinct? >Or, similarly, while Lojban grammar makes VSO order inherently marked, >SVO and SOV orders are equally unmarked, yet there is a widespread >preference in current usage for SVO, I use SOV whenever it would be as clear as the SVO (there are times when it wouldn't, but they are not all that frequent) > even though SOV is (IIRC) the >most common order, cross-linguistically. Again this is because we are >all accustomed to SVO order. Interestingly, I have been reading about 'implicational universals' among languages, and Lojban is similar to both SVO and SOV languages in other aspects, but slightly closer to SVO.