From phma@webjockey.net Fri Feb 15 23:16:30 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: phma@ixazon.dynip.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_2); 16 Feb 2002 07:16:30 -0000 Received: (qmail 36022 invoked from network); 16 Feb 2002 07:16:30 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.171) by m9.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 16 Feb 2002 07:16:30 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO neofelis.ixazon.lan) (208.150.110.21) by mta3.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 16 Feb 2002 07:16:29 -0000 Received: by neofelis.ixazon.lan (Postfix, from userid 500) id 68C6E3C477; Sat, 16 Feb 2002 02:16:28 -0500 (EST) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Linguistic universals and Lojban Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 02:16:27 -0500 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.2] X-Spamtrap: fesmri@ixazon.dynip.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <02021602162704.02774@neofelis> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: phma@ixazon.dynip.com From: Pierre Abbat X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=92712300 I found a page http://ling.uni-konstanz.de:591/Universals/introduction.html listing universals and am trying to correlate them to Lojban. Two are: In languages with prepositions the genitive almost always follows the governing noun. In languages with postpositions the genitive almost always precedes the governing noun. Lojban has prepositions, not postpositions, but it is not at all obvious to me what corresponds to a genitive construction. The Lojban noun cannot do anything but form a sumti by adding "la" (or "lai" or "la'i") or form a vocative phrase. It has no genitive. Most nounly things are done with verbs, which don't have genitive either. Both "pe"-phrases and "be"-phrases can be sometimes translated as a genitive, but they follow their heads. Does either correspond to a genitive construction? If in a language the verb follows the nominal subject and the nominal object as the dominant order, the language almost always has a case system. If by "the language has a case system" they mean that every sumti is marked for case, then Lojban doesn't: sumti must be marked for case only if some are missing or out of order. This seems to imply that the dominant order is SVO, not SOV. I'm not sure either of those orders dominates. Verbal modifiers like those for negation, causation, and reflexive or reciprocal are placed after verb roots in OV languages and before verb roots in VO languages. "na" precedes the verb, as do tense markers, unless they are followed with "ku". This suggests that SVO is dominant. phma