Re: [glosalist] Translation

WARNING! It’s this kind of discourse that ran me and a host of others from the “IDO” group. But have it your(s) way. Looks to me that you who know the language would write some very short human interest pieces in both english and glosa so that we that or new to the language could start learning and submit some short Glosa articles or at least a few sentence to the group. Meanwhile, I like Glosa and am studying it some everyday.

John Braddock

Robin Gaskell <drought-breaker@…> wrote: At 02:37 AM 7/5/03 -0600, Gary miller wrote:

Dear Robin,

I’m afraid you have missed the point. ….. my perception of Glosa differs from yours.

• It would seem that we have two approaches to logic, and are imposing them on our Glosa sentences. I would hope that in preparing basic instruction for Glosa learners, these learners do not end in a quandry over which way to structure their sentences.

You have pointed out that Glosa semantics are based more on vocabulary than grammar. What if a Glosa word has a different meaning in my head than it has in yours? Certainly, Glosa words are not yet that clearly defined.

• True, the word translation dictionaries of Clark/Ashby and the GID result in the user imposing their English-language meaning and usage onto the Glosa word. This is less than ideal. The sentence, “You have pointed out that Glosa semantics are based more on vocabulary than grammar.” is not immediately understandable to me. However, if I try hard, I can see that I percieve words as concept centres; and these concepts may be presented as actions, things or descriptions (Verbs, Nouns or Modifiers). Actions: An dromo. An hedo dromo. Tem dromo, an pa kade. [he runs] [he likes to run] [while running he fell] An pa moti an poda fo celero te dromo ma rapidi. [he moved his legs very quickly in order to run faster]

Things: An habe u dromo. Id pa es u boni dromo. An hedo dromo. [he has a run] [it was a good run] [he likes running] U brevi dromo pre prima-vora dona boni sana. [a short run before breakfast gives good health]

Modifiers: U dromo ju-an apare habe fatiga. Fe habe u dromo nasa.* [the running boy appears to have tiredness] [she has a running nose] … … to be tired] … runny … An pa habe u dromo greso. Fe dromo greso pasa u domi. [he had a running walk] [she runningly walks past the h.]

So the question remains: is the word ~dromo~ one semantic unit - as it appears to be in the above Glosa, or do the different forms of “run” in English represent different semantic units? Must Glosa’s semantic classifications follow those of English? And can the ‘dromo’ in ~An hedo dromo,~ represent two “parts-of-speech” concurrently … or, doesn’t it matter because Glosa has a different usage schema from that of English? Does ~An hedo dromo,~ really have two meanings, or does this only become a problem when we try to express it in English, and are forced by English usage, to say it one way, or the other?

And back to grammar, I thought that the grammar of Glosa was a scheme for the ordering of words to give the sentence a meaningful structure; while, at the same time not altering the essential meanings of the words, which did not change, anyway. To be blunt, I, like Ron before me, believe that people intuit the function of the ‘concept-word’ from its position in the phrase.

As I have been understanding it, the dimensions of Semantics and Syntax are two distinct elements of Glosa, with the idea of “Grammar” being clearly associated with the Syntax Dimension.

So I have used the language as if Syntax and Grammar were more or less synonymous - and more or less ‘mechanical - with real understanding coming from our interpretation of the words .. aided, of course, by their ordering in the phrases.

Sending off this first part now: more later.

Robin Gaskell

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