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Re: [glosalist] Re: Too much plainness
Robin Gaskell (Robin Gaskell <drought-breaker@...>) on February 22, 2004
At 09:39 AM 2/22/04 +0100, Laslo grafo:
To Igor Wasilewski
Thanks for your answer. I had always have understood that Glosa uses words whose meaning is an “idea”, and they have not a certain sense, but they can have up to four senses (the word classes). And I agree with the word order as absolutely necessary, but even in this case the prases is ambiguous. *** Quite so: most language can be made ambiguous.
The "interrogative" is always a bit tricky.
"John asked."* As they say in computers: the 'argument' is missing.
"John asked a question." Even in English, we need to add this bit.
~John pa dice u qestio.~ . It is logic, not English that makes it a phrasal verb.
It seems that what I was afraid, it was proved. The Glosa seems to be using expressions like English. Those expressions you have to learn in advance, otherwise you will be incapable of using, understanding the Glosa. *** Children do it automatically, but build up their repertoire of learnt phrases over a number of years. Now, Ron Clark chose to base the sentence construction syntax of Glosa on that of English. So, it is probably no wonder that some Glosa phrases are similar to their English equivalents.
BUT I must stress that in Glosa we only want to follow the sentence structure of _good English_.
The way I say it is as follows:
" A well-formed Glosa sentence can usually be translated word for word into English, But English sentences do not all translate word for word into Glosa. "
“Mi dona auxi a mu”. - dona auxi => it is an expression that you have to learn by all means, otherwise you will not be able to use the Glosa. *** You will be understood if you say, ~Mi auxi mu.~
But it is a bit basic, and sounds like ' ' Ugh ' ' language from the jungle.
The ~dona auxi~ formation civilises the language, and 'forces' the ~auxi~ into the synactic position of functioning unambiguously as a NOUN.
These small, usually four-letter, helper words are small in number, and can be used intuitively as well as by rote learning.
volu kogita - wish to think
pote akti - can do
habe fobo - (to) fear
tenta ergo - try to work
I tend to make them up as I go along, rather than remember them as set pieces.
One name for these 'helper words' is VERBOIDS. And it always helps our thinking to have a handle on concepts.
“dice u petitio” - to ask for something => it is an expression “dice u qestio” - to ask about something => it is an another expression
Otherwise you could get an another meaning of the words, like:
“dice u petitio” - to say a petition (not: to ask for sg.) “dice u qestio” - to say a question (not to ask about sg. )
Maybe there are not too much differences, but the fiction writers (and it’s readers) need those subtles. *** All true!
However, the key word is "context." The good novelist gives the background situation and atmosphere before bursting out with the bald statement:
~An pa sono lekto u petitio!~ He read aloud the petition!
In literature, the questions, in any language, for the writer are: what do I want to say, and how best will I say it?
Unfortunately, most of us, in Glosa, are not yet up to the novelist's level of language use.
Sometimes I think it is not so much the fault of the language or the shortage of learning materials, but that our not reaching ^take off^ with Glosa is for not trying.
I say this in the nicest possible way, of course! Ron used to exhort me to "play with the language." And my attempts to follow this advice led to my 'retelling' the Three Bears in Glosa. I enjoyed the experience so much that this was quickly followed by the 'retelling' of Cinderella and Red Riding Hood, as well.
For what it's worth, I pass on Ron's advice: play with Glosa.
Saluta,
Robin
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