Re: [glosalist] Hello all!

Read on. (My reply after three asterix marks.)

——-Original Message——-

From: Robin Gaskell

Date: Friday, August 19, 2005 4:37:26 PM

To: glosalist@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [glosalist] Hello all!

So, for this reason, Nik, I would raise this question with you …

and anyone else who wishes to comment on it: have you had any thoughts

about syntax as a common denominator in language (and communication) and as

a principle suitable for basing an auxillary language on?

Without trying to be rude, I suspect that syntax is an area of

linguistic research that professional Linguists have rather avoided up to now.

Saluta,

Robin

Well,

I didnt really understand what you were asking me about syntax of a language But here is what I know about syntax.

Inflecting and Agglutinating languages, like Esperanto do not need a syntax or in more particular a word order. For example,

Mi trinkas teon.

Mi teon trinkas.

Teon trinkas mi.

Trinkas teon mi.

All the above mean the same, ‘I drink tea’ and not something like ‘Tea drinks me’ or the like. This is due to the objective case -n (teo+n).

But when it comes to isolating languages, word order is 100% necessary as that becomes the SOLE way to convey meaning. And since Glosa is isolating , this applies to Glosa as well.

However, there is a language spoken somewhere in or around Myanmar which is isolating yet it has no syntax. And its speakers still manage to understand each other. But this is the only exception and the reason the speakers understand each other is that they have been using it since birth, which is not the case for Glosa-pe.

Regards,

Nikhil

Nikhil Sinha

nikhilsinha_in@…

www.geocities.com/nikhilsinha_in