There are 7 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: What psychological effect does word order have in languages?
From: Patrick Dunn
1b. Re: What psychological effect does word order have in languages?
From: Matthew George
1c. Re: What psychological effect does word order have in languages?
From: Patrick Dunn
1d. Re: What psychological effect does word order have in languages?
From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
1e. Re: What psychological effect does word order have in languages?
From: Leonardo Castro
1f. Re: What psychological effect does word order have in languages?
From: George Corley
1g. Re: What psychological effect does word order have in languages?
From: Patrick Dunn
Messages
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1a. Re: What psychological effect does word order have in languages?
Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" [email protected]
Date: Wed Feb 20, 2013 4:34 pm ((PST))
Even if you're correct, it's not ungrammatical. We can, as I said, put the
object before the verb in prose.
On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 6:28 PM, Matthew George <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 6:49 PM, Patrick Dunn <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > "The clouds their backs together laid" isn't ungrammatical. It's not
> > punctuated the way we'd normally do it now, but it's perfectly
> grammatical:
> >
> > The clouds, their backs together, laid . . .
> >
>
> Nope; that means something very different. The normal version of the
> sentence would be "The clouds laid their backs together". "their backs" is
> the object of the verb 'laid'. We know this because letting 'laid' be an
> intransitive verb renders the statement meaningless - the semantics
> determine how the grammar can be interpreted.
> *
> To land of gloom with tramp of doom, with roll of drum, we come, we come;
> To Isengard with doom we come!
> With doom we come, with doom we come!
> *
>
--
Second Person, a chapbook of poetry by Patrick Dunn, is now available for
order from Finishing Line
Press<http://www.finishinglinepress.com/NewReleasesandForthcomingTitles.htm>
and
Amazon<http://www.amazon.com/Second-Person-Patrick-Dunn/dp/1599249065/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1324342341&sr=8-2>.
Messages in this topic (16)
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1b. Re: What psychological effect does word order have in languages?
Posted by: "Matthew George" [email protected]
Date: Wed Feb 20, 2013 4:58 pm ((PST))
Altering the word order away from the normal obviously has psychological
implications, then. Is it merely that it's nonstandard, or does the actual
order matter? That's what I'm trying to find out.
Matt G.
Messages in this topic (16)
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1c. Re: What psychological effect does word order have in languages?
Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" [email protected]
Date: Wed Feb 20, 2013 5:15 pm ((PST))
One function of word order deviating from SVO -- in prose as well as poetry
-- is to emphasize the fronted element. I suspect in good poetry that uses
syntactic inversion, that is the likely aim. As you said before, some
poetasters use inversion to grab a rhyme or preserve meter, in which case I
doubt it means much at all, or has much of an effect.
Of course, to speak of the effect of inversion requires identifying a
period. Contemporary poets sometimes find *any* inversion in contemporary
poetry to be ridiculous, while in the 19th C. it was as common as dirt.
On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 6:58 PM, Matthew George <[email protected]> wrote:
> Altering the word order away from the normal obviously has psychological
> implications, then. Is it merely that it's nonstandard, or does the actual
> order matter? That's what I'm trying to find out.
>
> Matt G.
>
--
Second Person, a chapbook of poetry by Patrick Dunn, is now available for
order from Finishing Line
Press<http://www.finishinglinepress.com/NewReleasesandForthcomingTitles.htm>
and
Amazon<http://www.amazon.com/Second-Person-Patrick-Dunn/dp/1599249065/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1324342341&sr=8-2>.
Messages in this topic (16)
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1d. Re: What psychological effect does word order have in languages?
Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" [email protected]
Date: Wed Feb 20, 2013 6:01 pm ((PST))
Doesn't it depend on the conlang?
Mine would have the sentence cats she had, which I think is is Ovs.
-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Patrick Dunn
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 5:16 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: What psychological effect does word order have in languages?
One function of word order deviating from SVO -- in prose as well as poetry
-- is to emphasize the fronted element. I suspect in good poetry that uses
syntactic inversion, that is the likely aim. As you said before, some
poetasters use inversion to grab a rhyme or preserve meter, in which case I
doubt it means much at all, or has much of an effect.
Of course, to speak of the effect of inversion requires identifying a
period. Contemporary poets sometimes find *any* inversion in contemporary
poetry to be ridiculous, while in the 19th C. it was as common as dirt.
On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 6:58 PM, Matthew George <[email protected]> wrote:
> Altering the word order away from the normal obviously has psychological
> implications, then. Is it merely that it's nonstandard, or does the
actual
> order matter? That's what I'm trying to find out.
>
> Matt G.
>
--
Second Person, a chapbook of poetry by Patrick Dunn, is now available for
order from Finishing Line
Press<http://www.finishinglinepress.com/NewReleasesandForthcomingTitles.htm>
and
Amazon<http://www.amazon.com/Second-Person-Patrick-Dunn/dp/1599249065/ref=sr
_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1324342341&sr=8-2>.
Messages in this topic (16)
________________________________________________________________________
1e. Re: What psychological effect does word order have in languages?
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Wed Feb 20, 2013 6:30 pm ((PST))
2013/2/20 Matthew George <[email protected]>:
> Poetic language often violates principles of grammar regarding syntax and
> word order. I think it may be for reasons other than meter and rhyme.
>
> What effect does placing adjectives before the noun they describe have,
> compared with placing them after?
All the Romance languages I know have some adjectives whose meaning is
different depending on whether they precede or follow the noun. IIRC,
the sense of the adjective is always more literal, more concrete when
it follow the noun. The following page has some nice examples of it in
French:
http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/adjectives_fickle.htm
> Afterwards seems like a more logical
> method - a gradual focusing within a general field - but since you can't
> form a mental representation in adjective-first descriptions until the noun
> is given, perhaps it induces people to form mental images differently.
>
> I realize that meaning is expressed equally well either way, but there
> might be secondary instrumental effects that vary. I'm a novice at
> studying linguistics, and I have very limited experience with languages, so
> I have no way of judging from experience. What do those of you who are
> fluent in languages that follow different word orders think?
As a native Portuguese speaker, I feel that adjectives preceding the
noun are more free semantically. Many Brazilian cities have their name
from Tupi whose adjectives usually follow the nouns they modify and
whose compound words usually have very concrete meanings such as
"yellow-headed fish" -> "fish-head-yellow" = "piracanjuba" <- "pira
acang yuba". This reinforce my native intuition.
>
> Matt G.
Messages in this topic (16)
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1f. Re: What psychological effect does word order have in languages?
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Wed Feb 20, 2013 6:31 pm ((PST))
I'm largely thinking that these poetic constructions are not ungrammatical
(at least, not to the poet) but merely low-frequency. It makes sense for
poetry to make use of less common syntactic structures, both as a way of
playing with words and as a strategy to fulfill whatever arbitrary schema
the poet is using (whether it be patterns of meter, rhyme, alliteration,
etc).
On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 5:35 PM, Matthew George <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> What differences, if any, exist in your reaction to "the fast red car"
> compared to "the car fast red"?
>
"*the car fast red" is ungrammatical for me, absolutely no question. "The
car, fast and red", however, is not -- though I seem to get a
nonrestrictive reading, whereas "the fast red car" seems restrictive.
Somewhere in there is a vast theoretical rabbit hole that I somewhat fear
to enter.
Messages in this topic (16)
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1g. Re: What psychological effect does word order have in languages?
Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" [email protected]
Date: Wed Feb 20, 2013 6:37 pm ((PST))
Considering that the location of English adjectives is already a deep and
dark hole, a hole deep and dark, I don't think I dare to venture there
either.
On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 8:31 PM, George Corley <[email protected]> wrote:
> I'm largely thinking that these poetic constructions are not ungrammatical
> (at least, not to the poet) but merely low-frequency. It makes sense for
> poetry to make use of less common syntactic structures, both as a way of
> playing with words and as a strategy to fulfill whatever arbitrary schema
> the poet is using (whether it be patterns of meter, rhyme, alliteration,
> etc).
>
> On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 5:35 PM, Matthew George <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> >
> > What differences, if any, exist in your reaction to "the fast red car"
> > compared to "the car fast red"?
> >
>
> "*the car fast red" is ungrammatical for me, absolutely no question. "The
> car, fast and red", however, is not -- though I seem to get a
> nonrestrictive reading, whereas "the fast red car" seems restrictive.
> Somewhere in there is a vast theoretical rabbit hole that I somewhat fear
> to enter.
>
--
Second Person, a chapbook of poetry by Patrick Dunn, is now available for
order from Finishing Line
Press<http://www.finishinglinepress.com/NewReleasesandForthcomingTitles.htm>
and
Amazon<http://www.amazon.com/Second-Person-Patrick-Dunn/dp/1599249065/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1324342341&sr=8-2>.
Messages in this topic (16)
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