VSO order

[Logical Language Group <cbmvax!uunet!pucc.princeton.edu!lojbab>]

Mark Shoulson says in response to Dean Gahlon:
>Using "VSO" form, {citka le nanmu le cripu}, is quite grammatical, but
>poses a different problem.  By current usage, since VSO is not a common
>word-order in many languages, the "selbri-first" word-order is reserved
>for "observative" sentences--ones with the x1 place ellipsized.  Thus,
>the above sentence would probably be understood to mean "(something)
>eats the man ??? the bridge"--since "citka" only has 2 places, it would
>be unlear how the bridge related to it all.
>
>In private e-mail, jimc and I have discovered that we both would prefer
>to allow VSO to enjoy the same treatment as anything else, making it
>more consistent, as well as easier to use VSO (which we both seem to
>like).  What are everyone's opinions?

I'm going to interpolate what you are proposing as being that

                     citka le nanmu le cripu
should be                  x1       x2
and not the current        x2       x3       with x1 unspecified

in other words, you want an >unmarked< VSO order.

I note that you can express VSO with the minimally marked

                     citka fa le nanmu le cripu
                           x1          x2

So there is no constraint against using VSO.

Why is the 'fa' necessary?  The answer is the usage we call the
'observative', where the speaker omits x1 because the predicate ('verb')
is most important in the sentence and the x1 value is obvious.

I note that in old Loglan, the unpreceded predicate was the imperative,
and it was the justification for the observative as an equally basic
form that successfully out-argued the imperative command for this form.
It cannot be argued that VSO is even more basic or necessary, so as to
justify a less-marked form than the observative.

I will aside here, since this isn't the first time this has come up, to
acknowledge a previous proposal by Nick (I think, and I hope I got it
straight) that would retain the observative for the unpreceded predicate
if there is no trailing sumti, but if there were, require fe to skip to
the x2 place.  In other words, reversing the marking requirement so that
the sumti-ed observative is more highly marked than the VSO form.

The answer is still the same - the observative is more basic a language
usage than the filled in VSO.  This is hard to argue in the context of
written text, because observatives tend to arise primarily in spoken
language rather than written, and more often in children's talk than
adult's.  (But see below - Lojban HAS a major written use for
observative/ ellipsized x1).  We use a LOT of observatives in
conversations around here.

Loglan/Lojban is essentially a rigid word order language, designed by
JCB to be rigidly SVO.  The late development of the Hikson/Bonewitz tags
(our fa/fe/fi series) was one way to change the order.  We also early on
noticed that the machine grammar did not care how many sumti are to the
left or right of the selbri/predicate, making the SOV an equally valid
unmarked order, and raising the question/possibility of VSO being
unmarked.

(JCB also added and still has in his version of Loglan, some funky sumti
rotators that shift sumti around in still another way (with no
particular use or basis in natural language) moving trailing sumti to
the front in order, or leading sumti to the end in order.  These went
quickly in the Lojban redesign as they are redundant to the fa tags and
virtually impossible to use without firm and memorized complete place
structures.)

So unlike Esperanto, for example, Lojban is not designed for freely
expressing sumti in any order.  Lojban allows it, but it is not basic to
the language.

Indeed, the rest of Lojban's grammatical structure remains well-linked
with SVO order in ways that further argue for the current interpretation
of "citka le nanmu" as "eater of the man".

The first such argument is that of 'be' linkage used in specified
descriptions.  In Lojban, the following two structures mean the same thing

   klama    le nanmu      le cripu

   klama be le nanmu be'o le cripu
   goer  to the man  from the bridge

But the second expression binds the sumti as x2 onto the selbri allowing

le klama be le nanmu be'o le cripu
the goer to the man  from the bridge

as a sumti.  If VSO were the natural interpretation, these would have to be
equated as:

   klama    le nanmu      le cripu
*  goes     the man    to the bridge

   klama be le nanmu be'o le cripu
   goer  to the man  from the bridge

and the parallelism between these two basic forms is lost

and you might even have to mark the latter even more highly as:

   klama be fe le nanmu be'o le cripu
   goer  to    the man  from the bridge

But this makes little sense because the essence of sumti description with
'le' is using a predicate to describe its x1 by stating its relationship with
other things:  the goer is defined by where she/he/it goes to/from/via/using,
and by the basic fact that a relationship involving klama (going) applies.

Another area, the one I promised above, is in abstractions.  Even with
all the gagalag about cleft place structures a few months ago and in
JL15, there are still going to be many places where abstractions have
'obvious' or elliptically omitted x1 sumti (indeed, our analysis is
finding that a lot of the apparent cleft structures still in the
language truly aren't - but that's another thread)

mi djica <lenu klama le zarci>
I desire  the  going to the market

omits the desired goer, presumably the speaker 'mi' although some contexts
might give different values.

If VSO were a basic unmarked form of the language, you couldn't ellipsize the
x1 without a marker 'fe' before 'le zarci'.

Because x1 (the 'subject') has such a special role in the language grammar
semantics and pragmatics, it is hard to imagine an aesthethic justification
for unmarked VSO be approved by the speaking community.  The minor easing
of learning one less used form would be counter by making other forms more
difficult to learn.

Our language design so recognizes the importance of x1 at the expense of
the other places, that there is little reason seen for any rearrangement
of later places - hence my surprise a couple of days ago at Nick's
conversion operator 'setese' in his 'Only' translations.  That conversion
basically switches x2 and x3 leaving all other sumti in the same order,
but takes 3 syllables instead of the 1 syllable required to just say
'fi' before the x3 (his example had an elliptically omitted x2, but even if
both x3 and x2 are expressed, it takes only 'fi' and 'fe',and you don't need
to do the mental gymnastics of the triple conversion 'setese'.  I personally
see absolutely no need for such multiple conversion operators in usage unless
some kind of dikyjvo system were adopted that forced certain unnatural and
unuseful place structures that needed such conversion in order to be used
in still more complex diklujvo.

Oh - one last related point.  One person not on the list - who was
teaching English to Spanish speakers, noted that the ellipsized subject
is even more used in Spanish and other inflected languages where the
verb-ending gives some clue as to the intended referent, than in
English.  This is apparently true in Spanmish even when the verb-ending
has multiple meanings - the language just tends towards ambiguous
subjects.

lojbab@grebyn.com