Re:Recursive language and modern imagination acquired 70k ye...
by blevo on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @12:36PM
(#20626789)
to build/combine on two comments in the thread before mine:
word position matters in English as you demonstrated. "A dog bit my friend" has different meaning than "My friend bit my dog".
In other languages, differentiating between subject/object is done differently.
example: "A doggo bit my friendee" or "My friendo bit a dogee" and you can see the difference. Word order is still somewhat relevant here because I didn't add endings to the verb too, which is commonplace in such languages. When you do that you are able to be far more free with word position:
My Friendee doggo bitto. Bitto My friendee doggo.
In this way it's easier to tell the subject/object difference.[1] To some degree this can be done in English and is exactly what Yoda does: "My friend a dog bit" but that sentence can be either of the ones you gave. Adding a comma may help "My friend, a dog bit" = "A dog bit my friend"
[1] This is exactly what Latin does and as rjf72 mentioned it gives more freedom. Many Latin authors put the verb at the end which gives you a sort of suspense as to just what is happening. In my second example I put the verb up front and the subject at the end which allows me to keep you in suspense as to who did the biting.
In other languages, differentiating between subject/object is done differently. example: "A doggo bit my friendee" or "My friendo bit a dogee" and you can see the difference. Word order is still somewhat relevant here because I didn't add endings to the verb too, which is commonplace in such languages. When you do that you are able to be far more free with word position:
My Friendee doggo bitto. Bitto My friendee doggo.
In this way it's easier to tell the subject/object difference.[1] To some degree this can be done in English and is exactly what Yoda does: "My friend a dog bit" but that sentence can be either of the ones you gave. Adding a comma may help "My friend, a dog bit" = "A dog bit my friend"
[1] This is exactly what Latin does and as rjf72 mentioned it gives more freedom. Many Latin authors put the verb at the end which gives you a sort of suspense as to just what is happening. In my second example I put the verb up front and the subject at the end which allows me to keep you in suspense as to who did the biting.