4 ms·

When using gestures, rules of grammar remain S-O-V

26 points by silentbicycle 18y ago

jaytee_clone 18y ago
I wonder if it will be more effective to use SOV in graphical presentations like PowerPoint. Company A -> Company B -> Acquire
karmaVS 18y ago
Despite what the article seems to imply, S-O-V is also the most common standard word order (in number of languages, though almost certainly not in number of native speakers, given that both English & Chinese are both S-V-O)
- iamwil 18y ago
  aren't most latin language descendents S-V-O? The only S-O-V languages I can think of off the top of my head are Japanese and Korean. Anyone know about African or South American languages?
  - Scriptor 18y ago
    Actually, French is S-O-V when you're using pronouns. Some quick testing with Google Translate suggests that Spanish might follow the same rule as well. My first language, Bengali, an Indo-European language spoken in Bangladesh and thus distantly related to Latin, is S-O-V. I'm assuming from this that Hindi and other Indian subcontinental languages are as well. I think S-O-V makes sense when communicating visually. Say someone kicks a ball. Initially you see a person and a ball. Then you see the person kick it. The action comes after the presence of the two objects. You don't see a person, see him kick, and only then see the ball.
    - maw 18y ago
      Actually, French is S-O-V when you're using pronouns. Can you share an example? Admittedly, my French isn't too hot, but I'm curious. I'd be interested in an example Spanish (which I'm a lot better at than French) too.
      - Scriptor 18y ago
        My French is a bit rusty, but here are some examples I can think of right now: Je le mange - I eat it. Je tu le donne - I give it to you. 'le' means 'it', and 'tu' means 'you'. So literally, the first example would be "I it eat", and the second would be "I to you it give". I don't know Spanish very well, but I pulled this off of Google translate: Yo lo vi - I saw it I'm assuming 'lo' is 'it', and 'vi' is 'saw'.
        maw 18y ago
        I'm assuming 'lo' is 'it', and 'vi' is 'saw'. Duh! Yes, you are of course correct. My excuse for forgetting: familiarity might not always breed contempt, but sometimes it breeds a real lack of observation! As an aside, archaic (and archaically styled) Spanish is often SVO even with object pronouns. So you'll see things like "díjole" in Quijote. (It's "te" and not "tu" in French, btw. Tu's only used as a subject.)
  - lunchbox 18y ago
    Japanese, Burmese, Basque, Latin, Pashto. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject_Object_Verb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject_Object_Verb
  - khafra 18y ago
    Latin itself was flexible, but usually S-O-V. It was long ago I learned it, around the same time that I started using an HP-48. I was pretty pleased with myself when I noticed the similarity with reverse polish.
jfarmer 18y ago
I think I'm turning Japanese!
whacked_new 18y ago
I guess it makes sense to say this evidences a stack-based model of human memory. push memory boy push memory ball push action kick evaluate.
- silentbicycle 18y ago
  Perhaps boy.ball.kick() or just boy ball kick This also reminds me of the way verbs can accumulate in German. (http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?ReadsLikeGerman http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?ReadsLikeGerman) :)
  - whacked_new 18y ago
    I actually can't see how that works, at least out of the languages that I know, none of them fit the dot-syntax. The only ones that do (again, in the ones I know), are the lisp variants, but you need to flip the sexpr around. (I suspect the reason why lisp is "flipped" could be because programs are action centric whereas utterances are subject centric (this is a very risky statement to make, but interesting to think about.)) Anyhow, with this in mind, translating the above is absolutely trivial: ((action kick) (object boy) (object ball)) for prefix, or ((object boy) (object ball) (action kick)) for postfix
    - silentbicycle 18y ago
      Boy.ball.kick() isn't an example from any particular language, but I was thinking something along the lines of "boy.ball" (the boy's ball) ".kick" (is kicked). That's different from boy.kick(ball), though. In Forth, which is a postfix and stack-based language, "boy ball kick" would work by pushing boy and ball on the stack, and kick would pop two values, the kicker and kickee.
      - whacked_new 18y ago
        I just saw this comment and pedantically, I still think boy.ball is unworkable in this context (concerning SOV order and such). The above expression illustrates a verb executed on a subject and object which are two distinct entities. This is your Forth example (which I agreed with earlier). In the dot syntax though, you use it as an indicator of possessiveness, in which case the subject is reduced to "ball", modified by "boy". Furthermore "is kicked" is a passive form, which means it has an implied subject, which is the boy. Therefore the completed expression cannot be written as-is; you'd have to insert the subject (boy) into the expression and delineate it as a separate entity. boy.kick(boy.ball) would convey this meaning. boy.ball.kicked() could also convey it, but in this case, the innards of kicked() must make reference to boy.

26 points by silentbicycle 18y ago

I wonder if it will be more effective to use SOV in graphical presentations like PowerPoint. Company A -> Company B -> Acquire

karmaVS 18y ago

Despite what the article seems to imply, S-O-V is also the most common standard word order (in number of languages, though almost certainly not in number of native speakers, given that both English & Chinese are both S-V-O)

iamwil 18y ago
aren't most latin language descendents S-V-O? The only S-O-V languages I can think of off the top of my head are Japanese and Korean. Anyone know about African or South American languages?
- Scriptor 18y ago
  Actually, French is S-O-V when you're using pronouns. Some quick testing with Google Translate suggests that Spanish might follow the same rule as well. My first language, Bengali, an Indo-European language spoken in Bangladesh and thus distantly related to Latin, is S-O-V. I'm assuming from this that Hindi and other Indian subcontinental languages are as well. I think S-O-V makes sense when communicating visually. Say someone kicks a ball. Initially you see a person and a ball. Then you see the person kick it. The action comes after the presence of the two objects. You don't see a person, see him kick, and only then see the ball.
  - maw 18y ago
    Actually, French is S-O-V when you're using pronouns. Can you share an example? Admittedly, my French isn't too hot, but I'm curious. I'd be interested in an example Spanish (which I'm a lot better at than French) too.
    - Scriptor 18y ago
      My French is a bit rusty, but here are some examples I can think of right now: Je le mange - I eat it. Je tu le donne - I give it to you. 'le' means 'it', and 'tu' means 'you'. So literally, the first example would be "I it eat", and the second would be "I to you it give". I don't know Spanish very well, but I pulled this off of Google translate: Yo lo vi - I saw it I'm assuming 'lo' is 'it', and 'vi' is 'saw'.
      - maw 18y ago
        I'm assuming 'lo' is 'it', and 'vi' is 'saw'. Duh! Yes, you are of course correct. My excuse for forgetting: familiarity might not always breed contempt, but sometimes it breeds a real lack of observation! As an aside, archaic (and archaically styled) Spanish is often SVO even with object pronouns. So you'll see things like "díjole" in Quijote. (It's "te" and not "tu" in French, btw. Tu's only used as a subject.)
- lunchbox 18y ago
  Japanese, Burmese, Basque, Latin, Pashto. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject_Object_Verb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject_Object_Verb
- khafra 18y ago
  Latin itself was flexible, but usually S-O-V. It was long ago I learned it, around the same time that I started using an HP-48. I was pretty pleased with myself when I noticed the similarity with reverse polish.

jfarmer 18y ago

I think I'm turning Japanese!

whacked_new 18y ago

I guess it makes sense to say this evidences a stack-based model of human memory. push memory boy push memory ball push action kick evaluate.

silentbicycle 18y ago
Perhaps boy.ball.kick() or just boy ball kick This also reminds me of the way verbs can accumulate in German. (http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?ReadsLikeGerman http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?ReadsLikeGerman) :)
- whacked_new 18y ago
  I actually can't see how that works, at least out of the languages that I know, none of them fit the dot-syntax. The only ones that do (again, in the ones I know), are the lisp variants, but you need to flip the sexpr around. (I suspect the reason why lisp is "flipped" could be because programs are action centric whereas utterances are subject centric (this is a very risky statement to make, but interesting to think about.)) Anyhow, with this in mind, translating the above is absolutely trivial: ((action kick) (object boy) (object ball)) for prefix, or ((object boy) (object ball) (action kick)) for postfix
  - silentbicycle 18y ago
    Boy.ball.kick() isn't an example from any particular language, but I was thinking something along the lines of "boy.ball" (the boy's ball) ".kick" (is kicked). That's different from boy.kick(ball), though. In Forth, which is a postfix and stack-based language, "boy ball kick" would work by pushing boy and ball on the stack, and kick would pop two values, the kicker and kickee.
    - whacked_new 18y ago
      I just saw this comment and pedantically, I still think boy.ball is unworkable in this context (concerning SOV order and such). The above expression illustrates a verb executed on a subject and object which are two distinct entities. This is your Forth example (which I agreed with earlier). In the dot syntax though, you use it as an indicator of possessiveness, in which case the subject is reduced to "ball", modified by "boy". Furthermore "is kicked" is a passive form, which means it has an implied subject, which is the boy. Therefore the completed expression cannot be written as-is; you'd have to insert the subject (boy) into the expression and delineate it as a separate entity. boy.kick(boy.ball) would convey this meaning. boy.ball.kicked() could also convey it, but in this case, the innards of kicked() must make reference to boy.