Personal Lingusitic Notes
Analysis of my personal version of English is not a terribly rewarding pastime, usually, as the only interesting pieces of my phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic individuality tend toward the generation of easily-dispelled local ambiguities.
I have noticed a point of mild interest, however, and would like to note them down before they sneak up on me again:
The different tonality I give to serial elements and apositives when speaking (either physically or mentally). When giving a list, all the elements except perhaps the last one are pronounced in a rising tone, not quite reaching question pitch but definitely above the starting tone. Apositives, however, are pronounced in the rising-falling tone, so as to link them with the antecedent, or in a high-level tone without a significant pause between the antecedent and the apositive. This kind of distinction doesn't make it into writing because English doesn't recognize tonality except with regards to questions. The differences in spacing would perhaps be easier to implement, but would not completely clear up confusion as the end of the apositive clause would not be marked well.
This realization came from reading about the use of the Oxford comma and attempts to create situations where the Oxford comma is misleading.
The example given was a book dedication to "my mother, Ayn Rand(,) and God", with the assumption that Ayn Rand is not the author's mother, and comparing that to "my parents, Ayn Rand(,) and God". (I wish I could parenthesize a lack of a comma), again with the assumption that the author is not the child of Ayn Rand and God.
Focusing on the apositive case, in the case of leaving out the comma for the apositive we'd get "my mother Ayn Rand and God", which works, and "my parents Ayn Rand and God", which works because Ayn Rand is singular. But what about "my friends these people and those people"? The term "my friends" could include both "these people" and "those people", or it could include only "these people" and the actual group mentioned is "my friends and those people"; without apositive markings, this ambiguity cannot be resolved locally.
Perhaps plurality ought to be dealt with separately.
Given that most grammatical structures are morphologically realized in the conlangs I'm building, I don't think I have to worry about this for the conlangs, but it would be nice to have a regular system for written English that I could use.
I have noticed a point of mild interest, however, and would like to note them down before they sneak up on me again:
The different tonality I give to serial elements and apositives when speaking (either physically or mentally). When giving a list, all the elements except perhaps the last one are pronounced in a rising tone, not quite reaching question pitch but definitely above the starting tone. Apositives, however, are pronounced in the rising-falling tone, so as to link them with the antecedent, or in a high-level tone without a significant pause between the antecedent and the apositive. This kind of distinction doesn't make it into writing because English doesn't recognize tonality except with regards to questions. The differences in spacing would perhaps be easier to implement, but would not completely clear up confusion as the end of the apositive clause would not be marked well.
This realization came from reading about the use of the Oxford comma and attempts to create situations where the Oxford comma is misleading.
The example given was a book dedication to "my mother, Ayn Rand(,) and God", with the assumption that Ayn Rand is not the author's mother, and comparing that to "my parents, Ayn Rand(,) and God". (I wish I could parenthesize a lack of a comma), again with the assumption that the author is not the child of Ayn Rand and God.
Focusing on the apositive case, in the case of leaving out the comma for the apositive we'd get "my mother Ayn Rand and God", which works, and "my parents Ayn Rand and God", which works because Ayn Rand is singular. But what about "my friends these people and those people"? The term "my friends" could include both "these people" and "those people", or it could include only "these people" and the actual group mentioned is "my friends and those people"; without apositive markings, this ambiguity cannot be resolved locally.
Perhaps plurality ought to be dealt with separately.
Given that most grammatical structures are morphologically realized in the conlangs I'm building, I don't think I have to worry about this for the conlangs, but it would be nice to have a regular system for written English that I could use.