|
 |
Case vs Word Order | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| free4eternity Diglot Newbie Australia Joined 5518 days ago 8 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English, Cantonese* Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 1 of 3 19 October 2009 at 9:57am | IP Logged |
|
As I look into the syntax of many languages, I found that the subjects and objects are often distinguished by either noun cases or word orders. Obviously, both have their advantages and disadvantages.
Cases allow the language to be flexible in that they are not made to obey the rigid structure of subject, verb and object; but can be quite confusing when there are many different cases, and IMHO, they can be quite daunting to new comers. Word orders obviously take away the need to have different 'versions' of a same noun, but too have its downside. I am just wondering how do you feel about it. Edited by administrator on 19 October 2009 at 10:11am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6768 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 2 of 3 19 October 2009 at 10:36am | IP Logged |
|
Theoretically speaking, conjugations or particles that mark cases seem like a more elegant way of indicating word
function and also make different parts of speech obviously different from one another without requiring extra context. That said, I've started dabbling with Ancient Greek and find the prospect of memorizing all those noun and verb endings very daunting. I think Japanese finds a very nice balance: flexible word order and consistent case particles that attach to unchanging nouns. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5669 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 3 of 3 19 October 2009 at 12:22pm | IP Logged |
|
I am certainly not a professional linguist, but my experience with slavic languages is that by using case to represent the role something plays in a sentence we then free up word order to represent something else.
For example, quite often in slavic languages the stuff you want to really emphasize is put at the end of the sentence. In English of course, you can't do this. Instead, people tend to use vocal intonation to emphasises something, but this only works for the spoken language. In the written form, then, we have a problem where people often end up having to resort to SHOUTING or bolding for emphasis. Edited by Splog on 19 October 2009 at 12:23pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
