Jens Wilkinson wrote:
>
> --- risto@... wrote:
>
>> Pandunia's grammar can produce a wide selection of
>> sentences from the same
>> material. The speakers are free to select the word
>> order that pleases
>> them. This freedom comes at a very low cost because
>> the pairing principle
>> is simple and it doesn't require any markers.
>
> I'm not exactly sure, but I think there is some
> principle that you are following (and that I follow in
> NP as well). It's something like "proximity" but
> that's not the right word. It is a principle, maybe of
> universal grammar, that words that are related in the
> sentence are usually put close to one another.

Exactly! I call it pairing, but proximity is a good word too. I believe
that it is universal.

Speech is sequential. When we speak, words come out one after another,
almost like links in a chain. So it is very natural that the words that
are next to each other are related, and only some simple grammar rules are
needed to decide which neighboring words go together and which don't, such
as the pairing principle.

> So it is usual to say something like:
>
> The man eat fish in the barn.
>
> or
>
> In the barn the man fish eat.

I designed Pandunia's grammar to allow this type of variation. You have
done something similar in Neo Patwa in allowing both SVO and SOV. The
difference between our languages is in how we define it, not so much in
the actual usage.

My tendency, when I write in Pandunia, is to use the word order flexibly
just like in Finnish.

> But:
>
> Fish the man in the barn eat.
>
> Is less usual.

Sometimes object is placed first for emphasis. But, like we agreed a long
time ago, it's better to add a verb to clarify the meaning:
Fish *subi* the man eat in the barn.

Risto