Warp wrote:

>   Most sentences of the form "A when B" can be changed to "when B, A" and
> it will still be a valid sentece and the meaning won't change. For example:

Most people probably believe that each word has a meaning, and putting 
words together adds their meanings to create a sentence.

This is provably false, however:

   This is hot.
   Is this hot?

Same three words, but one is a statement, the other is a question.

To me, the weird thing about language is that just changing the order of 
words can totally transform the meaning of the sentence...

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> To me, the weird thing about language is that just changing the order of 
> words can totally transform the meaning of the sentence...

In English yes, because the only way to tell which part of the sentence is 
which is by word order.  (Most?) other languages have other methods besides 
just the order of the words.

This catches me out sometimes if I try to translate a phrase directly from 
German to English, sometimes I get completely the wrong meaning because I 
paid too much attention to the word order and not the words themselves.

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scott wrote:
>> To me, the weird thing about language is that just changing the order 
>> of words can totally transform the meaning of the sentence...
> 
> In English yes, because the only way to tell which part of the sentence 
> is which is by word order.  (Most?) other languages have other methods 
> besides just the order of the words.

You mean other languages use inflections to distinguish intended meanings?

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:4b9fafd8$1@news.povray.org...
>
> Most people probably believe that each word has a meaning, and putting 
> words together adds their meanings to create a sentence.
>
> This is provably false, however:
>
>   This is hot.
>   Is this hot?
>
> Same three words, but one is a statement, the other is a question.

"Let's eat, Grandpa!"
"Let's eat Grandpa!"

Not just good grammar, punctuation saves lives...

--
Jack

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Invisible wrote:
> scott wrote:
>>> To me, the weird thing about language is that just changing the order
>>> of words can totally transform the meaning of the sentence...
>>
>> In English yes, because the only way to tell which part of the
>> sentence is which is by word order.  (Most?) other languages have
>> other methods besides just the order of the words.
> 
> You mean other languages use inflections to distinguish intended meanings?

Indeed. Try the slavic group of languages. When the Kat gets angry she
immediately defaults to thinking in Slovak and then translating word for
word into English - Most amusing :-)

Put down that brick, Kat. Put it ...Aaargh!

John
-- 
Cogito sum,|| wbu### [at] tznvypbz (rot'ed) || GPG Key Fingerprint:
ergo sum,  ||   These opinions are mine alone,   || 0D9BCF4CF1B71CA2F5F7
cogito     ||     others can find their own      || BFBBCBC34EDEAEFCE453

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>  I noticed something funny about the English language (might be similar
> with many other languages as well):
>
>  Most sentences of the form "A when B" can be changed to "when B, A" and
> it will still be a valid sentece and the meaning won't change. For 
> example:
>
>  "Tom panicked when he heard the news."
>  "When he heard the news, Tom panicked."
...
>  Can you think of any sentence of the form "A when B" which does not work
> in the form "when B, A" (or the other way around)?

I think it depends on the tense...

"Tom panicks when he hears the news." (scared of any kind of news)
"When he hears the news, Tom panicks." (some specific news)

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> You mean other languages use inflections to distinguish intended meanings?

Yes, and often you can then use the word order to convey which part you want 
to emphasise rather than the actual meaning.  This means there is less need 
for vocal emphasis on words to indicate importance (as you need in English).

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Captain Jack wrote:

> "Let's eat, Grandpa!"
> "Let's eat Grandpa!"
> 
> Not just good grammar, punctuation saves lives...

lolrus!

I've received too many emails and read too many documents with incorrect 
punctuation. :-P

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And lo On Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:21:01 -0000, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> did  
spake thusly:

>   I noticed something funny about the English language (might be similar
> with many other languages as well):
>
>   Most sentences of the form "A when B" can be changed to "when B, A" and
> it will still be a valid sentece and the meaning won't change. For  
> example:
>
>   "Tom panicked when he heard the news."
>   "When he heard the news, Tom panicked."

Yes a subordinate clause can be used either before or after a main clause,  
you just separate them with a comma if you start with the subordinate  
clause.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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scott wrote:
>> You mean other languages use inflections to distinguish intended 
>> meanings?
> 
> Yes, and often you can then use the word order to convey which part you 
> want to emphasise rather than the actual meaning.  This means there is 
> less need for vocal emphasis on words to indicate importance (as you 
> need in English).

Yep. The "passive voice" is often used to emphasize some result without 
saying anything about the person achieving the result. Like, "the server 
will be configured to ..." rather than "John will configure the server to..."

Funny enough, MS Word's grammar checker complains about this construct, in 
spite of it being *very* common in business documents.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   The question in today's corporate environment is not
   so much "what color is your parachute?" as it is
   "what color is your nose?"

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