INTERLNG Archives

Discussiones in Interlingua

INTERLNG@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG

Options: Use Forum View

Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
Reply To:
INTERLNG: Discussiones in Interlingua
Date:
Tue, 27 Jan 2004 15:17:29 -0800
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (100 lines)
Uh, look.  You don't seem to display a very clear
understanding of the way linguists with a scientific
bent mean by grammaticality and ungrammaticality.

An utterance like "this books" or "these book" would
be ungrammatical because no native speaker would say
them.

An utterance like "He is the man I talked to" and "He
is the man who I talked to" would be grammatical
utterances because native speakers would spontaneously
say them and they would seem quite natural.

An utterance like "He is the man whom I talked to"
would be of questionable grammaticality in modern
English because many, perhaps most, native speakers
would find it quite strange.

It is on its way to becoming completely ungrammatical
the way "thou hast" is ungrammatical in modern
English.  Much of the discourse in the King James
version of the bible is ungrammatical in modern
English.

Utterances like "He is the man whom I talked to" would
have disappeared long ago were it not for the efforts
of Latinizing grammarians who were in love with the
Latin form "quem".

Constructed languages don't have a body of native
speakers who can be used as informants to determine
grammaticality and ungrammaticality.  Thus what is
grammatical in them is largely the opinion of the
individual people using these languages.

There is no rational reason, for example, why
"eventualmente" cannot be used in the same sense as
the English "eventually."  Condemning it as
ungrammatical is an arbitrary matter of individual
opinion.

It is because of these considerations (and the fact
that their planners don't really understand the
complexities of living languages) that all planned
languages with a fairly large number of adherents have
interminable arguments about grammatical and
ungrammatical constructions.  (One famous case out of
Esperanto is the supposed ungrammaticality of using
infinitive constructions after "sin.")

---

--- Stanley Mulaik <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Harleigh diceva:
> >Ora, tal absurditates in le grammatica classic
> >prescriptive del anglese elaborate per personas
> como
> >Lowth e altere grammatologos que seque iste
> tradition.
> >
> >Il es absurde mantener que le angleses debe dicer
> "in
> >a hospital" in vice de "in hospital" e le
> americanos
> >debe dicer "in a hospital" in vice de "in the
> >hospital".
> >
>
> Wittgenstein dicerea que le anglese e le americanos
> joca le joco con un differente serie de regulas....
>
> Lo que es correcte pro un communitate secundo lor
> regulas non es correcte pro le altere con lor
> regulas.
>
> A usar le regulas american pro corriger le anglese
> esserea absurde.  Mais inter illes, si illes
> intercommunica
> un nove serie de regulas que permitte a illes ambe
> expressiones esserea un solution possibile. In iste
> caso nos ha un nove communitate, uno plus grande,
> con nove regulas.
>
> Il es importante considerar que le lingua es un
> practica secundo regulas, durante que il es
> possibile
> cambiar le regulas, a vices inconscientemente, si
> toto se concorda in illos. Un lingua non pote
> functionar
> sin regulas.
>
> Salute!
> Stan


__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/

ATOM RSS1 RSS2