LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.16 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 15 July 2008 - Volume 03
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From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.16 (01) [E]

 Beste Reinhard,

you asked:
> Why ask *me* of all people? I'm the one that wrote "primitive" with
quotation marks. My personal experience is that all ethnic groups and
cultures are
> highly developed in their own ways, in *different* ways.
This could depend on the unefficiency of the ruling language, because it has
not got the possibility as in G 'Euch' for the plural of the personal noun
in the second person *g*....

No- kidding aside- I think that every experienced member of this list (and
even the Great Kahuna himself) is quite aware of the fact that, regarding
aspects which deal with any diffuse presumptions, YOU probably are one of
the most unwoundables. You asked, I answered.

> It's similar, but the German subjunctive is more cumbersome.
Just the German one? Do you think that there are basical differences within
the use of subjunctive between English and German (I don't dare to denote
more European languages of IE origin)?

Don't mind, please!

Jonny Meibohm

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From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.16 (01) [E]

Clever grammar not need. I write this like, you understand good. More word
just make hard read or hear.

*****************************************

Grammar is basically the oil in the machine; it allows for subtleties, and
smooths things over:

"You give book me" is perfectly clear at basic level (the person wants the
book), but is that "Gimme that book!" or "May I have that book please"?

Note that despite English lacking case endings or indicators, in my
"primitive" version the exact position of subject, object and indirect
object aren't as critical as we often claim: I could have written "you give
me book". "Me book you give " could be confusing - though if you had a book,
and I didn't, the meaning would still be obvious.

If we sat down and compiled a consistent, simple UniSpeak with no irregular
verbs and a simple rational structure, I'm willing to bet it would take less
than a generation to become as complicated as English or German.

Look at Tok Pisin: in many ways a deliberate simplification to allow
multi-lingual people to speak to each other -  perfect UniSpeak. Its grammar
and basic vocabulary *are* simple: most expatriates can get a grasp of it in
a few weeks.  Then most of them hit a wall, because they either don't
suspect the nuances or complexities in it, or they do but can't handle them.

Looking for a simple language is like looking for simple 3-dimensional chess
game.

Paul Finlow-Bates

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Grammar

Quite so, Paul.

"You give book me"

Or simpler still: "You give book I"

And so the syntactic structure is even more restricted. Look at Mandarin
Chinese:

我想你。
Wǒ xiǎng nǐ.
"I think (of) thou."
I miss you.

你想我。
Wǒ xiǎng nǐ.
"Thou think (of) I."
You miss me.

 There's no syntactic flexibility here.

What you said about Tok Pisin holds true of all languages that are reputed
to be "easy." It may be easy to put together a few simple phrases for
survival purposes, but then you hit the wall. Good examples of this may be
Malay and Indonesian. So, folks, whenever you hear "X is easy to learn" just
take it with a few grains of salt. Whatever comes easy in one way will have
to be paid for in another way.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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