LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.17 (02) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  - 17 July 2008 - Volume 02
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From: Jorge Potter <jorgepot at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.16 (03) [E]

Dear Ron,

Oops! You reversed the pinyin.

Jorge Potter

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.

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From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.16 (03) [E]

Ooops-

sorry, I wrote:

> 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.

Of course '*prejudices*' were meant!

Allerbest!

Jonny Meibohm

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From: Theo Homan <theohoman at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.16 (03) [E]

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

[...]

 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

Hi,

A remark that is not completely out of way:

When people say that an X-language is a difficult language or difficult to
learn, let's remember that billions [ a one followed by 9 zeros ] of
didactic hours are spent in the teaching of English [and maybe Latin], and
every few years someone find a new tiny didactic device to explain a tiny
small thing a bit better.

And this is hardly comparable with fictionals like: 'The self-instruction
book for succesfull Tok Pisin in 60 hours' [120 pages].

vr. gr.
Theo Homan

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From: heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk <heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.16 (03) [E]

from Heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk

Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.16 (01) [E]
Paul wrote:

"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"?"

I was once trying to explain grammar to a non-linguist and ended up by
saying (suggesting) that grammar (as syntax only) is " the perspective of
thought" so that :-

 the German language sees the situation   A B C D   where A = a person B is
a verb C is the indirect object  and D is the direct object   Reinhard gibt
Jonny das Buch

whereas the French language sees it in an different order  A B D (inserting
a preposition 'to'= 'à' ) C    Reinhard donne le livre à  Jonny

And there is no other standard way of expressing this idea in these
languages.

English being the child of both these languages is flexible enough to have
adopted BOTH sequences of thought. English can say both  "Reinhard gives
Jonny the book" (Germanic sequence) and "Reinhard gives the book to Jonny."
This is the exception in languages- to have two totally different sequences
both acceptable/used as standard.

Welsh ( and Arabic ?) on the other hand prefer to emphasise the verb by
putting it first.

The 'grammar' of a language is, surely,  learning the order of words in
which that language expresses its concepts and its concepts come from
people's thoughts.   This I think is why sign language, little as I know of
it, appears to be able to 'cut to the chase' and express directly and often
so succinctly from the thought. It seems to be able to create a whole
concept in a single gesture or a series of gestures still fewer than the
words or phrases linguistic language would need to express the same idea.

Similarly Chinese sees a verb as a single action without time so has no
tenses. To indicate time a time phrase is used. Brilliant linguistic logic.
If I am going to use the word Tomorrow why do I need a verb in a future
tense ( and increasingly in some languages you don't  .. Ich gehe morgen
I'm going tomorrow, je vais demain)  If I use the phrase 200 years ago , why
do I need a past tense, the idea/concept is obvious from the phrase.

What fascinates me is how the order of concepts differs from langauge to
language and how sometimes despite their lack of relationship directly in
words, their use within a phrase or sentence is the same. (Sorry difficult
to express that idea) example

German prepositions that govern the genitive such as  trotz  wegen   have no
'word' to express/denote the gentive; rather  it follows as the article
ending. However translate these into English and up pops a word for 'of'  -
 in spite of  :  because of.

So what is there essentially about the concept of trotz: in spite of  /
wegen : because of   that requires a genitive??

Much puzzled but interested

Heather
----------

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

Heather,

You brought up several good points. I particularly like the one about
redundancy:

Similarly Chinese sees a verb as a single action without time so has no
tenses. To indicate time a time phrase is used. Brilliant linguistic logic.
If I am going to use the word Tomorrow why do I need a verb in a future
tense ( and increasingly in some languages you don't  .. Ich gehe morgen
I'm going tomorrow, je vais demain)  If I use the phrase 200 years ago , why
do I need a past tense, the idea/concept is obvious from the phrase.

This is really important. Low Saxon and German, for instance have pretty
much discarded the future tense in normal speech. That can be seen as an
example of the "streamlining" I was referring to when I argued that
simplification isn't necessarily a sign of deterioration. If the time
context is clear, even if only by implication, it is not *really* necessary
to make the grammatical tense fit it. In many dialects of German and pretty
much everywhere in Low Saxon, and, yes, also in various English dialects,
the same applies to the past tense. Once the time is clear, you can return
to the default tense; e.g., "So I went to see Bill last night, to give him
the news, and ... 'Don't you worry now,' I say (non-American often "I
says"), and he gives me this look ... You know what I mean ... and he just
mumbles, 'Easy for you to say,' he says and changes the subject."

The original version of the wren fable (
http://lowlands-l.net/anniversary/nordneddersassisch.php) is exactly like
that. It starts with something like a past aorist, then moves to past
perfect, and once the tense has been established it defaults to present
tense.

It is in particular prescribed "good style" that slows down the process of
simplification, an important part of which is redundancy removal.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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