Language irregularities.

[Dileep Damle]

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Indeed!  In Marathi, you "insert in" rings (in fingers), necklaces (in 
necks), bangles (in hands/arms), shirts and coats (in bodies),...  But you 
'Put pictures on walls'.  So it is a question of meaning rather than 
mistranslation or etymology).

Prepositions are often based on convention rather than logic in most human 
languages and getting those right is frequently a difficult task for foreign 
language learners.  Surely, the biggest challenge of human languages is the 
irregularities they contain and how it is that we humans cope with them. 
While these provide an important and interesting research area which could 
shed light on how our minds work, does it necessarily mean that the 
irregularities and irrationalities are to be treasured?

Madhukar Gogate wrote "People may or may not mind irregularities".  But in 
the English speaking world, we expect children to learn these irregularities 
and test them on it and chastise then for failures in spelling, all so 
unnecessary.  Did those children who were caned in the past not mid these 
irregularities?  Certainly, some  people have the attitude that - I can cope 
with them and that gives me an advantage over those who can't, so 
irregularities are a good thing.

Dileep Damle

-----Original Message----- 
From: Paul Kiparsky
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2011 7:05 AM
To: VYAKARAN at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: Language irregularities.

VYAKARAN: South Asian Languages and Linguistics Net
Editors:  Tej K. Bhatia, Syracuse University, New York
          John Peterson, University of Osnabrueck, Germany
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Languages can indeed have odd and "illogical" features, but they can also be 
illusions due to mistranslation into another language (often based on 
etymology rather than actual meaning).  So I'm curious about the Marathi 
expression you translate as "insert in".  Could it really mean something 
like "attach to" or "put on"?  In that case, it should also be possible in 
Marathi to describe hanging a picture ("inserting it in the wall"), putting 
on a ring ("inserting it in your finger"), and so on.

Paul Kiparsky



On May 23, 2011, at 6:36 AM, Madhukar N. Gogate wrote:

> Probably every language has got
> some illogical features. In Marathi, we say, equivalent to
> (insert shoe in foot) while really (foot is inserted in shoe).
> Language is for people, and not just for scholars. People
> do not mind some odd features ! -- Madhukar N. Gogate
> ==========================================