LL-L "Grammar" 2005.12.01 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

======================================================================
L O W L A N D S - L * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
http://www.lowlands-l.net * lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net
Rules & Guidelines: http://www.lowlands-l.net/index.php?page=rules
Posting: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org or lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net
Commands ("signoff lowlands-l" etc.): listserv at listserv.net
Server Manual: http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html
Archives: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html
Encoding: Unicode (UTF-8) [Please switch your view mode to it.]
=======================================================================
You have received this because you have been subscribed upon request.
To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l" as message
text from the same account to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or
sign off at http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
=======================================================================
A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West) Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
=======================================================================

02 December 2005 * Volume 02
=======================================================================

From: Paul Tatum <ptatum at blueyonder.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.11.29 (04) [A/E]

hello everyone,

Ian Pollock wrote:

>> From: "Sandy Fleming" <sandy at scotstext.org>
>> Subject: "Language varieties" 2005.11.23 (01) [E]
>
>> An obvious problem with this is that there's no reason to assume that
>> there is any such thing as a universal grammar.

> I'm not convinced (to say the least) of universal grammar or deep
> structure. Chomsky types seem to think of the human brain as having
> language already hard wired in some mysterious way, just waiting for a
> lexicon and phonological and syntactic rules from the environment to
> "fill in the gaps". My experience in language learning, however, has
> led me to believe that language is not some discrete, computer-like
> programming, but rather works on the basis of whole memorized phrases
> serving as templates. This is not exactly a rule system, it is merely a
> system of precedents.
but we can create/generate new sentences we have never heard before,
that there isn't a template for. And if you pursue the template analogy
more, I think you end up with rules (and vice versa). After all the
sentence template
'noun phrase followed by verb phrase' is not much different from the
rule 'a sentence is composed of a noun phrase followed by a verb phrase'.

> But the phrase "Long time no see", rumoured to be a
> calque from Mandarin ~{:C>C2;<{~} (hao3 jiu3 bu2 jian4 - very long no
> see), is
> in great currency, at least where I live. I have a friend who seems to
> say it every time I see him. Surprisingly, nobody realizes anymore that
> this expression is odd. It has been taken completely into our language
> and now seems totally correct. On the basis of this expression, then, I
> once heard somebody say "long time no drunk". I think there are many
> permutations that one could now make of this phrase. And yet it
> violates the so-called rules of English. Generative grammarians will
> call it an exception, a set phrase. Unfortunately, in my opinion, their
> theories are now almost nothing but exceptions, because they fail to
> realize that the whole of language IS a bunch of set phrases. It's like
> a large floodplain.

Well, IMO you have found a new rule 'long time no NP'. Because language
has rules, we can use it creatively by breaking the rules - we are not
bound by them like some legal system, the rules merely describe how we
use language. And for describing how we use language, transformational
grammar (and its descendants like LFG and GPSG) have been very fruitful.

> For
> this reason I don't think that syntax is worth studying at all. It
> simply is not a profitable concept to apply to language.

I agree that it's not the be-all and end-all of language study, but I
think that it has been and continues to be a very profitable concept.
What would you study? How do you analyse language withour syntax?

> But what is most absurd about the generativist approach, I find, is its
> practitioners' willingness to conjure up "invisible" order when a
> language happens to disobey the rules. As many of you doubtless know,
> Russian and a couple of other Slavonic languages have no conjugations
> of the verb "to be" in the present tense (except very occasionally in
> literary style). So, for example, ~{'3'Q'^~} ~{'d'm~}
> ~{'c'S'`']'`'i'n~}! (sam ty
> svoloch)
> means "You're a pig yourself", with the structure "self + thou +
> swine". No "are". This is the way the East Slavonic languages work.
> Period. But I once heard a generativist say without even blushing that
> it is an "invisible" verb, and that its phonemic form was simple
> silence. How would the IPA for that work? /   : / ?!

The reason the verb is said to be invisible (or deleted) is becuse in
past and future tenses the verb is represented by a word.(This present
tense deletion of 'to be' happens in many languages, eg Hebrew 'gadol
ha-ish' lit. 'great the-man', whereas in past tense: hayah ha-ish gadol
'was the-man great'). Since the verb is there in past/future, isn't the
verb there in present tense sentences also? There are other indications
that the verb is there really but invisible - in some languages the verb
'to be' appears when the present tense sentence is subordinated or
nominalised. (I can claim without blushing that the sentence 'I know the
man who I saw yesterday.' contains(!) a deleted pronoun.)

> You can't have theories like universal grammar without sacrificing a
> lot of data to make them work.
the idea of universal grammar is probably one of Chomsky's more
controversial theories. I think it's a bit 'iffy' myself. I don't know
about sacrificing a lot of data, there may be a lot of data that
contradicts the idea, but surely that data isn't wasted? The idea is
worth talking about, languages do seem to have a lot in common, as well
as deep differences.

> And even then they don't really explain
> much of anything at all worth knowing.
Hmmm. what is worth knowing? It certainly provides a good ground for
arguing about language and its nature, even if you reject its
conclusions. It might provide insights useful to speech therapists.

Sorry if this sounds too much
> like a rant.

Uniformity is deadly.

Yours, Paul Tatum

----------

From: Isaac M. Davis <isaacmacdonalddavis at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.11.29 (04) [A/E]


Paul Tatum wrote:

> (iv) some languages, such as French, develop stressed (i.e. 'marked')
> forms of object pronouns (moi ~ me) but are less likely to develop
> stressed forms of the subject pronouns, the argument being that subject
> pronouns are already marked.

And, interestingly enough, in the French creoles I'm familiar with, the 
first-person pronoun is derived from that 'marked' object.

Isaac M. Davis

-- 

Westron wynd, when wilt thou blow
The smalle rain down can rain
Christ yf my love were in my arms
And I yn my bed again

----------

From: Global Moose Translations <globalmoose at t-online.de>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2005.12.01 (08) [E]

Heather wrote:
> Here's one to set the argument spinning!
>
> What is the past tense of 'to light' .... a fire, for example
>
> And how do you pronounce it?

Well, lit, of course? Is there any alternative? Am I missing something
here???

Gabriele Kahn

----------

From: heather rendall <HeatherRendall at compuserve.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language learning" 2005.12.01 (11) [E]

Message text written by INTERNET:lowlands-l at LOWLANDS-L.NET
>Who's to say there's not a variety of English where
'could of' is correct and 'could have' is
ungrammatical? <

Now that part of your argument is not sustainable -  If you are trying to
communicate a future perfect conditional , then it can never be wrong to
say "I would have done that"  However it shows an aural/ visually laziness
to say ' I would of done that' because the historical line backwards from
'of' leads first to '  've'   and then back to 'have'.

If you want to change a language by being lazy - fine but please do not
propose that it has a historical correctness.
And if the majority of people - because they are poorly taught their
language ( and written/printed language has to be taught; it won't come
naturally of itself) or they practise it so little as to never gain a
mastery of it, then - yes - the next generation will be brought up to think
that it is 'correct' i.e. acceptable.

The siily-selig  argument also is spurious because it is a change in
meaning: the equaivalent argument would be to suddenly start using an
adjective as a verb or a noun or as an auxiliary to a tense formation.

I accept entiely that languages move on - I would just prefer that
developements were not based on half understood structures.

(By the same argument I have always argued for the removel of the English
apostrophe to denote possession: not because most people seem entirely
incapable of using it correctly, but because it is used to denote the
absence of letters that were never there in the first place BUT were
thought to have been there!)

Heather

----------

From: Brooks, Mark <mark.brooks at twc.state.tx.us>
Subject: LL-L "Language learning" 2005.12.01 (07) [E]

Heather wrote: "It should be 've short for have and then the tense being
used  makes sense."

Exactly!  That's what I mean when I say it, anyway.  But, something I
haven't seen mentioned yet, I say woulda.  As in, "I woulda done that if I'd
known."  I actually think it should be written that way ;-)  Forgive me for
I know not what I do.

Mark Brooks

----------

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

Ian and Paul (above):

> > But the phrase "Long time no see", rumoured to be a
> > calque from Mandarin ~{:C>C2;<{~} (hao3 jiu3 bu2 jian4 - very long no
> > see), is
> > in great currency, at least where I live. I have a friend who seems to
> > say it every time I see him. Surprisingly, nobody realizes anymore that
> > this expression is odd. It has been taken completely into our language
> > and now seems totally correct. On the basis of this expression, then, I
> > once heard somebody say "long time no drunk". I think there are many
> > permutations that one could now make of this phrase. And yet it
> > violates the so-called rules of English. Generative grammarians will
> > call it an exception, a set phrase. Unfortunately, in my opinion, their
> > theories are now almost nothing but exceptions, because they fail to
> > realize that the whole of language IS a bunch of set phrases. It's like
> > a large floodplain.
>
> Well, IMO you have found a new rule 'long time no NP'. Because language
> has rules, we can use it creatively by breaking the rules - we are not
> bound by them like some legal system, the rules merely describe how we
> use language. And for describing how we use language, transformational
> grammar (and its descendants like LFG and GPSG) have been very fruitful.

The problem with Mandarin 好久不見 (好久不见) _hao3 jiu3 bu2 jian4_ is that it is an 
exception, merely a fossilized idiomatic expression.  It makes more sense to 
say 好久沒有見 (好久沒有见) _hao3 jiu3 mei3 you3 jian4_ ("good long-time not have 
see"), which is what most people say, much like, for instance, 好久沒有麵包 
(好久沒有面包) _hao3 jiu3 mei3 you3 mian4bao1_ ("good long-time not have bread") 
'there hasn't been any bread for a good while'.  So we are really dealing 
with "there hasn't been any (mutual) seeing for a good while."

What many non-Indo-European languages show us is that the division between 
nouns and verbs isn't as cut and dry as we want to make it.

Ian mentioned Russian (and other Eastern Slavonic varieties -- which are 
Indo-European after all) and the supposedly "silent" 'is/am/are', as opposed 
to "non-silent" 'was/were'.This is precisely how it works in Semitic, 
Sino-Tibetan, Altaic and other language families -- e.g., Uyghur (Turkic, 
Altaic)   ﻣﻪن ﻋوقوُﻏوُﺧﻰ_män oquğuči_  ("I student") 'I am a student', 
(ﻣﻪن) ﻋوقوُﻏوُﺧﻰ بولدوُﻡ  _(män) oquğuči boldum_ ("I student be(come)-I") 'I 
was a student' -- cf. Russian Я ученик _Ja učenik_, Я был учеником _Ja byl 
učenikom_, Ukrainian Я учень _Ja učen'_, Я був учнем _Ja buv učenem_.

Furthermore, the Chinese example ought to remind us -- and here we return to 
the Lowlands -- that our Germanic infinitive and participial expressions 
could be seen as noun/adjectival phrases; e.g., "I have spoken" vs "spoken 
words," "she is speaking" vs "she has a speaking engagement" vs "I like her 
way of speaking," German _Ich mag gern singen_ (I like to sing) vs _Er kann 
mein Singen nicht ausstehen_ (He can't stand my singing).

Just thinkin' ...

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron 

==============================END===================================
* Please submit postings to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.
* Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.
* Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
* Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l") are
  to be sent to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or at
  http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
======================================================================