LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.11.29 (04) [A/E]

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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
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   L O W L A N D S - L * 29 November 2005 * Volume 04
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From:  "Mark Dreyer" <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject:  LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.11.28 (05) [A/E]

 Beste Lie:

Onderwerp: LL-L "Language varieties"

> Ek wou net geweet het waar, wanner en hoekom u Afrikaans opgetel het.

Ek leer net nog die taal. Nou, op vliegtuie tussen Moskou en Tokio, en op
moltreine in daardie stede:) Hoekom... Mark, wil u glo, ek weet NIE :).

Toemaar. Ek ag nie motivering 'n voorvereiste om in 'n taal belang te stel
nie. Aanhou wen.

> Maar daar is nog 'n ding wat my prikkel: Dink u dis moontlik dat 'n
> vereenvoudigde, analetiese vorm van Slawoniese taal soos Afrikaans uit
> Laelandse dielakte ooit uit Slawiese dialekte kan ontwikkel?

Ja, Bulgaars:) Dit het eweneens die bepaalde lidwoord.

Dankie vir die skimp.

"Vereenvoudig"? Markkk, is u wel 'n Afrikaner?

Vereenvoudig! Lieieieieieie, die naaseenvoudigste, mynsinsiens, is Fanagolo!
Maar Maleis stop my tans in my spore oor sy eienskappe. Dit blyk dat mens
dit op 'n baie elegante vlak kan gebruik, as jy wil.

Sê nou vir my, sukkel jy werklik met die Taal? Waar ondervind jy die
probleme? Ek wil net tot u troos byvoeg _ek_ het jou nog nie met 'n
skandelike fout betrap nie!

Die Uwe,
Mark

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From: "Ian Pollock" <ispollock at shaw.ca>
Subject: "Language varieties"

> 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.
>
> It's a long time since I read Chomsky, but I believe he (or was it
> Paget?) believed that research into the way children learn languages
> would provide evidence of a universal grammar. Researchers into
> language-learning subsequently came to believe that there was a
> universal grammar related to Chomsky's proposed "deep structure" in the
> brain - a grammar that made human languages possible only because there
> was a structure in the brain representing it - because children in all
> places learning all languages showed the same learning patterns.
> ...I suspect that any universal
> features will be due to a combination of the way neural nets work and
> the limitations of the language medium, and how such things as word
> order relate to easy expression of meaning. Of course the brain does
> tend to have specialist processing for specialist functions, but
> language is perhaps a much later development than eg facial recognition
> and such like.

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. The more well-worn ones serve our usual, day to
day needs, but the more novel ones can serve as a springboard to go
into more distant territory.

Let me give you an example. "Today no kiss" is obviously not a
well-formed English sentence, although I dislike the word
"ungrammatical". 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. Water spilling into it will tend to flow most where
it has flowed before. That doesn't mean that it can't enter new
territory. And when it does, it clears a path for more and more. 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.

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? /   : / ?!
You can't have theories like universal grammar without sacrificing a
lot of data to make them work. And even then they don't really explain
much of anything at all worth knowing. Sorry if this sounds too much
like a rant.

-Ian Pollock 

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