LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.13 (04) [E]

Sun Jul 13 17:11:55 UTC 2008

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L O W L A N D S - L - 13 July 2008 - Volume 04
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From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.12 (04) [E]

From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.09 (03) [E]

 How would you get out of this tight spot if switching to the present tense:
" Look- just over there they is (are?) running down the street to the
left side!
And now they enter(s?) their car!"

Jonny Meibohm

Probably by skipping the pronoun altogether:
"Look - there! - running down the street on the left!"

Paul Finlow-Bates

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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.08 (03) [E]

> From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
> Subject: LL-L "Grammar"
>
> Beste Lowlanners abroad,
>
> how do you in English use the gender of the word _person_ (neuter) in
> the following context?
>
> Just imagine, you watched a person which (or who?) is suspected to
> have been involved in a crime. Because it was dark, you could not see,
> if it had been a man or a woman. How do you tell it the police
> constable?
> "I saw a tall person with a black hat and a grey coat. (_He_? _She_?
> _It_?) ran down the street to the left side." It should be 'it', I
> guess? But it sounds in a certain way strange for me.
> (If I would replace _person_ by 'individual' my problem wouldn't be
> solved!)
>
> In Low Saxon we have got the same problem: "Ick hebb eyn' Perzoun

As always, any random language problems caused by the chaotic historical
development of grammar can be solved by correct use of idiom and
exposition.

"I saw someone in a black hat and grey coat running down the left side
of the street."

Idiomatic resolution aside, perhaps one problem here is the obsession
with grammatical gender that occurs in some language groups?

Do Finns have more problems describing incidents to the police because
their language lacks grammatical gender? Are the Hungarian courts
plagued by their inability to continually express whether a suspect was
a man or a woman?

Native language speakers tend to think that the grammatical features of
their language represent absolute necessities in self-expression, so
that, for example, you see English-speaking signers who "don't get it"
signing "woman it" and "man it" in BSL for "she" and "he".

I think this is also a big stumbling block for those trying to devise
world languages: Volapuk had four noun cases because the inventor spoke
German and couldn't see how to do without them, while although "Dr
Esperanto" got rid of most noun inflections, he simply couldn't get
through the day without his accusative fix.

What should we discard in inventing a world language?

   o    gender: pointless;
   o    plurals: useless;
   o    verb tense: worse than useless;
   o    word inflections: too complicated;

and many other silly foibles that we consider indispensable, no doubt!

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

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

That Sandy of ours is back with a vengeance! How did we manage without his
sober voice?

The example of constructed languages is an excellent one I think. There are
so many redundant grammatical features most people simply assume are
necessary. This is why I believe that people who take it upon themselves to
construct languages for global communication ought to familiarize themselves
with the structures of languages that belong to a range of families. Among
the Sino-Tibetan languages, for example, take the Chinese ones...

   - Gender: *none***
   - Plural: *only in three personal pronouns*
   - Verb tense: *none, except one particle expressing change and another
   expressing progress*
   - Word inflection: *none*

As in the case of English, sentence structure is rigid because it plays an
important grammatical role.

This is similar in pidgins and creoles, which also use tense and aspectual
markers where necessary, for instance in Tok Pisin (Neo Melanesian, Papua
New Guinea):

*Em i bin slip.* (< he been)
He/she/it slept.

*Em i slip i stap. *(< he stop)
He/she/it is sleeping.
*
Em i bin slip ** i stap**.* (< he been, he stop)
He/she/it was sleeping.

*Em i slip pinis.* (< finish)
He/she/it (has) slept.

*Em **i bin **slip pinis.* (< he been, finish)
He/she/it had slept.

*Em bai i slip. ~ Bai em i slip.* (< by and by)
He/she/it will sleep.

*Em bai i slip** pinis**. ~ Bai em i slip** pinis**.* (< by and by, finish)
He/she/it will have slept.

The particle *i* (< he) marks the actual verb (to distinguish it from
verb-derived markers), and two of them in a row are reduced to one.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

•

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