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From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Subject: Re: Supported by Famous Linguists (tm)
Message-ID: <D5tFFz.I0y@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Keywords: linguistics esperanto international
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <3jt061$icv@blackrabbit.cs.uoregon.edu> <D5AusG.5IB@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> <3ju1so$iq9@blackrabbit.cs.uoregon.edu>
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 1995 00:16:43 GMT
Lines: 41

In article <3ju1so$iq9@blackrabbit.cs.uoregon.edu> bhelm@cs.uoregon.edu (B. Robert Helm) writes:
>The question, "Should we promote an international auxiliary language?"
>is indeed political.  However, questions like "Could such a language
>be created and kept stable?" and "What are the right features for
>such a language?" seem to require linguistic expertise [...].

Of course.  Even their interpretation requires linguistic expertise.

>The linguists I listed evidently believed that an international
>auxiliary language was possible, and thought that more linguistic
>research was needed to determine the language's features.

The question is, then, whether the linguists of the present day could
hold a similar opinion.  Would we be thinking of the same thing as our
predecessors did, or as our contemporaries outside the trade do, when
talking of a language's features?  (Does Novial obey the Complementiser
Gap Constraint?)  At the time of Schleyer and Zamenhof people thought
that one could throw together any set of descriptive rules, such as are
found in the school Latin grammar, and make a language.  Now we believe
that the features described in such rules are the surface manifestation
of the interaction of certain universal principles and the setting of a
number of parameters.  (How much sense does Ido case marking make from
the point of view of Case Theory?  Very little, I think.)  By setting
the various parameters to the right values one can obtain any natural
language, from English to Hopi and from Thai to Kalispel.  One may not
be able to obtain Volapu"k or Esperanto, however, if they turn out to
violate some universal regularities that we do or do not know of.  So
is our goal to create a natural-looking language?  What if, a couple
of months later, we discover a new constraint which rules it out?
Our knowledge of those regularities is limited, but keeps growing.
But my point is that the nature and content of linguistic research
have evolved away from the stage at which linguistics shared more
methods and goals with traditional grammar, and that may explain
why international auxiliary languages are not considered a matter
of professional interest for linguists any longer.  End of rant.

-- 
`"Na, na ... ah mean, *no wey*, wi aw due respect, ma lady," stammers Joe.'
Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk)    (J Stuart, _Auld Testament Tales_)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,   Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House E113, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Pk Rd, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
