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From: stevemac@bud.indirect.com (Stefano MacGregor)
Subject: One point against Esperanto
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Date: Sat, 4 Mar 1995 09:22:09 GMT
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Lastatempe skribis philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk jene:
  [ on what would be gained by modifying Esperanto to omit the accusative 
ending, and abolishing adjective agreement ]

>Objectively: it would make the language easier to learn, because there
>would be less complexity ([fewer] endings to learn). Many people learning
>Esperanto already know a European language which has lots of similar
>words to Esperanto. It would be help these people to stop the connection
>between the Esperanto word and the corresponding word in their native
>language, if the Esperanto word didn't have extraneous endings.

  All that would be gained is a bit more immediate recognizability to 
someone who has not yeat begun to learn Esperanto.  Although this ability 
would be neat and groovy, it would not actually be all that useful.

> Example:
>   Esperanto:     vasta
>   Inflected:     vastajn     (Plural+Object)
>   English:       vast
>
>"vasta" looks a lot like "vast". "vastajn" looks less like "vast".

  This is a good example of your objection, and also of my reply.  A 
non-Esperantist sees the entire inflected word, and doesn't recognize 
it.  You see this as a bad thing; I see it as irrelevant.  Someone who 
has actually studied Esperanto for a few hours begins to see the parts 
that the words are constructed from -- in this case vast/a/j/n, and 
recognizes that the root of the word, 'vast-', is the only part that he 
should attempt to recognize in other languages.

       [  on the accusative-N ending:  ]

>Subjectively: I personally don't like the -n ending.

  One man's meat is another man's poison.  Subjectively, I'm not too 
crazy about the =lack= of the accusative-N in some constructions in 
Esperanto (noun phrases consisting of only an infinative, or of only an 
adverb and a prepositional phrase).  This lack can be worked around, so 
it isn't =too= awfully bad.

>Its only benefit is that it allows one to put the object before the
>subject.

  No, it has other benefits as well, such as allowing adjectives to come 
either before or after the nouns they modify.  Here's a contrived example:

  Li farbis la bluan domon  -->  He painted the blue house.
  Li farbis la domon bluan  -->  He painted the =blue= house.
  Li farbis la domon blua   -->  He painted the house blue.

  (An aside:  I use surrounding equal-signs as above to emphasize words; 
other people use other stuff.  Sometimes I type bilingual stuff, and 
while I emphasize a word in English this way, the corresponding word in 
the Esperanto text is emphasized by the word order, or some other means.)

>However E-o has other ways of doing that (passive verb constructions), so
>it is superfluous.

  On the other hand, Esperanto has the accusative-N ending, making passive
verb constructions easier to avoid than in English. 

  In short, there is no list of all features possessed by all languages, 
in which every item can be unarguably marked either "mmandatory" or 
"forbidden" for inclusion in an ideal constructed language.  Virtually 
=every= feature is superfluous.  Example, Japanese has no articles, 
pronouns, or future tense, and yet it can actually be spoken and understood.

>Adjectival agreement is also superfluous. 

  Try an experiment:  see what English would be like if you left out the 
following things that you believe are superfluous in Esperanto!

  * Adjectival agreement -- expunge the words "these" and "those" from 
your vocabulary.  Use "this" and "that" as well.
  * Case-distinctions -- expunge all subjective- and possessive-case
pronouns, and use the objective only, and omit the possessive forms of all
nouns.  (I,my,me) --> (me); (who,whose,whom) --> (whom); (they,their,them)
--> (them). 
  * What the heck.  Expunge superfluous verb-inflections, while you're at
it.  (am,is,are) --> (be).  This has the advantage of removing one of
English's spelling bugbears: the their-there-they're decision, since
"their" would become "them", and "they're" would become "them be". 

  This modified English would work just as surely as real English does, 
but would it be =better=?

-- 
 --        __0       Stefano MAC:GREGOR      Mi dankas al miaj bons`ancigaj
  --     -`\<,      (s-ro)   \ma-GREG-r\         steloj, ke mi ne estas
   --   (*)/ (*)   Fenikso, Arizono, Usono           superstic`ulo.
