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From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Subject: Re: Artificial languages Re: Esperanto (was: Refusing to ....)
Message-ID: <CxFEx7.54I@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <35oo4r$a5c@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <CwLt2J.E2y@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> <9427523.19915@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU>
Date: Sun, 9 Oct 1994 22:10:18 GMT
Lines: 77

In article <9427523.19915@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> nsn@krang.vis.mu.OZ.AU (Nick NICHOLAS) writes:
>iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
>>I believe, in any case, that [Modern Hebrew phonology] is not
>>interesting in the same way as the phonology of Tunisian Arabic
>>(to take a related language with a different history).
>I dunno; the koineisation of Modern Hebrew phonology (which, my impression
>is, was a take-over by the Ashkenazim even though the Powers That Be were
>all behind Sephardic) sounds like a really cool tale in language contact.

Now that's a good point.

>>I don't think you'd find anyone working on morphological case marking
>>in Modern Bulgarian, for example.  (I'm referring to the distribution
>>of the full and the short form of the definite article in the written
>>language, which is governed by an artificially created rule.)
>
>As it turns out (and I guess this is where you find out, Ivan;
>loooong time no hear; how ya been?)

Nick, old 'roo!  {.ue.uicairo'a do cade'a zvati}

(By {de'a} I mean the resumptive ZAhO.  Or is that {di'a}?)

>my PhD is going to be on the history of complementisers in Greek,

I still remember a time when you were going to be an engi-- But no,
that dark period of your past is best forgotten now.

>>Is there a point in observing the diffusion and evolution of
>>technologies?  Yes, if one assumes that those processes follow
>>certain laws that one wishes to find about.  Ditto for the
>>development of languages.
>
>Yeeees... so you're implying ALs like Esperanto and Klingon, subject
>as they are to virulent strands of prescriptivism, can give us no
>information about these laws?

Very little, in any case.

Since you brought up the subject of your PhD work, I'll turn to mine
for an illustration of my position.  (Btw, I'd expect you to know
where I stand on this subject better than anyone else of the present
readership of sci.lang, since you read my articles in the AL thread
back in the spring of 1991.)  Among the things I'm investigating is a
category known as singulative; that's a form of a noun denoting a
single entity, which is derived from a collective and from which a
plural may further be formed.  Many languages have occasional singulatives,
but there seem to be few in which they are actually productive.  Arabic
is one (but not the other Semitic languages).  Welsh is another (as are
its P-Celtic, but not Q-Celtic, relatives).

Now here's some data for you:

  X          Y
  _se^r_     _gimil_    `star-s'
  _ser-en_   _giml-i_   `star'

The hyphens separate the singulative ending in the first two columns
and the plural ending in English from the base, just to make it clear
which is the morphologically more complex form in each language.

Language X is Welsh; language Y is Adu^naic.  For the netters
unfamiliar with JRR Tolkien's linguistic creation, Adu^naic is a
Mannish tongue, the parent language of the Common Speech.  We're only
familiar with its phonology and the declension of the noun, but one of
the things we know about it is that, like Welsh and Arabic, it had a
productive singulative, which worked in a similar way.

For my purposes, however, the fact that Welsh and Arabic possess this
category is of interest, whereas the fact that Adu^naic also does isn't.
And the reason is precisely the fact that Adu^naic was invented by JRRT.

-- 
`That's yer oan problem, Judas', they telt him.  `It's nae concern tae us.'
Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk/chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)  (The G-- G--)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,   Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House E113, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Pk Rd, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
