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From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Subject: Re: Languages in the EC
Message-ID: <D3sEpB.3zF@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <792181956snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk> <D3ovsz.C5M@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> <3hb233$ajk@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 13:55:57 GMT
Lines: 65

In article <3hb233$ajk@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> etg10@cl.cam.ac.uk (Edmund Grimley-Evans) writes:
[replying to me]
>> And what does it mean for Esperanto speech to sound natural?
>
>[...] Is it that you know what it means for Basque speech (say) to
>sound natural, but your definition of this requires you to first
>identify the competent speakers of Basque and you are not sure how
>the competent speakers of Esperanto should be identified in a
>philosophically sound manner?

Yes.  I assume that a natural language sounds natural when spoken as
its native speakers normally speak it.  I don't know how to apply that
measure to a language which has no community of native speakers.

>It's interesting that English Esperantists who regularly forget the
>-n on objects that are nouns nevertheless seem to get it right when
>the object is a pronoun - although the rule is exactly the same in
>Esperanto. Presumably there is some kind of interference from English,
>but I don't think it's because they're just mentally translating
>from English, because they seem to get the -n right with pronouns
>that in English don't show case, such as "vi" (you).

Then it may be more than interference from English.  It might be
interference from Universal Grammar.  I'm not going to claim that
Esperanto is typologically unique in having that kind of accusative
marking, but there may be a statistical universal saying that

  If a full noun phrase has the same form as a subject of a verb
  as it has as an object of a preposition, then it has the same form
  as an object of a verb also.  This rule does not extend to pronouns.

I can think of one exception to that, namely Persian, though there the
postposition <rA> is a specificity marker as well as an object marker.
You should listen to some Persian-speaking Esperantists and see how
they are doing.  :-)

>Are there languages in which you topicalise
>a constituent without putting it to the front of the sentence?
>I thought the "theme-rheme" ordering was a pretty good universal.

That's true.  (And that's just the point: topicalisation by fronting
works no matter whether there is overt syntactic marking for objects.)
For focussing, on the other hand, there are different strategies.

>As for free word order without case marking, I know some languages
>have this, e.g. German "die Schlange frass die Ratte" (the snake
>[ate / was eaten by] the rat), but surely Zamenhof can be excused
>for not liking this system.

Of course.  Though there doesn't seem to be any problem with
allowing OSV as an alternative to SVO.  Chinese does that.

>Is there a language with free word order that never has a
>morphological case marker to distinguish subject from object?

Yes.  Many languages (such as Italian, Spanish/Catalan/Portuguese,
Greek, Bulgarian) use clitics for that purpose.  The construction
in question is something like `the snake it_ate the rat', where
`it' is an object clitic.

-- 
`I'm sendin a flood tae pit an end tae it aw.  But dinny worry yersel, Noah.'
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
