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From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Subject: ka la .espon. na logji se jicmu (Re: One point against Esperanto)
Message-ID: <D64E7D.I3A@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <D5uq0q.GJ2@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> <D60Inp.s6@cix.compulink.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 22:23:35 GMT
Lines: 99

In article <D5tBnM.8Gv@cix.compulink.co.uk> antony@cix.compulink.co.uk "Antony Rawlinson" wrote:
> Although Esperanto uses mostly european-based vocabulary, the syntax
> and word-formation are designed to follow logic, rather than existing
> languages.

This statement is falsified by a number of features of Esperanto grammar
which can not have been set up in order to follow logic, either because
logic would have called for something else or because logic doesn't care
one way or the other, but which give Esperanto an apparent structural
similarity to SAE (Standard Average European, here referring to the
set of features had by the modern Germanic, Romance and Slavic tongues).

Let's begin by looking at the basic order.  E-o is SVO (unmarked); it
has prepositions rather than postpositions; its complementisers are
clause-initial rather than clause-final.  Now, SVO is neither more nor
less logical than the other two major orders, VSO and SOV, so I contend
that SVO was chosen because SAE is SVO.  Zamenhof was going to borrow
his adpositions and complementisers from a number of European languages,
so it made sense to give them the same linear precedence, and as a result
of that a feature of the E-o vocabulary became a syntactic feature.  Logic
had no say in the matter, nor had it anything to say.

On the other hand, the use of those prepositions does suggest that logic
has been sacrificed to SAE-ishness.  If no existing languages had been
consulted, the famous accusative ending would've been a preposition too.
It is also interesting that the infinitive can appear as an object of
prepositions, as noun phrases can, and it can also appear as the direct
object of a verb, but then it does not get accusative marking.  Again,
the symmetry is abandoned in order to follow the SAE state of affairs.

While we're talking of marking semantic/syntactic functions, one can't
help being amazed by the number of ways in which possession is marked:
there's _-a_ if the possessor is a personal pronoun, _-es_ if it is a
correlative pronoun and the preposition _de_ if it is a full NP.  Not
much of a logical reason for that, but it is SAE-like, in a way.

The table of correlatives is rather well designed, I must say, although
I find it most remarkable that the interrogative pronouns are used as
relatives, blindly imitating Russian and some other European tongues.
In fact, I wonder how logical it was to implement relativisation by
movement of a wh-element rather than an expletive pronoun.  Or is
subjacency never a problem in E-o?  If you translate (1) literally
into E-o, will it be grammatical?  The 16 Rules don't say.

  (1) *_the man who you think that if Mary marries,
        then everyone will be happy_

On to the conjugation of the verb.  There are 3 synthetic participles
of each voice.  Oddly, all other synthetic forms are active.  Would
logic not have suggested deriving a passive verb instead?

  (2)      (present tense)
           indicative  participle
  active   _Xas_       _Xanta_
  passive  _Xesas_     _Xesanta_

(2) is what could have been, and (3) is what is,

  (3)      (present tense)
           indicative    participle
  active   _Xas_         _Xanta_
  passive  _estas Xata_  _Xata_

and it seems obvious to me that (3) owes its existence solely to
the fact that synthetic passive participles formed directly from
active verbs are found in SAE, unlike synthetic passive verbs.

I won't say much about structural ambiguity at sentence level.  But
what about ambiguity at word level?  What does _neebla_ mean?  Is it a
negation of _ebla_ (`impossible') or a potential of _ne-_ (`deniable')?
If it can mean either, then E-o derivation is unnecessarily ambiguous,
otherwise it is subject to random restrictions.  Now, of course,
ambiguity is a notoriously hard thing to avoid altogether, but in this
particular case no problem would arise if _ne_ were a suffix rather
than a prefix.  _ne-ebl-a_ would then be `deniable' and `impossible'
would be _ebl-ne-a_ (modulo phonological shape).  Was it necessary for
E-o to have both prefixes and suffixes, with the ensuing possibility
of ambiguous attachment?  Not from the point of view of logic, but
that's how SAE works.

Well, I think that's about enough for now.

I'm not saying that any of the features I listed are really fatal for
E-o's languagehood, but in my view they show that logic has not played
such a major part in its design, and that the structure of E-o is very
strongly influenced by the trivial fact that its designer was working
from SAE.  For each of these features I could name at least a couple
of natural languages which part ways with SAE and, consequently, E-o,
while coming at least as close to following logic.

And, yes, from my new version of the subject line my readers may have
inferred the fact that I'm a Lojbanist, and from that it follows that
my standards for logicality are Very High Indeed.  :-)

-- 
`"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
