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From: antony@cix.compulink.co.uk ("Antony Rawlinson")
Subject: Re: ka la .espon. na logji se jicmu (Re: One point against Esperanto)
Message-ID: <D6FI53.4Cz@cix.compulink.co.uk>
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References: <D6Brqq.K29@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Date: Sun, 2 Apr 1995 22:22:14 GMT
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Ivan,

I think you and I can actually find a lot to agree about, although I 
think maybe you are seeing the whole issue from a purely theoretical 
viewpoint.  I don't intend to disparage that, and I haven't really made a 
study of the theoretical side of linguistics, "artificial" or otherwise; 
my more subjective viewpoint arises from a great amount of 
person-to-person use of the language, by no means always with those from 
a European language background.

> ...  I took issue with your statement that its structure
> followed logic *rather than* SAE, because I see many SAE features
> in it.

I'm not sure that I said, or implied, that E-o isn't influenced by SAE.  
You appear to be saying that (some of) Zamenhof's choices were arbitrary 
rather than logical, but it isn't clear to me that the alternatives are 
any less arbitrary.

> It has a regular morphology, to be sure, but it's obvious that its
> designer has been working with the Romance, Germanic and Slavic
> languages in mind.

This is true, but my original point (in reply to Jim Moody) was that this 
doesn't in itself make the language Eurocentric.

> ...
> >Esperanto is not SVO.  Word-order is whatever is chosen by the 
> >speaker or writer (the accusative ending allows this).
> 
> Are all word orders semantically equivalent?  No emphasis indicated?
> By `SVO (unmarked)' I meant `SVO unless discourse structure suggests
> something else', as opposed to `SVO (rigid)'.

Emphasis is a subjective aspect of language use, discernable from the 
complete context.  Word order is only one device in conveying this, and a 
speaker might vary from SVO for reasons of euphony, for example.  There 
is also no reason why a different word order might not be chosen 
consistently, with SVO used for emphasis.  This might be considered 
unusual by listeners and readers, but wouldn't be laughed at.

> ...
> >Functionally, the suffix -ig^- serves this purpose.
> 
> Yes.  So the active voice of another (intransitive) verb fills a gap
> in the paradigm. a gap whose presence looks as though it's due to
> Romance/Germanic/Slavic influence, because those languages (among
> others, of course) tend to have it.
>
> ...
> 
> Note that in Volapu"k there's perfect symmetry: voice and finiteness
> are orthogonal, and there is only one participle, which is active or
> passive depending on its being formed from an active or passive verb.
> It looks as though E-o is an exprovement over Vp in the logic stakes.

Not knowing Volapk, I don't see the distinction between "a passive verb" 
and my examples of E-o "-ig^-" words: naskig^i (to be born), geedzig^i 
(to be married), vundig^i (to be injured), etc.

Vp has the disadvantage that it is, I understand, a very difficult and 
complicated language, with lots of cases.  I suspect that Schleyer was 
also influenced, arbitrarily rather than logically, by his native German 
when he included these in the language.

You appear to be saying that the use in E-o of an active (-anta) and a 
passive (-ata) participle is less logical than having a single participle 
which attaches to active or passive forms.  I don't agree; this appears 
to me simply a case of one choice (and the most practical) being taken 
over others that are no more logical.

"-anta" and "-ata" in E-o are in any case used more often as adjectives 
than as participles, since generally the simple past, present and future 
are used rather than compound tenses.  The passive form is avoided, as I 
have earlier stated, because there are usually neater ways of expressing 
the sense.

> Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk)

regards, Antony Rawlinson.
