Príspevky: 73
Jazyk: English
tommjames (Zobraziť profil) 9. apríla 2014 8:59:10
sudanglo:Oh, it is much more than a minor blot, Tom. It actually undermines the cental tenet that the roots have a fixed grammatical class.No, all it does is necessitate some additional explanations. Those explanations have been given, are coherant, are not hard to understand, and do not provide grounds to claim the theory is false. At most they are not to your taste.
sudanglo:vortefikaj reguloj - which are all about how other elements in a word will change the 'fixed' grammatical class of a root.As morfran explained, this isn't what the vortefikaj reguloj are about, so you're attacking a straw man.
sudanglo:In testing whether a theory is good, it doesn't matter how many times it fits the facts. It is the cases that don't fit the facts, that need to be examined.I don't agree. You can't just disregard the multitude of cases where the theory does provide a correct explanation. You need to look at the whole picture, not just the part of it that seems to give you a justification to get on your soapbox about things.
morfran (Zobraziť profil) 9. apríla 2014 9:12:41
tommjames:So if we're going to go on the offensive about korekta then we need to be consistent about it and haul the other examples into question.Excellent point, TommJames.
And after reviewing the PIV’s definition of -a after a verbal root, I see that my characterization of it as -ive or -al is too restrictive:
PIV:-a … post morfemo, signifanta procezon, por signi, ke la kvalifikita vorto havas kun la ago esprimita en la rad. rilaton de aparteneco (la nutra problemo, luma radio (nutroproblemo, lumradio), aŭ estas iel karakterizata de ĝi (nutra substanco; luma globo, ĉambro). RIM. 2 Tiuj ĉi lastajn sencojn oni povas pli precize esprimi helpe de suf-oj (lumiga globo, lumita ĉambro).Since -a can mean almost anything adjectival — I dimly recall now the PAG repeatedly describing it as elasta — I suppose words like korekta, komplika, veka, falsa, fuŝa, and fiksa are not really wrong … though some certainly test the limits of elasteco more than others.
(For the record, my 2002 copy of the PIV labels korekta in the sense of “correct” as evitinda, since it could be confused with its other sense of “corrective”. The other words are all canon, even though some of them are completely illogical.)
The problem, I think, is that (1) many of these words are falsaj amikoj in a number of languages, and prone to getting misused because of it, (2) Esperanto is always a second language, probably not much more than a hobby for most, and (3) while Zamenhoff clearly had a system in mind, systematizing an entire language even in the age of computers and databases is a herculean task, and some words probably didn’t get incorporated as well as they could have been.
Like medieval Latin, spoken and written by people who no longer knew how to properly speak or write it, Esperanto has picked up some quirks, some of which seem to contradict the more or less logical infrastructure. Given a long enough timeline, that would probably be true of any planned language that people actually use, no matter how rigidly logical it starts out. I guess dictionaries can either be Churchillian about it and denounce fiksa as a usage up with which it will not put, or stay relevant and find a way to justify fiksa within the logic of the language.
tommjames (Zobraziť profil) 9. apríla 2014 10:17:22
morfran:I suppose words like korekta, komplika, veka, falsa, fuŝa, and fiksa are not really wrong … though some certainly test the limits of elasteco more than others.Yes, that's the way I look at it.
I guess people will have differing views on the limits of the elasteco, but those examples do show at least that the elasteco is there. Maybe the prescriptivists will get their way eventually, and the meanings of korekta, komplika, fuŝa etc will be brought into line, but we'll have to see how that goes. In the meantime I think "evitinda" is about as far as you can go.
Completely agree with the rest of your post, by the way.
morfran (Zobraziť profil) 9. apríla 2014 12:01:04
Kirilo81:The radikkaraktero doesn't necessarily pull in the vortefikaj reguloj. While the former is indispensable for the understanding of the language, the latter is an unnecessesary invention of PAG.First of all, I envy you your university, insofar as it apparently has an advanced course in Esperanto. At the university I went to, where Esperanto had all the stature of Klingon or Elvish, there was no course whatsoever, and I was one of the only two geeks on campus who could speak it.
I wrote about it in my diploma thesis, page 28s.
Some quick thoughts about section 4.1.3 — La t.n. vortefikaj reguloj (quick because I stayed up far too late and am now shuffling around in sleep’s antechamber):
[list=1]
The suffix -ind/ isn’t really verbalizing, since it only appears after elements that are already verbal, and in any case seems to work perfectly well as a nominalizing head word (ex. vidinda = ((vidi)o)inda or inda je vido.
The suffix -anto indicates a person or object; -antaĵo indicates only an object. So brulantaĵo, which your paper puzzles over as (brulant)aĵo is more properly (bruli)antaĵo.
“fakte oni povas same bone klarigi X-igi iun per la parafrazo „igi, ke iu estu X“, do igi ne adjektivigas sian flankelementon, sed predikatigas ĝin …” I think that’s already in the PAG as one of the vortefikaj reguloj: “Verba ĉefelemento povas efiki al sia flankelemento … per adjektivigo, farante ĝin, laŭ la senco, sia predikata adjektivo.”
fiŝkapti and leterskribi. Yeah, it would probably make things easier if “direct object” was among the listed options for the flankelemento of verbal head words.
senforta. It may be that I’m too tired, but I don’t see the problem with senforta being (sen forto)a, though you seem to hold this analysis in particular contempt.
subtaso vs. sub taso. On this point we are of one mind. There are reasons why the Romance languages developed indefinite article technology, and distinguishing subtaso from sub taso has got to be one of them.[/list]I started skipping around after this. Looks like an interesting paper, one I’ll have to read more thoroughly later.
But while it certainly underscores some problems with Esperanto’s word-formation, I’m not sure it demonstrates that the vortefikaj reguloj are an “unnecessary invention” of the PAG. Surely some explanation of the word-formation is necessary; the vortefikaj reguloj are just the PAG’s, and they mostly seem to hold up. Mostly.
sudanglo (Zobraziť profil) 9. apríla 2014 12:28:19
As morfran explained, this isn't what the vortefikaj reguloj are about, so you're attacking a straw manCome off it Tom. The pages of PAG devoted to the vort-farado are stuffed with rules about class change - like (chosen at random):
Post verbaj radikoj la a-finaĵo kiel adjektiva ĉefelemento ĉiam substantivigas la antaŭan radikon.
Substantiva ĉefelemento substantivigas la antaŭan flankelementon. Do se la flankelementa radiko ne estas substantiva ...
and so on and so on.
sudanglo (Zobraziť profil) 9. apríla 2014 12:55:06
Kirilo, have just seen you contribution to the debate, I will look at your thesis with interest later. In the meantime just to show Morfran, I am not so isolated in my views as he supposes, I quote.
unu el la plej akre disputitaj problemoj Esperantologiaj (even perhaps disputataj)
La disputo temas plejparte pri la terminoj kaj la principa demando, ĉu oni deiru de la radikoj al la vortoj aŭ inverse
unu el la plej akre disputitaj problemoj Esperantologiaj (even perhaps disputataj)
La disputo temas plejparte pri la terminoj kaj la principa demando, ĉu oni deiru de la radikoj al la vortoj aŭ inverse
tommjames (Zobraziť profil) 9. apríla 2014 13:48:06
sudanglo:Come off it Tom. The pages of PAG devoted to the vort-farado are stuffed with rules about class changeThere is a difference between ŝanĝo and efiko. An adjective root doesn't "become a substantive root" just because a substantiviga flankelemento sits before it.
bartlett22183 (Zobraziť profil) 9. apríla 2014 21:04:46
I respectfully suggest that, so far as I have been able to discern, the "root class theory" is almost overwhelmingly accepted by many students and users of Esperanto. In these fora, so far as I have been able to discern (I will cheerfully accept correction), it seems to be one individual who has been going against the tide, as it were. I suggest that he reconsider his position in the face of major opposition going back generations in book after book. Perhaps he might be wrong.
(With respect to another international auxiliary language, there is one individual who seems to think that he knows better than all the -- such as it is, admittedly small -- worldwide user community, and despite his strident appeals, on one major forum he seems to have gained only a single acolyte.)
(With respect to another international auxiliary language, there is one individual who seems to think that he knows better than all the -- such as it is, admittedly small -- worldwide user community, and despite his strident appeals, on one major forum he seems to have gained only a single acolyte.)
morfran (Zobraziť profil) 10. apríla 2014 0:58:53
sudanglo:In the meantime just to show Morfran, I am not so isolated in my views as he supposes, I quote.Oh, I saw it, Sudanglo. My original response to Kirilo’s post made mention of it, but I had to cut it because of the field’s character limit. (Brevity being the soul of wit is apparently a lesson I never learned.)
sudanglo:That may be, but since the PAG distinguishes between the flankelementoj and the antaŭaj radikoj right in the opening sections of its Leĝoj de la kunmetado, it seems that’s what was meant.PIV:Post verbaj radikoj la a-finaĵo kiel adjektiva ĉefelemento ĉiam substantivigas la antaŭan radikon.
But again, no one’s claiming that Esperanto’s word-formation system is perfect, or that explanations of it are without complications. That would probably be true of any system that keeps one foot in logical artifice and the other in imitation of natural language.
And I don’t mean to suggest that there aren’t other Sudangloj out there, denouncing this or that grammatical crime against humanity like Trekkies decrying inconsistencies and logical gaps in episodes of Star Trek — some of these Sudangloj, as I learned from Kirilo’s paper, are even published.
(Kirilo, too, obviously shares some of your criticisms of the PAG’s vortefikaj reguloj. The difference is that he hasn’t been a FOX News pundit about it, warning us hourly of how the PAG is destroying America.)
But all this dissent is largely confined to the world of academia and internet trolls, and comes from a tiny minority of an already tiny user base — the prevailing view, the one you hate, is the the one rightly or wrongly espoused in all the published grammar books. Shouting “Worst episode ever!” every day in the forums won’t change that.
sudanglo (Zobraziť profil) 10. apríla 2014 11:36:35
Calling a radiko a flankelemento doesn't make it a non-root.
It's all obscurantism gone mad compared to the simplicity of basing the meaning of compounds on meanings of words - ie take the word, knock off the ending, replace with a different ending.
In other words marteli is derived from martelo. Matenmanĝo is derived from manĝo. Manĝo itself usually has the meaning of a meal but in context (rarely) can mean an act of eating - ie derived from manĝi in the same way that frapo, derived from frapi, is a blow.
Because both interpretations can be meaningfully applied to the world, vestejo can be seen as derived from vesto or vesti. Korektigi is derived from korekti not korekta. Senpova is derived from povo.
Accusations of hysteria on my part (unjustified) won't change which is a better description.
No matter how much you try, you can never explain korekta and korekti as making sense on the basis of a single root class for korekt.
And how do you explain (under the theory) that various roots have changed their grammatical class over time if the grammatical class is such an inherent property of the root.
I know that grammarians have to have something to do to justify their existence, but then so do astrologers.
It's all obscurantism gone mad compared to the simplicity of basing the meaning of compounds on meanings of words - ie take the word, knock off the ending, replace with a different ending.
In other words marteli is derived from martelo. Matenmanĝo is derived from manĝo. Manĝo itself usually has the meaning of a meal but in context (rarely) can mean an act of eating - ie derived from manĝi in the same way that frapo, derived from frapi, is a blow.
Because both interpretations can be meaningfully applied to the world, vestejo can be seen as derived from vesto or vesti. Korektigi is derived from korekti not korekta. Senpova is derived from povo.
Accusations of hysteria on my part (unjustified) won't change which is a better description.
No matter how much you try, you can never explain korekta and korekti as making sense on the basis of a single root class for korekt.
And how do you explain (under the theory) that various roots have changed their grammatical class over time if the grammatical class is such an inherent property of the root.
I know that grammarians have to have something to do to justify their existence, but then so do astrologers.