Thanks for that T0dd, very interesting way to think of it! (and your work as a translator into every day English is certainly helpful ).

As I was reading it I ran that stuff through my head, firstly focussing on the it/at part and then focussing on the way the verb is normally used, and it certainly does streamline the entire process.

This is indeed well-worked over ground in the history of discussions about the language.

There would be statistical associations between the meanings of verbs and the use of ata or ita. But not such that you can make a firm link.

You still have to know the meaning of ata and ita.

And it's because of the meaning of ata and ita that such patterns arise.

Starting from the meaning of ata and ita you can predict that some verbs will more commonly take ata and some ita.

There are some verbs that can be of both duration and result. And, of course, even when there is little duration, or we are more usually concerned with the result, we may still want to view the action as a process.

La katedralo estis konstruita en 1365.

Dum la katedralo estis konstruata, akcidentoj trafis pli ol 50 laboristojn.

The classic example, I believe, is Kiam via domo estis ankoraŭ konstruata, la mia estis delonge konstruita.

It all comes back to in the end to the principle that Esperanto compounds are just convenient ways of getting across an idea rather than the products of some derivational calculus.

This is at the heart of why you have difficulty with the notion that matenmanĝi might be best viewed as intransitive.

Taking a derivational calculus view you can't abide that manĝi should lose its transivity in the compound.

Yes, there are patterns to be 'discovered' in Esperanto's wordbuilding system, and the linguists can get excited about that if they please.

The ordinary Esperantist only needs to understand that the process of wordbuilding in Esperanto is simpla kunmetado in a necessary and sufficient manner to convey your meaning, taking into account the meanings of the vorteroj.

I don't know much about the structure of Ido, but I believe that I read somewhere that a motivation of the Idistoj was to formalise the meanings of derivations, and that Couturat, a co-villain in the affair, was a philosopher.

Here's a very interesting article about Couturat and the Ido affair http://rik.poreo.org/eo/ido_con.doc

sudanglo:
You still have to know the meaning of ata and ita.

And it's because of the meaning of ata and ita that such patterns arise.

Starting from the meaning of ata and ita you can predict that some verbs will more commonly take ata and some ita.

Exactly. This is the point Gledhill is making. I'm not claiming that it's a grand discovery. What's helpful about his monograph is that in addition to merely asserting that you can make this prediction fairly reliably, he actually shows which kinds of verbs tend to go with which endings. He doesn't, of course, make the idiotic suggestion that you could do this without knowing what the endings mean.

It all comes back to in the end to the principle that Esperanto compounds are just convenient ways of getting across an idea rather than the products of some derivational calculus.

This is at the heart of why you have difficulty with the notion that matenmanĝi might be best viewed as intransitive.

Taking a derivational calculus view you can't abide that manĝi should lose its transivity in the compound.

This is breathtakingly wrong, but as I stated above, I will not pursue it in this thread. If you are able to put together an argument that has some substance, we can look at it in one of the threads already about that topic.

Yes, there are patterns to be 'discovered' in Esperanto's wordbuilding system, and the linguists can get excited about that if they please.

The study of patterns is the preliminary work of science. In this particular instance, I found Gledhill's comment about the patterns to be useful in my own thinking about how to use the passive participles.

Maybe I'll get a chance to read some more tonight.

sudanglo:I don't know much about the structure of Ido, but I believe that I read somewhere that a motivation of the Idistoj was to formalise the meanings of derivations, and that Couturat, a co-villain in the affair, was a philosopher.

The article you linked to says he was a mathematician, although I have no idea what difference it would have made if he was a philosopher.

It's interesting to read the Ido story again.

Jes Todd, do let us know if you find any thing more in Gledhill's account that strikes you as interesting. Especially if it's something that you think might be novel (not already well-discussed by our homegrown Esperantologoj)

The search for patterns isn't a bad thing to do if you are trying to explain some phenomenon. But what would it lead onto in the case of Esperanto? What would be the practical consequences? What experiments would these patterns lead you to design?

The principle, that I have repeated several times, as to word formation in Esperanto is what Zamenhof himself stated.

If that part is breathtakingly wrong, then I am in good company.

However, I am prepared to retract my speculation that a preference for system-type thinking may have played a part in your position about matenmanĝi, if you think it's unfair. In the case of Couturat it seems a reasonable assumption that such thinking played a part (whether he was a mathematician or philosopher).

On the issue of L1 learning versus L2 learning , if we supppose that any hardware specialisation in the brain is only brought into play in L1 learning, then I think it follows that any principles that the lingvistikistoj have managed to discern from the study of L1's are not of obvious relevance to Esperanto which is almost always learnt in adulthood.

The reason why I think that we need to be very clear about the relevance of linguistic studies to Esperanto is that those who oppose the adoption of Esperanto are likely (naively) to turn to the language professionals for their opinion. Since only a few lingvistikistoj will have informed opinions about Esperanto, we need to be able to counter their arguments.

sudanglo:
If that part is breathtakingly wrong, then I am in good company.

What was breathtakingly wrong was your summary and explanation of my position.

However, I am prepared to retract my speculation that a preference for system-type thinking may have played a part in your position about matenmanĝi, if you think it's unfair. In the case of Couturat it seems a reasonable assumption that such thinking played a part (whether he was a mathematician or philosopher).

Speculation is cheap, and I'm willing to grant that a concern with logical elegance played a role in Couturat's thinking. I suspect, that an ego-driven desire to be the hero of the newly reformed Esperanto movement had a lot to do with it, too.

On the issue of L1 learning versus L2 learning , if we supppose that any hardware specialisation in the brain is only brought into play in L1 learning, then I think it follows that any principles that the lingvistikistoj have managed to discern from the study of L1's are not of obvious relevance to Esperanto which is almost always learnt in adulthood.

That's fair enough, I think, and in any case we know that Esperanto is readily learnable as L1 anyway, so there's really nothing to be concerned about there.

The reason why I think that we need to be very clear about the relevance of linguistic studies to Esperanto is that those who oppose the adoption of Esperanto are likely (naively) to turn to the language professionals for their opinion. Since only a few lingvistikistoj will have informed opinions about Esperanto, we need to be able to counter their arguments.

Well, yes, and that's why I think the Gledhill survey is an excellent addition to the literature. It's objective, balanced, and accurate, as far as I can tell so far. It's a survey, not an actual scientific inquiry, but for what it is, it's a good specimen. It indeed is an antidote to the breezy dismissals that we sometimes see.

As you know, I'm not optimistic about Esperanto receiving academic support, ever, but it's not because of the foibles peculiar to linguists. It is, in my view, just a special case of a more general phenomenon, the sort of thing that Piron wrote about. For many many people, there is a kind of recoil from the very idea of Esperanto. It's hard to get past that to actual arguments.