sudanglo:Why should we imagine that way back in the mists of time the grammactical structure of these languages and the agreement on meaning within the community had developed to the point of making all (or the majority of) sentences clear out of context.

With a limited vocabulary and crude grammar, it is highly likely that such 'pralingvoj' were heavily interpreted according to the situation.

I agree. I reckon eventually, situationally-based gibberish-esque sounds would have found, with usage, more context, and that context would have eventually been shortened for ease of use, and then fused into something like proto-declensions. Or in some cases declensions and other modifiers could have been made up on the spot in a spur of zamenhoffian-esque creativity, only even more so - they wouldn't have had fully-grown languages or ideas like Zamenhoff had to based things and off of.

Alas they're nothing more than decorations.

sudanglo:The importance of Esperanto for Linguistics is that it is a test case for their theories.

In what way? Esperanto is similar in purpose and form to Hochdeutsch, Modern Hebrew, and creole languages, which have all been subject to linguistic theory.

If you want me to, I can tell you (again) the inconsistencies in its word derivation/vowel classification system. I know why these inconsistencies arose, their relationship to natural languages, and how they can be avoided in other constructed languages.

I can hypothesize that Esperanto adopts what would otherwise be a generative grammar from the first languages of its speakers, as a creole does but on a larger linguistic scale. With more active input from non-IndoEuro languages, it could give us hints at a universal grammar.

I agree Miland. My own personal experience would suggest that there is a high level of agreement on what constitutes 'good' Esperanto among 'spertuloj'.

And where some structures may not have yet 'settled down' - acquired a shared interpretation - there is no reason to suppose that this would remain the situation for ever.

And of course, where it may be felt that there is lack of clarity, an experienced Esperantist will instinctively rephrase.

Basically, it is up to the linguists to prove that Esperanto is not a language, not up to the Esperantists to prove the linguists are wrong.

It is not very cartesian nor scientific, but in our present society the burden of proof is on those who are challenging official dogms.

There's saying in English, Altebrilas, "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it must be a duck".

Another saying we have is "Innocent until proven guilty".

Few Esperantists would doubt that Esperanto is a language, so the ones doing the challenging are the linguists (or some of them) - so by your own argument they have the burden of proof.

sudanglo:There's saying in English, Altebrilas, "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it must be a duck".

Another saying we have is "Innocent until proven guilty".

Few Esperantists would doubt that Esperanto is a language, so the ones doing the challenging are the linguists (or some of them) - so by your own argument they have the burden of proof.

As far as I know, we don't have that proverb in France, and due to the advertising of Canada dry, we tend to interpret it differently ("it is something they are trying to sell us as a duck, but it is not")

I know that linguists would have the burden of the proof in an esperanto congress, but in most academic media, it is the opposite.

sudanglo:I agree Miland. My own personal experience would suggest that there is a high level of agreement on what constitutes 'good' Esperanto among 'spertuloj'.

[...]

And of course, where it may be felt that there is lack of clarity, an experienced Esperantist will instinctively rephrase.

Precisely. Miner is absolutely correct to reject as inadequate the traditional criteria of 'correctness', i.e. what the Fundamento/PAG/PMEG/PIV/the Akademujo say is correct.

We come back, however, not to the 'tipa esperantisto', as Miner claims, but to Chomsky's concept of competence. Chomsky wrongly wraps this up with the criterion of native-speakerness. The fact is, competent Esperanto-speakers are entitled to an opinion on which utterances are well-formed, and which ones aren't, i.e. would we say this ourselves, and do we hear other competent Esperanto-speakers say it?

Take Miner's example of ju ... des. He finds examples of inconsistent usage. But inconsistent with what? Inconsistent with how je ... desto was used in German in 1887? Inconsistent with Bertilo Wennergren's arbitrary insistence that ju ... ju "ne eblas", and even "ne havas sencon"?

This is circular reasoning. It's 'inconsistent' with what he assumed, wrongly, in advance, was 'consistent'. You find what is consistent in a language from examples of use. Or you ask somebody who speaks the language.

This is even what the notoriously prescriptive Bastian Sick did, obviously, before discussing the analogous construction in German.

This is a NON-problem. If there is a problem, it is the traditional prescriptiveness among Esperanto-speakers as regards what is 'good' Esperanto and what isn't. Take Miner's examples of 'questionable' utterances:

Li preventis problemon per pagi frue la kvitancon
La tiel faruta tasko neniam fariĝis

In the first case I might think twice before writing it, but then probably go "Oh, f*ck it, I don't care if Lingvaj Respondoj tells me not to use an infinitive after most prepositions. I say this sort of thing in my spoken Esperanto ALL THE TIME, especially after per, so I'm writing it". This makes it a question of register, not of well-formedness. The second example I would have no hesitation in saying or writing, ever, and don't regard it as remotely 'questionable'.

As for his example of Mi ŝovis al lokomotivo, this is a POEM. Maybe the author meant this to be ambiguous, to sound worse than it was. This is hermeneutics, pragmatics, not what constitutes grammatical well-formedness.

Esperanto works just like any other language. It's just that it's easier to acquire linguistic competence in it, i.e. you don't have to be a native speaker. This is a good thing.

EdRobertson:Miner is absolutely correct to reject as inadequate the traditional criteria of 'correctness', i.e. what the Fundamento/PAG/PMEG/PIV/the Akademujo say is correct...

I wouldn't separate the "traditional" criterion from the consensus among experienced users too much, because Esperanto by its nature as a community has the Akademio which goes back to Zamenhof and the first World Congress. Because of this the opinions of the more experienced users are liable to be heavily formed by the "traditional criteria", even if, Esperanto being a living and evolving language, the Akademio cannot hand down laws so much as give generally reliable advice.

EdRobertson:
Precisely. Miner is absolutely correct to reject as inadequate the traditional criteria of 'correctness', i.e. what the Fundamento/PAG/PMEG/PIV/the Akademujo say is correct.

Esperanto works just like any other language. It's just that it's easier to acquire linguistic competence in it, i.e. you don't have to be a native speaker. This is a good thing.

Sorry, but I couldn't agree less!
Esperanto is different from any other language, as it has a written norm, the Fundamento de Esperanto (but not PAG/PMEG/PIV), and an institution which may augment (but not change) it's norm.
Linguistis may describe common deviations from this norm (e.g. far), but the mus accept that E-o as a language without normative native speakers needs some other source for judging about correctness.

Surely Kirilo, Esperanto has now gone beyond the Fundamento.

Certain meanings of roots have now become archaic, many new roots have been added, compounds acquired new meaning, new grammatical usage has arisen and so on.

There is an interplay between accounts of the language as in PAG\PIV\PMEG and the usage of our best authors, and what is experienced in interactions with other Esperantists, what is consistent with established patterns, what is useful to make a distinction.

The idea of correctness in the Esperanto-speaking community is determined multi-factorially. But this doesn't mean we have no sense of a norm, are not subject to normative influences (beyond the Fundamento)

Yes, there are some areas where they may be disageement, or the language may be in the process of change, or there isn't enough usage for a clear pattern.

But even in a heavily-used language like English you can construct sentences over which native speakers will not be in agreement.