Actually I'd agree that the Fundamento now has limited power - some people like myself have barely learnt anything DIRECTLY from the Fundamento, only through things like Lernu! and PMEG, and even less authorative sources like random internet conversations, newsites and, God forbid, Wikipedia

Thus I guess one could say that I represent a group of Esperantists, no doubt rather large, who learn Esperanto using the community as a point of authority, and that community would use the Fundamento as an authority, but also itself too.

Hell, you could ask me about the Fundamento and I'd know zip-dooda (nothing) about it other than some educated guesses ("IT HAS GRAMMAR.... Maybe...").

So I'd say Esperanto in this century is now a language with the source of "what's correct" being the respected and exalted members of the community, with their status derived from:
How active they are in the community
How many conferences they've been to
How many other EOists they know
How much they're in contact with the language
Are they part of an EO dedicated sub-community?
How much "rules" from "authoritative sources" can they quote?
(who is authoritative is derived from similar criteria, eventually leading back to the Fundamento, but not necessarily based upon it).

Thus someone like me would be:
Part of lernu's forum community
Limited knowledge of PMEG
Know no EOists personally spare someone who has similar EO-experience, never been to a conference, etc.

Thus I'd be a Private (I know how to fire a gun)

Someone like Erinja no doubt would be a Commander (authoritative role in the Lernu community), Sudanglo and Miland I'd put as Spec Ops commandos (lots of contact with EO community with lots of abilities in the language), and I'd continue with this analogy but some might want to lay a shovel over my head for acting so familiar with y'all (Darkweasel and RiotNrrd how do you feel about being Combat Engineers or Tacticians?)

I believe the EO community has a similar hierarchical system at least to that analogy.

Miland: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.

Agreed. For all my criticisms of PMEG, for example, I think at least 99% of it is perfectly valid as a description of Esperanto. And even in the bits where there are personal opinions masquerading as rules, the allegedly 'incorrect' Esperanto described is often a contribution to documenting REAL Esperanto as it exists beyond the textbook, whether Wennergren and others attempting a continued planning process realise this or not. Esperanto was a planned language. Originally. Now it's a living language and is still 5 times easier to learn than any other. That's not going to change, because Esperanto speakers won't let that happen.

Maybe Miner's desired complete description of Esperanto is not and cannot be provided by the 'traditional criteria'. But I disagree profoundly with him about whether an Esperanto linguistics is possible. I think it is possible, and we have to start analysing our language according to the requirements of 21st century linguistics so that, for example, misapprehensions such as Chomsky's do not arise. To do that, we have to abandon 19th century attitudes to linguistic correctness and regulation and language change. PMEG and the Akademio often do take this on board in practice, even if there is more than the occasional nod to orthodoxy. Our language is not defined from beyond the grave by 688 people who once had a congress in Boulogne-sur-Mer. That's not how languages work, and deep down, everybody knows that.

Yes Ceiger, I think you have hit on an essential point.

So the difference between Esperanto and, say, English lies in the proportion of speakers who judgements on 'what is correct' would be taken seriously.

And in the case of English, not all native speakers would be equally considered qualified to judge whether something was 'well-formed'.

You might get some very funny results if you confined your sampling to those with poor education, low IQ, and who mixed socially with others of an immmigrant or linguistically deprived background.

Why do we teach English in school to native speakers if the native speaker has some miraculous inbuilt ability to determine what is 'well-formed'.

EdRobertson:That's not how languages work, and deep down, everybody knows that.

But why should E-o work just like ethnic languages? It didn't come to life like them, it isn't learned like them.

Having no native speakers (cum grano salis) is a huge challenge for a language with regard to fix and keep a norm. Zamenhof was aware of this, so he not only got the Bulonja Deklaracio passed, but also translated as much as possible in order to give real examples.
Have a look at the history of Ido, they didn't get that two important points and coulnd't stabilize their language before it was too late.

Of course I know many people never had a look at the Fundamento, it's neither complete (hey, that's said in its very name) nor easy to interpret in some points, but it should be the base for all Esperanto grammars.
For linguists it should be interesting to examin, how good this revolutionary approach to linguistic norm works practically.

Kirilo81:But why should E-o work just like ethnic languages? It didn't come to life like them, it isn't learned like them.

It doesn't necessarily have to work in such a binary fashion, e.g. you either learn languages from a fundamento or you learn it ethnically, laŭ mi.

Esperanto's still unique, as it's effectively built up a language community that resembles a giant club. We could point to parallels in creoles I guess, except replace the "club/interest-group" structure with a "tribal/clan/nation" structure.

So while Esperantists gain prominence and power through those bulletpoints I mentioned before, Chief Contiki of the Bela-Ailand tribe might rise to power through military acts, good deeds, or other community-respect-gaining exercises.

So in EO, we respect people based on their contributions to the language community and use them as a "standard" for the language, where as in Chief Contiki's tribe, people respect him based on his contributions or actions in their society, and based on that influence, he might accidentally influence the way the language is structured.

So a similar system in how we as a community subconsciously elect linguistic-leaders, except in the EO community we elect them as leaders based on their involvement with the language, where as in a pidgin/creole setting, leaders of a community are elected based on their deeds which might or mightn't include anything to do with the language, and the influence that person has on other people's personal dialects of the language is just an added bonus.

Ed, on the narrow point of the limitation of prepositions used in front of an infinitive, I wonder whether there might not be a reason for this bound up with the meaning of the prepositions that are used in this way.

Or the principle might be that where you can't make a distinctions between preposition prep + verb root + o, and prep + verb root + i, then the substantive form is preferred.

In short, the tradition may not be arbitrary.

Mi ne povas vivi sen amo and mi ne povas vivi sen ami clearly have different meanings.

But consider: Mi ne povis iri pro malhavo de mono and Mi ne povis iri pro malhavi monon*

Apart from the second sentence inducing a feeling of nausea, I don't see what distinction is made, even if the second sentence were OK and intelligible.

sudanglo:But consider: Mi ne povis iri pro malhavo de mono and Mi ne povis iri pro malhavi monon*

Apart from the second sentence inducing a feeling of nausea, I don't see what distinction is made, even if the second sentence were OK and intelligible.

There would be none since it's implied that your inability to go anywhere is due to a lack of your own money, where as the former has a distinction of love (in general) and loving (with you doing it).

sudanglo:

Why do we teach English in school to native speakers if the native speaker has some miraculous inbuilt ability to determine what is 'well-formed'.

It is a paradox I've also noticed: why so much energy is spent to teach children a language they are supposed to know already? In France, more hours are dedicated to study of french than of foreign languages.

So, what about "naturalness" of languages?

Altebrilas:It is a paradow I've also noticed: why so much energy is spent to teach children a language they are supposed to know already? In France, more hours are dedicated to study of french than of foreign languages.

Because:
- they have to learn French spelling (which, as we all know, is not very easy, although much easier than English spelling)
- they have to learn "good style" in their language (including, possibly, verb forms rarely used in spoken language)
- their dialects may have a somewhat different grammar than the standard language (I don't know how valid this is for French, but it's very valid for German where many dialects don't have the genitive and some don't even distinguish the accusative and dative - people in mainly rural areas of Austria often learn Standard German as their "first foreign language")

darkweasel:- they have to learn "good style" in their language (including, possibly, verb forms rarely used in spoken language)
- their dialects may have a somewhat different grammar than the standard language (I don't know how valid this is for French, but it's very valid for German where many dialects don't have the genitive and some don't even distinguish the accusative and dative - people in mainly rural areas of Austria often learn Standard German as their "first foreign language")

Basically I guess we could call it the society making sure everyone's standardised and in-sync so that people don't diverge from mainstream culture and then want to be independent... Like we've seen many times in history (Catalonia sounds like a good example, but I'm not too good with that region's history).

Each person anyway, if left to their own devices, would speak their language in their own way according to their own volition, so for some people that means we have to "reign them in" so we don't end up with linguistic tribalism