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Linguists and esperanto

di Altebrilas, 24 maggio 2011

Messaggi: 216

Lingua: English

Altebrilas (Mostra il profilo) 19 giugno 2011 08:23:46

I revised my opinion about compounds. I think, like you Sudanglo, that pragmatics is important because the knowledge of the real world is the way to convey information, and this makes possible that a compound word has more meaning that the sum of its components.

Nevertheless, it is a problem with obsolete compounds, which have to be learnt like ordinary roots (e.g. "aligxilo"), and may be parasitic when one tries to create new compounds. This seems me to be not compliant with the principles of the language (its difficulty is increasing with time).

sudanglo (Mostra il profilo) 19 giugno 2011 09:03:49

I think you could argue that issue both ways, Altebrilas.

Yes, you need knowledge of more roots nowadays to express yourself well in Esperanto. On the other hand, it must have been quite difficult to do that in earlier times using only those roots which were established in the UV and later Oficialaj Aldonoj.

As regards those compounds whose meaning has become fossilized and highly specific - like aliĝilo, lernejo and eldoni, I don't think they add much to the learning load, since they still have a meaning which is related to the component elements, even if the application has become more restricted than an initial analysis would suggest.

Such compounds, and I suspect that there are relatively few of them, tend to have a high statistical frequency and their meaning tends to be picked up relatively easily from context.

As regards compounds from the very early days which can be truly classified as archaic, like elrigardi for aspekti, I think the answer is that most texts which the learner will encounter don't include such compounds.

Altebrilas (Mostra il profilo) 20 giugno 2011 15:53:30

I've been interested with other projects of conlangs, and I've noticed that most of them started with a dictionary of around 1000 words, but it became larger as the language developed.

Hence the question: how many words are necessary? Since it is always possible to replace a missing word by a periphrase (or a compound), which are the words that are "central" at certain moment of the history of a language?

Concerning esperanto, what are the things of the real world that are common enough to all people to give their names to the basic roots of the language?

I don't know if my explanations are clear, but I have the feeling that languages are accumulating a kind of entropy in the form of unnecessary roots...

Kirilo81 (Mostra il profilo) 20 giugno 2011 16:20:32

Altebrilas:
Hence the question: how many words are necessary? Since it is always possible to replace a missing word by a periphrase (or a compound), which are the words that are "central" at certain moment of the history of a language?
You should have a look at the publications around the "Natural Semantics Metalanguage" of Anna Wierzbicka, she's working exactly on the kind of things you're asking about.

Cf. http://www.cyrilbrosch.net/ese_ls_3.pdf

razlem (Mostra il profilo) 20 giugno 2011 18:40:19

Altebrilas:I've been interested with other projects of conlangs, and I've noticed that most of them started with a dictionary of around 1000 words, but it became larger as the language developed.
Mine only has 500 lexical roots, and that's expanding into technical territory. senkulpa.gif

Altebrilas:Hence the question: how many words are necessary? Since it is always possible to replace a missing word by a periphrase (or a compound), which are the words that are "central" at certain moment of the history of a language?
To answer that, you can look at the East Polynesian languages (Hawaiian, Māori, etc.). The recycling of particles and root compounding allows them to express new ideas. I would estimate that fluent speakers know only a few thousand words (as opposed to ~25,000 words in English or Spanish), and they thrived for 2000+ years.

Altebrilas:what are the things of the real world that are common enough to all people to give their names to the basic roots of the language?
Without a doubt, nouns. Take for example, the word "water." Every single language has a word for "water":just look at this list. Nouns are the truest form of neutrality.

You would not find this with actions or qualities. The verb "to get" does not exist in every language, certainly not in the same ways it's used in English. Russian and Arabic (among others) don't use "to have" and "to be" in the same way as English, and Spanish even splits "to be" into "ser" and "estar"- the former for characteristics and the latter for condition/location. Qualities are the same way. Chinese doesn't have a word for "brown." It has instead "tree color" or "cloth color"- junctions of 2 nouns.

You have to use the senses to understand another culture; you can't always rely on your own culture's perspectives to communicate. I'm using the sense of sight in my language Angos: picturable nouns, no inherent actions or qualities. One of my peers is creating a new language based on onomatopoeia, and it's actually very interesting.

Altebrilas (Mostra il profilo) 20 giugno 2011 23:03:07

Kirilo81:

You should have a look at the publications around the "Natural Semantics Metalanguage" of Anna Wierzbicka, she's working exactly on the kind of things you're asking about.

Cf. http://www.cyrilbrosch.net/ese_ls_3.pdf
Mi sxatus vidi la priskribon de "muso"...

Kiel oni povas esprimi, per tiu lingvajxo, aferoj rilataj al la reala mondo? Kiel diri ekzemple, ke la porko havas voston kiel korktirilo?

Altebrilas (Mostra il profilo) 20 giugno 2011 23:27:41

razlem:
Mine only has 500 lexical roots, and that's expanding into technical territory. senkulpa.gif
How many fluent speakers of Angos? (two of them are enough) Did you test a double translation (English to Angos by one speaker and Angos back to English by another) and a comparison of the result with the original text?

robbkvasnak (Mostra il profilo) 21 giugno 2011 00:20:45

Actually the really interesting thing about Esperanto is the fact that even though we have a certain number of denaskuloj the majority of those who speak and write it are second language learners, i.e. people who have learned it consciously. I realized at an E congress that this is the reason that there are no real dialects - accents yes, but not dialects. Of course, some nationalities use a few words of their own language when in a national meeting, like the Germans using 'holi' (from 'holen' - to go get in the usona and to fetch in the angla) or gemuta for gemütlich - but in an international environment they quickly drop those habits. And denaskuloj are not necessarily better speakers than some second language learners, whereas in a national language that is seldom the case.

robbkvasnak (Mostra il profilo) 21 giugno 2011 00:26:39

I think that here is a problem that is perceived by native speakers of English and American to be odd, because in those two languages a preposition may not be followed by an infinitive but rather the nominalized form of a verb, i.e. the gerund. Other languages generally permit the use of an infinitive after a preposition.

razlem (Mostra il profilo) 21 giugno 2011 02:04:13

Altebrilas:How many fluent speakers of Angos? (two of them are enough) Did you test a double translation (English to Angos by one speaker and Angos back to English by another) and a comparison of the result with the original text?
Three, yes, and yes lango.gif

Just to be clear, I said 500 roots, not 500 words.

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