Donniedillon:Folks have been playing with that theory for long time and it appears to be bunk.

Link

Which theory? The innate language thing is what I said I wouldn't believe would appear. Any "innate language" is something we currently don't define as language, e.g. yelps when we get hurt, to the odd grunt or whimper.

I believe this is where searching for universal grammar gets a bit more complex than perhaps what chomsky is searching for, since while I think there are certain patterns and other instinctual things that determine what sounds a human might make in certain circumstances, they're so different to human languages of today which have evolved far past such primitive communication - what ever the original system is for making any sort of sound would be far more, erm, "analogue" than the much simpler, "digital" rules of human communication today where there's an obvious structure.

Maybe what is innate in human brain is not language itself, but some mechanisms to order sequentially things that are viewed simultaneously (e.g. for drawing a face, you have to draw the had, then the nose, the eyes, te mouth, etc.), or to replace in a structure a part that doen't fit its purpose by another.

Those mechanisms are probably preexistent to language and may be found in animals (a bird that builds its nest). The language then would be the application of those mechanismes to linguistics elements.

Chomsky's infamous comment about Esperanto doesn't appear to be based on Universal Grammar, which is the hypothetical set of constraints upon possible learnable grammars. It is more based upon what he takes to be the absence of a generative grammar for Esperanto. Apparently, he regards the presence of a generative grammar as a necessary condition of a true language.

A generative grammar is a set of rules that generate all and only the well-formed sentences in a language. Given a complete generative grammar, it should be possible to take any string of words and say whether it is or isn't a well-formed sentence in a language.

The only way the concept of a generative grammar can have any validity, then, is if there is some independent way to know what the well-formed sentences are. That is, in order to know that you've got the right rules, you have to be able to test them against the language itself. How is this possible? As Chomsky sees it, there's only one way. There must be a sufficient population of native speakers whose usage norms what is and isn't a well-formed sentence. Then you take your proposed grammar and see if it generates, or detects, all and only the well-formed sentences recognized by that L1 population.

Since Esperanto doesn't have this kind of an L1 population whose usage is normative, it can't have a generative grammar. What counts as "right" and "wrong" usage in Esperanto depends to a great extent on the linguistic expectations of whoever the "dominant" speakers happen to be.

In fact, we see this all the time in Lernu! Certain constructions are shunned, such as kioj, not because there is something logically or semantically wrong with them, but because they are "jarring" to those whose native languages don't allow parallel constructions.

What Chomsky appears not to have considered is whether, in its 120+ years, the Esperanto speech community has become a kind of surrogate L1 normative speech community, sufficiently stable and independent of any regional group to allow the validation of a generative grammar.

As far as I know, there is no completed generative grammar for any living language.

Obviously Esperanto doesn't have an L1 population. But this doesn't mean that there isn't a sense among the speakers of what is right and wrong in Esperanto.

To take your example of 'kioj' (certain special uses excepted) this is felt to be wrong because it won't be found in the bulk of the literature, as it isn't also in the speech of the proficient users.

Discussions on this site as to whether you can say this or that are often among learners of the language, and no significant conclusions about Esperanto can be drawn from that.

Anyway, many of the discussions finally reach a conclusion as proficient speakers contribute.

You may well be right about Chomsky's position. But I'll not have Esperanto declared a non-language because it doesn't accommodate some linguist's pet theory whatever that linguist's reputation.

Incidentally, how does a rule based generative grammar of English decide that 'Quick food' is wrong and 'Fast food' is right.

sudanglo:Incidentally, how does a rule based generative grammar of English decide that 'Quick food' is wrong and 'Fast food' is right.

'Fast' is easier to say than 'quick' in terms of muscles used (i.e. why say something complex when something simple will suffice?)

"kioj" is to be rejected:

a) because it is not in the Fundamento's table of correlatives

b) because there is a lack of attestations

c) because it violates the principle of "neceso kaj suficxo"

In the only exemples on Google
1.- either it can be replaced by "kiuj"
2.- or it is used metaliguistically, e.g. when requesting to repeat a part of the sentence that was not heard:
li nutris la (kokin)ojn
li nutris Kiojn?

but I would say
"li nutris la" kio?
as well as
"li nutris" kio?
or
"li" kio?
(the fact that exactly a NP was not heard is purely accidental)

3. or it is used for "kiuj aferoj", but "kio" is not for a single object and can also represent a set of objects:
- kio estas sur la tablo?
- Sur la tablo estas glaso kaj forko.

So there is no relevant exemple of the utility of "kioj".

Nevertheless from time to time I encounter sentences in esperanto that seem "strange" to me, but I accept them, because they are compliant with the language's rules

Moving off topic a bit, but I'd also say that any "kioj" would in fact be part of a "kio" anyway, thus it defeats the purpose of having plurality

But I like what you wrote Altebrilas, I think you've effectively proven that EO is indeed a language even by the somewhat questionable requirements put forth by Chomsky.

And if that doesn't prove it, who gives a crud then. If EO isn't a language, then langauges musn't be all that good after all.

In any case, there is no good reason for Esperantists to show deference to the opinions of linguists about Esperanto.

If I need a new boiler installed, I employ a gas engineer for his knowledge of safety and regulatory issues and familiarity with the hardware.

But what job are linguists good for - other than documenting some fast disappearing language?

Certainly none of their theories of language seem to have produced notable permanent improvements in the efficiency of the teaching of languages.

Even in the field of machine translation, the statistical approach seems to have produced better results than any conceptual rule-based mumbo-jumbo that they have come up with.

Our own Esperantologoj command respect through their deep knowledge of the language and historical texts. But even so, we as a community may feel free to disagree with them on certain points.

sudanglo:But what job are linguists good for - other than documenting some fast disappearing language?

What job are authors, artists, astronomers, performers, and all that good for?

Anyway, linguists are the ones who go and categorise all the words in languages into their respective positions when it hasn't been done or hasn't been done properly, monitor their growth, report on findings if something is being underrepresented, and essentially this sort of thing eventually feeds through the system to language teachers, since many language teachers tend to have had some experience with linguistics at least at highschool level (at least in Australia - in Australia to do highschool education you need two majors, and to teach a language at highschool level one normally needs to be of course that language, and university language teachers tend to have a lot to do with linguistics and so forth).

Additionally, linguists tend to come up with some interesting hypotheses and theories like the Sapir Whorf hypothesis, which could feed back into those studying intercultural relationships, which could eventually feed back into government policy (it doesn't do so quite so neatly though, but we all know politics in 2-party system countries like ours are based on who can tell prettier lies than who can actually do stuff).

Anyway, there is reason for Esperantists to show deference to the opinions of linguists about Esperanto, since the opinions of respected linguists are obviously held with greater reverence by some intellectuals. The middle class often likes to think of itself as being intelligent, so the middle class will probably just follow the whimsy of whatever those intellectuals are interested in, and if Esperanto's out of this loop, it ain't good for propaganda.

That of course depends on your approach to disseminating Esperanto across the world.

Altebrilas:"kioj" is to be rejected .. because there is a lack of attestations..

Actually, in Butler's Step by step, section 52, we have the example question Kio estas kokinoj? A footnote says: "It would be logical and correct to say Kioj estas kokinoj? (or even Kioj estas tioj?). But the singular form (Kio) is usual."

In the tekstaro the form occurs a few times in La Ondo de Esperanto, and on the internet.

It might be more accurate to describe it as a rare form than an incorrect one.