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Re: [OT, Only Semi-Serious,

From:Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>
Date:Sunday, May 12, 2002, 18:41
Raymond Brown wrote:
> >At 5:42 pm +0000 11/5/02, Andreas Johansson wrote: >[snip] > >Then, if Futurese or some other ambiguity-free, homonym-free and >completely > >regular auxlang > >Other? In over 50 years of looking, I've yet to discover an auxlang which >is ambiguity-free, homonym-free and completely regular. > >I don't say this as a criticism of auxlangs per_se, only of extravagant >claims made by _some_ (by no means all) of their authors and/or supporters. >Auxlangs, after all, are the product of us fallible humans. The more >reasonable authors & proponents of con-IALs merely claim that their >products are easier and/or more regular than most natlangs; and in that, I >will not disagree. > >Whether Futurese will fulfill all three criteria remains to be seen, as I >understand it is still in development stage. Indeed, I'm not aware that >Javier has made such extravagant claims for Futurese.
Well, I'm no IAL typologist, but I'm inclined to believe that an ambiguity-free, homonym-free and completely regular language is possible (altho' probably practically impossible to construct). If I've understood Javier c'rrectly, Futurese aims at eliminating ambiguity, homonymy and irregularity. And in some decade of not looking, I've run across several IALists who claim their IALs do achieve all three criteria, whoever incorrect they may be. But this is rather beside the point; if the level of irregularity etc begins to rise from zero or from just above zero isn't a big difference. Andreas _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.

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Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>