Re: [OT, Only Semi-Serious,

At 6:41 pm +0000 12/5/02, Andreas Johansson wrote:
>Raymond Brown wrote:
[snip]
>>
>>Other?  In over 50 years of looking, I've yet to discover an auxlang which
>>is ambiguity-free, homonym-free and completely regular.
[snip]

>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).
You appear to contradict yourself.  If such a language is practically
impossible to construct, how can such a language be possible?  I'm puzzled.

>If I've understood
>Javier c'rrectly, Futurese aims at eliminating ambiguity, homonymy and
>irregularity.
Laudable aims, and I have no quarrel with someone aiming at such goals.
What I would consider hubris, however, would be a claim by someone that
s/he was certainly going to achieve all three.

>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.
Oh yes, I said as much - just visit Auxlang and hang around a while.  But
some auxlangers IME are more realistic.

>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.
I'm not sure what you're saying here.  Auxlangs I've come across seem to
have degrees of irregularity comparable to that found in natlang pidgins &
creoles.

Ray.



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The median nature of language is an epistemological
commonplace.  So is the fact that every general
statement worth making about language invites a
counter-statement or antithesis.
                                 GEORGE STEINER.
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