THEORY: Re : Universal Translation Language

Dans un courrier dat=E9 du 28/05/99 10:04:11  , Charles a =E9crit :

>  Now it appears some artlangers are exacting revenge
>  against the very idea of logic in language design ...
>  obviously a self-stultifyingly invalid argument.
Hi Charles ! Good to read you again. Come on, nobody exacts revenge here on=20
anything. You know that most artlangers would be delighted to hail the first=20
perfect IAL, and some of us (like you) are also log- and auxlangers. Maybe w=
e=20
are too hard on Marcos. Myself i feel sorry for that. My apologies. The=20
reason for that is that i couldn't find out how to proceed, most certainly=20
because i'm neither a linguist nor a computer engineer and maybe Marcos will=20
eventually succeed (or Dr Zamenhof or John Cowan have already).
I found out something with you a few months ago but it's too complicated and=20
no natlang could be modelled on that.
As for the simplest human language, i think all available auxlangs are just=20
not worth a natlang i've learned. instead of treading on Esperantist path,=20
one should consider the ingenuity of Asian languages and pidgins and stop=20
speaking of "adjectives and adverbs" and try to make an easy system of 5 or =
6=20
resumptive pronouns (he, it, who, which, it, that, etc. with specific=20
syntactic reference) - but maybe not 17 in a row ;-) :
"man he talk address me regard problem-this but mother-me she no already kno=
w=20
it and you no future say it address her no time, ok ?"
Just one example among hundreds : it's just very disturbing that auxlangers=20
never design a model of integration using all roles like : who know -=20
know-ing - know-er - know-ed - know-ee, etc.
why not rather stick to SVO order :
one (he) know - one (he) be know - one (he) get know
fact of know - fact of be know - fact of get know
and stick an article meaning it is a lexie, not a subclause.

 Anyway,
>  as an admirer of Ido and some of its intentions,
>  I've tinkered quite a bit with it and can show a few
>  of my own experiments, perhaps best to be avoided ...
> =20
why that ? why not clearly explain what you do : your "inverse" pattern and=20
the derivation of prepositions from simple verbs are very handy.

[snip]

>  > Part-of-speech endings are -o (noun) -e (plural noun) -a (adj) and -am
>  > (adv).
> =20
>  Can all adverbs be derived from adjectives? Hmm.
>  Mandatory number on nouns may be a bad idea, and something
>  that Anglo-Euro speakers could easily learn to do without;
>  "five sheep" sounds more logical than "no cows", IMO.
but some asian languages do well with collective, abstract, result and=20
instrument words. they seem "illogical" at first glance but are very easy to=20
learn. i mean nouns of instruments derived from each type of transitive or=20
ditransitive verbs instead of fuzzy ones derived from one plain verbal root.

>  It is tempting to use -s for a perhaps-optional plural.
>  Also, it is not really necessary to tense every verb.
>  Some logical grammar simplifications borrowed from Asian
>  languages could only help ease of learning, I think.
>
ditto. "adverbs" auxlangers love so much they never use them for that=20
purpose. why that ? Tense in integrated derived or compound verbs are just=20
useless : a "passenger" (one he be transport) is not future or past.
 =20
>  > Verbs work as in Esperanto: -i -as -is -os -us -u
>  >
>  > -ant- -int- -ont-, -at- -it- -ot- forms are not used. Active
>  > participle is derived directly from verb (e.g. reganta homo is said
>  > rega homo). Passive verb is made by the suffix -at-.
> =20
>  Ido has a passive but I'd rather make that a true inverse voice.
>  Currently, "me havas lu" is legal but "lu havesas me" is not.
>  So I suggest adding -at, -it, -ot as verb endings. Also, keep
>  -r infinitive; -z imperative, "-u" reserved for something better.
>  Where did that -s for active voice come from, anyway? Prefer -n.
>  Needless to say (?) there should be no accusative ending at all.
>
[snip - i think this is basically Tomato]

How do you "inverse" a 2nd object of a ditransitive verb ?
"me say it address you > you addressed it said you" ?

>  So the result is something like this, generated randomly:
>  "Zopa xesizedqoloca zezapuo padteza digpuzabospupu fasuo."
>  Gorgeous, eh?
not bad indeed. i find it better than "pro-g^ofajn-er-ilo" or anything like=20
that (HUMOUR NOT MARKED - DON'T SHOOT AT THE ARTLANGER).

Mathias