Re: OT: Auxlangs (was Re: "Esperanto V.2")

>But I think you *can* have the full expressive power of a natlang together
>with a simple, easy-to-use grammar.
>
>
 I'm not disagreeing with that, but there are more and less elegant
solutions to the various problems a language has to deal with. It's
similar in a way to the differences between Turing complete programming
languages: yes, in a sense ig your program can be run on a Turing
machine then you can write it in any Turing complete programming
language, but that doesn't mean that all languages are equal. Some
present much better, more elegant and more concise solutions to common
problems than others do.
 I think in auxilliary languages minimalist grammar, while perhaps
functionally equivalent to other more grammatically complex languages,
often has the effect of making many things that should be natural and
easy to express into awkward paraphrases and/or unpredictable idioms
(thus shifting the complexity from the grammar to the lexicon).

Reply