--- R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
> Henrik Theiling wrote:
> > Hi!
> >
> > Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...> writes:
> >
> >>I think I've finally figured out why grammar is so
> >>complex. It's because it's an artificial attempt
> to
> >>discover "rules" in what is really a monsterous
> >>collection of exceptions. There ARE no rules; only
> >>exceptions! ...
> >
> >
> > Well, I find that too strict, since children do
> try to find rules when
> > learning a language.
<...>
> Yes - having had children of my own and now
> observing grandchildren,
> there is not the slightest doubt in my mind that
> Henrik is absolutely
> correct.
It is also absolutely correct that children find teddy
bears and elephants in puffy clouds. That we seek
something is not proof that what we seek exists.
However, "rules" DO exist. There's no doubt of that,
but they exist as artificial human constructs, not as
genetically wired givens. By my definition a "rule of
grammar" is simply a description of a habit of speech.
<...>
> Quite so! Nor am I at all comfortable, to put it
> mildly, with the
> apparent assumption that early hominids spoke in the
> comic book "me see
> tiger" idiom.
Surely you are not suggesting that on day one, when
the first homonid made the first sound with his mouth
that it was as grammatically sophisticated as Chaucer!
Certainly there was a time, however brief, when
utterances were little more than grunts and gestures.
I can't imagine how language could have emerged fully
developed overnight.
<snip>
>
> _should_? In any case, that would be a darned silly
> IMHO way to go about
> producing a loglang or, indeed, any sort of
> engelang.
>
> Conlangs are produced for a *variety of different*
> reasons - as this
> list has made clear over many years. To suggest that
> there is one method
> that 'should' be adopted in the construction of all
> conlangs seems to me
> just nonsense.
That WAS tongue in cheek. ;-) Certainly I'm not
foolish enough to proclaim the manner in which ALL
conlangs MUST be produced.
> If Gary wants to put his ideas to the test and
> produce a conlang in the
> way he has described, and see how it works out,
> that's fine - I have no
> quarrel with that. But please do not say that this
> is how conlangs in
> general should be produced.
<snip>
> >
> > For me, the chief attraction of conlangs (-- & I
> favour
> > the engelangy sort) is precisely that they can be
> designed
>
> AMEN!
>
Certainly. And some prefer golf to bowling. But we all
know that the world would be a better place if all the
bowlers and golfers would get out of the alleys and
off the greens and start conlanging! We must picket
the bowling alleys with our conlang flags!
--gary