Re: Learning a language

From: LEE Sau Dan (danlee_at_informatik.uni-freiburg.de)
Date: 07/06/04 

Date: 06 Jul 2004 13:27:39 +0200

>>>>> "Patrick" == Patrick Powers <frisbieinstein@yahoo.com> writes:

>> What's the difference of this "uh" with the schwa (as the "a"
>> in English "ago")?

    Patrick> A schwa is defined as deemphasized. You could call it an
    Patrick> undeemphasized schwa.

I don't think so. The schwa is a specific sound, which just happens
to be the sound used for deemphasized vowels in *English*. In
Portuguese, deemphasized vowels take values other than the schwa.

    Patrick> Of course I teach some of the tenses. My complaint with
    Patrick> tenses is the amount of memorization involved. There is
    Patrick> simply no getting around it.
>> More difficult is learning to APPLY the knowledge, after the
>> rote memorization. Memorizing the inflectiont tables is one
>> thing. USING that knowledge is a different thing.

    Patrick> Ah, I didn't know that.

Imagine learning how to use the steering wheel, glitch, oil pedal,
brake and hand brake of a car solely by reading books, without
practising. You can recite all the details. You can even study all
the mechanical principles of these parts, and even how the 4-stroke
engine works. But does that mean you can drive?

Similarly, you can study from books the law of floatation (Archimedes
Principle), and the physics of how you can use your hands and feet to
propel water to make you move in water. You can recite every details
of these very deeply. But does that mean you know how to swim?

    Patrick> I also do better than most with the accent, but this is
    Patrick> purely mechanical.
>> >> "Accent" has so many meanings that I don't know what you
>> >> mean here.
    Patrick> Just the overall sound of the language.

As in "American accent", "Austrialian accent"?

>> So, that's a vague concept to you, too?

Accent can mean "word stress". It can mean the diacritical marks
often used on Latin alphabets in languages other than English. It's
unfortunate that these so different concepts are all called "accent"
and people use this ambiguous word so often without thinking about it.

    Patrick> Yes, there seems to be something that actively makes it
    Patrick> difficult. My guess that to an Asian speaker "dog" means
    Patrick> "the Platonic ideal of a dog". Does that make any sense?

What's the Platonic ideal of a dog?

>> Imagine a Mars language in which people add that "s" only when
>> the count is EVEN, and don't add that "s" when the count is
>> ODD. e.g. "one apple", "two apples", "three apple", "four
>> apples", "five apple", "six apples". IOW, parity marking
>> instead of plurality marking. This is simple and regular,
>> right? Do you think you can master this feature easily?

    Patrick> Yes, I can. I guess it is too similar to our plurals.

Similar in the degree of difficulty in which it can be learnt/mastered
by us.

>> No. This is only *superficially* difficult. The real
>> difficulty lies in applying the correct tense form
>> *spontaneously*.
>>
>> Imagine our Mars language again. In this language, verbs do
>> not inflect for time, but for animate-ness. The rule is
>> simple: add "ed" to the infinitive form when the doer is
>> animate, and add nothing when it is inanimate. Can you master
>> this rule easily?

    Patrick> That's not hard either. It is like the "who/that"
    Patrick> distinction.

Then, why would English speaker find the distinction between
accusative and nominative cases (as in Esperanto, German) difficult?
They do the distinction in the pronoun system, too!

Indeed, I also make the who/whom distinction when I speak/write
English. But I still find it difficult to distinguish nominative and
accusative on NOUNS in other languages. I can't explain why. It just
happens that way.

    Patrick> It IS hard to add "ed" to the infinitive form when the
    Patrick> SUBJECT is animate, and add nothing when it is inanimate,
    Patrick> but this is because lookahead to a coming word is
    Patrick> involved.

Look ahead? Let's assume that our Mars language uses SOV word order.
The verb is at the end, and you add or not add the "ed" at the end of
the sentence. What kind of look-ahead are you talking about?

    Patrick> The plural doesn't seem to require lookahead.

It requires "watching out". That's difficult. Either I do all the
plural "s" correctly at the expense of being distracted from the
contents of my speech and my flow of thought, or I leave out the "s"
and give a consistent, contentful and fluent speech. Which is more
preferable?

  

-- 
Lee Sau Dan                     +Z05biGVm-                          ~{@nJX6X~}
E-mail: danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee

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