Re: unnatural languages

Jens S. Larsen wrote:
António Marques:

Jens S. Larsen wrote:
What we have more or less detailed descriptions of, is exactly the
little things. The big picture is usually not described, because it's
common to all language, so that nobody needs it to learn a different
language.

No. Wrong. Read everything from the start.
I'm not in the mood to explain it all again.

If you're already getting tired of the discussion, why not just refer
to some authors you agree with?

Because there is no discussion. I'm explicitly talking apples, you're complaining oranges.

'Conlang' people are happy
to produce a fundamental grammar and a dictionary and let the speakers
fill in the blanks with their own creativity. Which will almost always
be modelled on their own linguistic background. Just like when spanish
speakers in the US substitute english expressions for the spanish ones
they didn't have the opportunity to learn, for instance.
Will those people substitute English or Spanish expressions for what
they haven't learnt about Esperanto?
As well as for what doesn't exist in Esperanto. Or invent new
expressions altogether. Which only by convergent evolution may resemble
what other speakers come up with.

Why wouldn't people try to converge? They are learning the language
consciously.

Just how did you manage to miss the fact that they are not in contact with each other?
And when convergence happens it is mostly by itself, not the result of conscious attempts.

What you call linguistic
background is not the background, it's the foreground!
'Background' as in previous knowledge, not as in landscape.

That background is common to all people.

You've just said that my knowlege of portuguese (say) idioms is the same as your knowlege of danish idioms and 'common to all people'.

Language is a natural
phenomenon.

(What?)

How do native speakers end up with "the same, coherent language"? And
if that's not a complete mystery, why cannot the procedure be mimicked
on the basis of a description of a language?
They end up with "the same, coherent language" by following each other's
speech.
How do they do that without a comprehensive, in-born theory about what
human language can look like?
Usually, imitation and observation of the feedback do the trick.

Well, if it's good enough for parrots, I suppose it's good enough for
people.

And just how do you imitate the Eo learns from NZ that you have no contact with?

There's nothing forbidding a 'conlang' from *becoming* a natural
language. After which it no longer is what it was before. For before it
was A, after it is A+B, with B a very large part of A+B. And if some
group comes up with A+C, which will be to a large extent
incomprehensible to A+B folk, both groups can't claim their version is
the right A.

In the case of an international language there actually is a
criterion: the isolated group loses out.

What if you have no dominant group?

Esperanto was forbidden under
Stalin, so when the contacts to Russian Esperantists were
reestablished, it quite naturally were the Russians who had to catch
up.

It seems you're admitting they were on their way to have a different language.
--
am

laurus : rhodophyta : brethoneg : smalltalk : stargate

--
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