Re: unnatural languages

In article <1172757939.199854.8320@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"Jens S. Larsen" <jens_s_larsen@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

Nathan Sanders:

No, that's not what it means. Like I said earlier in this discussion,
you need to read up on pidgins and creoles, because you seem to have a
gross misunderstanding of what they are.

I actually did some reading a few years ago. Don't you find, say, John
McWorther's and Michel DeGraff's views on the subject rather
incompatible?

I'm sure they agree and disagree on quite a few things. What does
that have to do with the commonly accepted definitions of pidgins and
creoles used in linguistics?

Pidgins aren't just
isolating languages; they are deficient languages, with severely
impoverished lexicons, grammatical gaps, limited discourse contexts,
etc.

You have to look at language, in and of itself, as a social phenomenon
to make sense of that.

Since Pidgins come about for particular social reasons, then sure, the
social aspect plays a role. So? Linguists can and do study both the
language as a formal system and language as a social phenomena. Some
might even argue that you can't completely study one without studying
the other.

Language is a complex topic with many facets that need to be explored.

We know what some of them are. Try Greenberg or Comrie any other
suitable text that deals with "linguistic universals". Optimality
Theory has an interesting take on linguistic universals, treating them
as epiphenomena that arise from hierarchical rankings of more basic
"soft" constraints.

That sounds interesting. If OT treats universals as epiphenomena, what
is the phenomenon?

Constraints that are universal (either innate or learned early due to
more basic cognitive organization; OT itself makes no claims on the
source) and violable ("soft"; they exert their influence, but can be
subverted by other, higher-ranked constraints; constraints that are
ranked low enough may appear to be inactive, but could still, in
theory, have an effect). Languages differ by how they rank these
constraints.

OT constraints may themselves turn out to be epiphenomenal, projected
from even more atomic cognitive functions (perception, cognitive
drives to organize information in a particular way, etc.). But that's
getting a bit ahead of where the theory currently stands (it's only
been around since the early 90s and still has a number of kinks to be
worked out).

I think you're unnecessarily hung up on the word "natural" as
something separate from the expression "natural language". "Natural
language" is a fixed, non-compositional expression that describes one
class of communication systems.

In that case, you're really trying to have your cake and eat it. If
"natural" in "natural language" doesn't mean anything,

It doesn't mean nothing... it just doesn't necessarily correspond to
the exact same meaning of "natural" in all other contexts.

why make the
distinction between natural languages and other languages to begin
with?

Because such a distinction exists.

And if there is a distinction, why imply it has anything to do
with naturalness?

I didn't invent the term, so don't bitch to me about it. It's the
standard term for that class of languages.

I could call that class "Ralph" if I
wanted to, and it wouldn't change their properties. Should I do so,
so that when I classify Esperanto as "not Ralph", you won't get
needlessly obsessed with the general concept of naturalness?

No, I'd just insist that Esperanto is "Ralph", then.

It is demonstrably not. We know who invented it. We don't know who
"invented" Greek, and it's likely that it was never "invented" in the
same way as Esperanto. Even if it had been, it would have happened so
long ago that any remnants of systematic artificiality would have long
since been wiped out through hundreds of generations of communities of
native speakers speaking Greek as the sole (or at least overwhelming
dominant) language.

Esperanto doesn't even come close to that, having had no known such
communities at all, let alone multiple generations of them. We have
no way of knowing how much systematic artificiality Esperanto may
contain due to it being constructed by an adult with imperfect
conscious knowledge of linguistic universals, and until it goes
through a few generations of native speakers using it exclusively (or
at least primarily), we can't yet guarantee that the amount of
artificiality is insignificant and sporadic.

Data from a single individual is not statistically significant. Data
from inside your own head is not independently verifiable and is
subject to corruption by your own beliefs and expectations.

Relying solely on insignificant, unverifiable, potentially biased data
is unsound scientific methodology, and thus, unwise practice in the
general case.

Ouch! This is really a severe case of resistence to self-insight.

No, it's the scientific method.

Speakers can subvert the universals of natural human languages very
easily. Ever heard of Pig Latin or watched Twin Peaks?

I've heard of Pig Latin, but I didn't watch Twin Peaks. As far as I
know, Pig Latin is a language game; those are sometimes used to test
phonological theories with, and unless that method is no good, it
sounds rather implausible that it should subvert any universals.

Pig Latin creates an output in which every word begins with a vowel,
and ends with exactly the same rhyme. No natural language functions
like this, and it's strongly believed that no such natural language
*could* function that way. (Cf. the critique of F***z's permutations
in his whacked out fantasies about "early" human language).

The point is that humans can consciously subvert linguistic
universals, even in systematic ways, so blindly relying on any
language-like output from humans is unreliable for a theory seeking to
explore linguistic universals.

Sure they exist; but different languages don't exist.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here.

If you actually have an education from MIT, as Peter Damniels
suggested, then you really ought to.

It's rather you missing the point of Principles and Parameters.

P&P does not say that "different languages don't exist". In fact, it
is explicit about what makes different languages different (different
settings of universals parameters).

Your original statement is nonsensical.

You are really trying to make everybody happy, aren't you?

I'm trying to adhere to and explain valid scientific methodology as
applied to the study of language. Whether you are "happy" about it or
not is irrelevant.

Nathan

--
Nathan Sanders
Linguistics Program
Williams College
http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

.

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