Re: Sentences without any subject

On Fri, 16 Oct 2009, Mok-Kong Shen wrote:

I personally believe anyway that the success of English in its
being widespread is not uncorrelated with certain features that
render it easier (or more comfortable) to be learnt as compared to
certain other major languages (by adults who are willing to learn).
What these features exactly are, is surely an issue that is so
arguable as to have no (to certain extent) unanimous agreement at
all, I am afraid.

Has it ever been investigated whether languages that serve as lingua
franca in a large region outside their original area have typical
typological differences compared to cognate languages, e.g. less
inflexion, more analytic features, ...? Some of them (Malay, Swahili, also
English) have a reputation of being particularly easy to learn, where
"learn" means acquiring enough knowledge for the use as a lingua franca,
not necessarily full mastery. Can this fairly restricted meaning of
easiness be objectively defined and measured, and confirmed for such
languages compared to other language that are mainly spoken by their
native speakers?

If there is indeed a correlation between *this* form of easiness and the
use as lingua franca, one could speculate about which is cause and which
is effect. Are languages significantly simplified when they have mainly
non-native speakers, and this with an effect of the language used by the
native speakers as well?

--
Helmut Richter
.

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