on Sun, 19 Oct 2003 12:38:45PM -0700, Erik Steffl insinuated: > Nori Heikkinen wrote: > >on Sun, 19 Oct 2003 04:10:38AM -0700, Erik Steffl insinuated: > > > >>Monique Y. Herman wrote: > >> > >>>On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 at 22:37 GMT, Erik Steffl penned: > >>> > >>> > >>>>english has a fairly simple a regular grammar so it's fairly > >>>>easy to create english based programming language - the basic > >>>>control structures are pretty much english sentences. > >>>> > >>>>This would be fairly hard todo in other languages that has more > >>>>irregular grammar (the ones I know anything about have a lot > >>>>more complicated/irregular grammar). > >>> > >>> > >>>Hrm. German and Latin are much more regular than English. > >>>French is, too, iirc. English has a *lot* of irregularity. > >> > >> german is regular? > > > >more so than english, yes. > > > >>with each word changing depending on how it's used in sentence > >>(case)??? > > > >that's quite regular -- it's called declension, and is > >well-documented in any introductory german text. > > ok, let me give you a random word, let's say 'xxx' how much > information do you need to use it in german? how much information > do you need to use it in english?
in both:
- is it a noun or a verb?
* if a verb, is it transitive or intransitive?
o if transitive, does it take a prepostion?
x if yes, what preposition?
x if more than one, what do the different ones mean?
* if a noun, how do you pluralize it?[1]
* if a noun, does it have inherent gender?
o if yes, what?
o if yes, in what circumstances do you use a pronoun with it?
o if yes, can it take multiple genders?
x if yes, what are the differences in these genders? are they
nuanced semantically?
... do you really want me to go on?
> >>gender being pretty much random?
> >
> >that has nothing at all to do with the grammar -- you're talking about
>
> it doesn't matter what it is. I was claiming that german language is
> a lot more complex than english... grammar is part of it... genders
> are part of it...
psychologically, to a native speaker, gender is not "extra
information" about a word -- it's just part of the information about a
word that makes it that unique thing.
> >> in english there are few cases of irregularity (past tense/past
> >>participle of some verbs, few words have non-standard way to create
> >>plural and that's pretty much it). each words has at most few forms,
> >>easily recongizable (as in: the forms are created in same way for
> >>almost all the words).
> >
> >again, lexicon. this point has nothing to do with the "regularity" of
> >language.
>
> ok, it makes understanding the language a lot harder, because there
> are a lot more rules that you need to apply, each (most?) having
> exceptions etc. so for each word you not only need the word but all
> its forms (some of them can be derived based on rules, but how do
> you know which ones?)
all your arguments apply for english as well as german, to an equal if
not greater extent.
> >>and the structure of the sentence is pretty simple as well.
> >
> >clearly, you've never tried to map it out. go on, then, i dare you --
> >write me a regular grammar that can express the grammar of english.
>
> of course, you can create various complex and ambiguous sentences in
> english, the point is that you can take few forms of sentences and
> have a working language (that's pretty much what BASIC (talking
> about programming language) is).
you can do that in both languages.
> >> compare that to german where each words has number of forms
> >>(depending on what it relates to),
> >
> >declension
>
> naming it doesn't make it simpler
we do it in english, too -- who/whom.
> >> example: in english, if I know the verb (one word) I can pretty
> >> much use it in a sentence. how many forms of each verb in german
> >> do you need to know to be able to use it in a sentence?
> >
> >a root form (lexical); a knowledge of its behavior (also lexical);
> >the basic rules for declension (a regular part of grammar).
> >answer: one.
>
> not true.
>
> you're joking. you need to know the word, and depending on the word
> you need to various bits of info: gender, which rules of declesion
> to use (or specific forms for words then do not follow general
> rules)...
see my fragment of a list above -- you need to know these in both.
> and when using words you need to know how they related to other
> words... you need to know gender of those other words... etc. in
> english the words stay pretty much unchanged and the grammar is
> defined by structure of the sentence.
that makes no sense. "grammar" is a basket term encompassing the
structure of the sentence -- m-w says "the study of the classes of
words, their inflections, and their functions and relations in the
sentence" -- therefore, encompassing syntax. grammar can't be defined
by syntax.
> in german the grammar is defined by changing the words, often
> according to general rules but fairly often not following the
> rules...
there are myriad exceptions to the rules in both english and german.
> think about it: when learning english the only challenge is to learn
> how to pronounce words (and learn irregular verbs). you built
> vocabulary by learning words, where you pretty much only need to
> remember the word itself (in its basic form). while when learning
> german... I don't even want to think about it.
have you ever?
</nori>
[1] see recent thread on plural of "virus" in English -- no more
regular than any other language, and arguably less so!
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