biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) (01/19/88)
In article <1671@russell.STANFORD.EDU>, nakashim@russell.stanford.edu (Hideyuki Nakashima) writes: >I came up with a theory to explain the difference in word orders >between English and Japanese. This is a very naive theory. Any >comments are welcome. > >In English, verbs come very early in the sentence. Second position in >declarative and the first position in imperative. In Japanese, verbs >come at the end of sentences. > [goes on to hypothesize that this might be the result of a hunters/farmers > difference: (English) hunters need to be understood quickly.] [Others mention: - Farming appeared much earlier in Britain than in Japan - Latin has verbs at the end too, French hasn't. ] In article <275@draken.nada.kth.se>, d85-kai@nada.kth.se (Kai-Mikael J{{-Aro) writes: >Verbs usually come at the end of sentences in German as well and I'm >not convinced that the Germans are more of a farming people than the >English. (In fact, English *is* a Germanic language.) German (and Dutch) seem to form something like an intermediary form between English/French and Latin: in top-level sentences verbs come in the second position, and in lower-level ones they come at the end: Dutch examples: Ik *zie* hem (I *see* him) Morgen *zal* ik hem zien (Tomorrow *shall* I him see -- note the inversion, necessary to keep the verb at the second place!) Ik *geloof*, dat ik hem *zie* (I *believe*, that I him *see* -- in the second-level sentence, the verb appears at the end.) This feature makes, that one cannot just call a parser recursively on sub-sentences, like in English: the first level has other rules than the rest. A specialty of Dutch is furthermore, that the form of the verb can depend on whether the subject comes before or after it: Jij *loopt* daar (You walk there) Daar *loop* jij (There walk you -- note the missing "t"!) -- Biep. (biep@cs.vu.nl via mcvax) "Law" is the name given to a collection of rules describing how to act with people that do not follow the law.
hasida@etlcom.etl.JUNET (Koiti Hasida) (01/20/88)
In article <1671@russell.STANFORD.EDU> nakashim@russel.stanford.edu write: >To avoid this kind of real-time misunderstanding, English must >transfer essential information first, refining it later. > >In farming, on the other hand, there are lots of time. >So, in Japanese, you can specify lots >of objects first and then combine them together at the end with >several modifications added further. A standard comment by linguists (especially syntacticians) would be that this kind of global word-order variation is largely accounted for in more syntactic terms. According to Chomskyan parameter-setting approach, for instance, the word-order variation between head-initial languages (such as English and French) and head-final languages (such as Japanese and Korean) is attributed to the value of a single binary parameter associated with X-bar component of syntax. This parameter is turned on in one class of languages, and off in the other. The order between verb and its object, the choice between preposition and postposition, etc. follow from this single decision. Whether or not this parameter is innate is irrelevant here. I would rather like to reduce this parameter to more fundamental computational terms, instead of postulating it to be preprogrammed. But such an account of mine would be as syntactic as is Chomskyan approach. The point is that the set of syntactic constraints has some internal dependence in its own right without recourse to semantics or pragmatics, and thus a small decision on a piece of syntactic constraint influences a lot of other part of syntax. Even if your pragmatic theory were basically right, it is imperfect; a more syntactic aspect such as mentioned above should be taken into account as well. For instance, your theory would fail to explain why English employs prepositions rather than postpositions despite the fact that in a prepositional phrase the object noun phrase tend to convey more information than the preposition does. A fatal defect of your theory is that you only refer to modern English. Old English and its antecedent languages exhibit word-order variations different from that of modern English. Pragmatic requirement of hunting situation thus seems less relevant to word-order than you suppose. HASIDA, Koiti Electrotechnical Lab. hasida%etl.jp@relay.cs.net
bobcoe@cca.CCA.COM (Robert K. Coe) (01/20/88)
In article <975@klipper.cs.vu.nl> biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) writes: #In article <1671@russell.STANFORD.EDU>, # nakashim@russell.stanford.edu (Hideyuki Nakashima) writes: #>I came up with a theory to explain the difference in word orders #>between English and Japanese. This is a very naive theory. Any #>comments are welcome. I have to wonder what Nakashima would make of the Polynesian languages (Hawaiian et al), in which the very distinction between nouns and verbs is at most weak and unconvincing. -- => Robert K. Coe * bobcoe@cca.cca.com <= => Computer Corporation of America * <= => 4 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, Mass. 02142 * 617-492-8860, ext. 428 <= => "Everyone should adopt a homeless dog." <=
ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) (01/21/88)
In article <23431@cca.CCA.COM>, bobcoe@cca.CCA.COM (Robert K. Coe) writes: > In article <975@klipper.cs.vu.nl> biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) writes: > I have to wonder what Nakashima would make of the Polynesian languages > (Hawaiian et al), in which the very distinction between nouns and verbs is at > most weak and unconvincing. While it is true that *individual words* "bases" are not readily classifiable as nouns, verbs, adjectives &c (many words in Maaori are so-called "universals" which means they can be all three), it is nevertheless the case that noun PHRASES and verb PHRASES are clearly distinct. There is a set of particles which can begin a verb phrase, and there is a set of particles which can begin a noun phrase, and there is very little overlap or confusion. For example, in Kua waiata teenei tangata --- Has sung that man the particle Kua tells us that we've got a verb phrase, but in Kei te rongo a Hoani ki ngaa waiata ---- is listening John to the songs the article Ngaa (the/plural) tells us that we've got a (plural) noun phrase.
ut6y@hp1.ccs.cornell.edu (Uncle Mikey (Michael Scott Shappe)) (01/22/88)
In article <975@klipper.cs.vu.nl> biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) writes: > - Latin has verbs at the end too, French hasn't. In Classical Latin, the most important verb of the sentence comes last, true, but other verbs (assuming more than a simple sence) needn't come in any particular order, though they usually end off their clause. In simple senten- ces, the verb USUALLY comes last, but may appear anywhere the speaker feels is appropriate to what s/he is trying to say, including first. Uncle Mikey Michael Scott Shappe -- Cornell University BitNet: UT6Y@CRNLVAX5 Inter : UT6Y@vax5.ccs.cornell.edu, @hp1.ccs.cornell.edu UUCP : UT6Y@hp1.UUCP
rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik) (01/23/88)
In article <23431@cca.CCA.COM> bobcoe@CCA.CCA.COM.UUCP (Robert K. Coe) writes: >I have to wonder what Nakashima would make of the Polynesian languages >(Hawaiian et al), in which the very distinction between nouns and verbs is at >most weak and unconvincing. One needs to be careful in making claims like this. English also has ways of converting nouns into verbs and vice versa. For example, any verb can be used in its progressive participial form as a gerundive or gerund: "John's opening the door", "John's opening of the door". We can also take nouns into verbs, as in "Your statement impacted our report" and "They proxmired us again". Some languages appear to tolerate this kind of functional shift more freely than English does. This has to do with rules of word formation in the language, not its failure to make a distinction between nouns and verbs. -- =========== Rick Wojcik rwojcik@boeing.com
rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik) (01/23/88)
In article <236@pyuxf.UUCP> asg@pyuxf.UUCP (alan geller) writes: >... >Also, historically, Old English often follows the word order of modern German. Indo-European was probably SOV, but verb-last word order in modern German is a recent development in that language, I believe. Historically, German went through a verb-medial stage just like English. Someone please correct me if I am wrong about this. > - Do languages whose grammars were frozen earlier tend to have > later action verbs than those whose grammars were frozen > more recently? Note that English grammar is still changing. > English grammar is still changing, and so are all the others--except maybe for dead languages. Give an example of a language with a frozen grammar. > - Do languages with a greater written history tend to have late > action verbs, as opposed to those with primarily oral > traditions? Again, English didn't have a large body of > written work until after Chaucer. > No. The language with the longest written record--Chinese--is currently verb-medial and shows evidence of moving towards verb-last word order. All other verb-last languages have shorter written histories, and some have none at all. The answer is an emphatic *NO*. > - Is there any correlation between form of government and placement > of action verbs? This is pretty far-fetched, but I notice that The answer is once more *NO*. This kind of unfounded speculation about natural language structure and environment is normally discussed in the first few days of an introductory linguistics course. If you feel that your reasoning is far-fetched--and Hideyuki Nakashima mentioned that his was "naive"--why don't you seek formal training? The original issue that triggered this debate--whether or not word order could in principle be explained in terms of culture--has been convincingly answered in the negative. Those who wish to continue supporting such a notion should at least try to respond to arguments against their position. This whole debate is like one of those birthday candles that keeps reigniting no matter how many times it is blown out. -- =========== Rick Wojcik rwojcik@boeing.com
poser@russell.UUCP (01/24/88)
To add an example to Rick Wojcik's point, Egyptian is one of the earliest attested languages (since ~3000 BCE), but in its earliest forms (Old and Middle Egyptian - I'm not familiar with later Egyptian) it was verb-initial. Bill
zwicky@russell.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) (01/29/88)
There is no reason to think that everything in language is there "for a purpose" any more than there is to think that everything in nature is. There *is* an enormous amount of randomness in the world, both natural and cultural. In the linguistic case, there is a huge amount of variability in expression, both across languages and within languages. Within a language, there is a purpose for much of this variability (though surely not all of it); different word orders, constructions, intonations, pronunciations, etc. are associated with different discourse functions and serve as sociolinguistic markers. But these functions are largely arbitrarily associated with linguistic form - the same form can serve different functions in different languages, and different forms can serve the same function in different languages. (This is not to deny that certain forms are particularly good for certain functions, like rising intonation for asking questions. It *is* to deny that this form is locked onto that function; if the form is already taken for some purpose, then any other form available in the language can be pressed into service.) None of this posits any universal scheme of association between language (in particular, syntax) and other aspects of culture. The bits of a language have to fit together, elegantly or clunkily, as the particular case might be, into a complex system with many purposes, but to ask WHY these particular bits are assembled in particular languages is to invite the answers: Just because. Whatever is, is right. What I have just said will probably seem pretty unsatisfying to some readers. Lots of people would like to believe that there have to be deep reasons for why things are the way they are, that historical accident is never a satisfactory account of the panoply of nature and culture. If those are your beliefs, then I'm not likely to change your mind. But I'd like to try to change your mind, at least if you're going to be thinking seriously about language. Looking for the big WHY answers is a bad research strategy here; it leads you to overlook much of the essential complexity of the phenomena. The question of WHAT there is in language is a tougone, and insofar as we know the answers they seem to require an intricate system oconpts and hypotheses, most of them with no detectable connection to matters of culture or geography or ethnicity. If you attend only to phenomena that you can plausibly interpret by reference to culture etc., then you're going to miss most of the relevant data.
gilbert@hci.hw.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) (01/29/88)
In article <3579@bcsaic.UUCP> rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik) writes: >We can also take nouns into verbs, as in "Your statement impacted our report" >and "They proxmired us again". Some languages appear to tolerate this >kind of functional shift more freely than English does. Namely American English! The arbitrary conversions of nouns to verbs is more a feature of American than British English. The vocabulary of the latter is sufficiently rich to not require the spawning of ugly neologisms :-) (though British Trade Unionese does verbify a lot) .. and yes, I *DID* split that infinitive! -- Gilbert Cockton, Scottish HCI Centre, Heriot-Watt University, Chambers St., Edinburgh, EH1 1HX. JANET: gilbert@uk.ac.hw.hci ARPA: gilbert%hci.hw.ac.uk@cs.ucl.ac.uk UUCP: ..{backbone}!mcvax!ukc!hci!gilbert
rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik) (01/30/88)
I have answered Alan Geller's article in the sci.lang news group. Anyone interested in this subject should look in that news group in the future for a complete rendition of everything that is being said.
rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik) (02/05/88)
In article <7390003@hpfclp.HP.COM> fritz@hpfclp.HP.COM (Gary Fritz) writes: > >I have been studying Japanese for well over a year now, and if there is >one thing that is clear to me, it is that Japanese excells at vagueness >and expression of one's mood. Many times my teacher (who speaks excellent >English) has tried and failed to explain the subtleties involved in >seemingly unimportant changes of phrasing. It appears that Japanese I think that your problem with Japanese is the same one faced by all language learners. There is nothing special about Japanese. Have you ever tried to explain English to a Japanese or Russian speaker ;-? Try explaining the difference between "John likes to ski" and "John likes skiing". How about the distinction between "Eve gave Adam an apple" and "Eve gave an apple to Adam"? There are reasons why English makes a distinction between these constructions, but they are not readily apparent, even to those well-versed in grammatical theory. -- Rick Wojcik csnet: rwojcik@boeing.com uucp: {uw-june uw-beaver!ssc-vax}!bcsaic!rwojcik address: P.O. Box 24346, MS 7L-64, Seattle, WA 98124-0346 phone: 206-865-3844