nakashim@russell.STANFORD.EDU (Hideyuki Nakashima) (01/15/88)
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. In general, in English, head features (dominant information) come first while in Japanese they come later. Another example is negation marker. In English it comes very early while in Japanese it comes at the end. You cannot tell if the sentence is positive or negative until you hear the very last, in Japanese. Now, English (probably I can say Latin) speaking people are basically hunters, while Japanese are basically farmers. Hunting is a real-time job while farming is not. I combined those two observations: In real-time communication, possibility of misunderstanding is fatal. If you say "DON'T touch it", there is no possibility that the hearer try to touch something. But if the order were "it touch NOT" which is the case in Japanese, the hearer may touch it when he hears upto "it touch". 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. Planning and cooperation among people is more important than real-time-ness. That will allow development of language which fits to express very delicate things, like person's mood. (I think this is why Japanese has very complicated honorific system.) So, in Japanese, you can specify lots of objects first and then combine them together at the end with several modifications added further. I don't think this explains all the difference of language features, but at least I find it interesting. Any comments? -- Hideyuki Nakashima CSLI and ETL nakashima@csli.stanford.edu (until Aug. 1988) nakashima%etl.jp@relay.cs.net (afterwards)
wlp@calmasd.GE.COM (Walter Peterson) (01/16/88)
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... Not only does Japanese ( and Korean, which is *VERY* close to Japanese grammatically and which I know far better than I do Japanese ) "delay" the verb until the end of the sentence, but it is also *Post-positional* rather than *prepositional* as English is. One would say "store to going am I" rather than "I am going to the store". > > Another example is negation marker. In English it comes very early > while in Japanese it comes at the end. You cannot tell if the sentence > is positive or negative until you hear the very last, in Japanese. That is true; however, nothing prevents the Japanese speaker from saying the equivalent of "No ! Don't touch it !" ( No !, it touch not ! ), to use your example. > > Now, English (probably I can say Latin) speaking people are basically > hunters, while Japanese are basically farmers. Hunting is a real-time > job while farming is not. There are several problems with this line of reasoning: 1) Latin is every bit as postpositional as Japanese. 2) English has borrowed a good deal of Latin vocabulary, but *VERY* little Latin grammar. 3) English developed in the basically agrarian culture of medieval England *NOT* in a hunting society ( in fact, after 1066, it was illegal for the *English* people to hunt most game. That "right" belonged to the Norman conquerers. ) > > ... ...That > will allow development of language which fits to express very delicate > things, like person's mood. (I think this is why Japanese has very > complicated honorific system.) So, in Japanese, you can specify lots > of objects first and then combine them together at the end with > several modifications added further. > There may be a different cultural explanation. We English speakers, Americans in particular, are often considered to be direct (blunt) to the point of being rude. This is especially true in the Far East, where such directness is considered *VERY* rude. The postpositional and terminal verb nature of many Asian languages may be the linguistic expression of this cultural trait. The exact meaning of the sentence is delayed as long as possible to avoid offending anyone. There is a serious flaw in any arguments like this. They all assume that the culture comes first and that the culture directs the development of the language. I don't know that that is actually the case. The language may define the culture or there may be such a complex feedback between language and culture that it is not possible to tell which has the stronger effect on the other. -- Walt Peterson GE-Calma San Diego R&D "The opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those GE, GE-Calma nor anyone else. ...{ucbvax|decvax}!sdcsvax!calmasd!wlp wlp@calmasd.GE.COM
inspect@blic.BLI.COM (Mfg Inspection) (01/16/88)
In article <1671@russell.STANFORD.EDU>, nakashim@russell.STANFORD.EDU (Hideyuki Nakashima) writes: > Now, English (probably I can say Latin) speaking people are basically > hunters, while Japanese are basically farmers. Hunting is a real-time > job while farming is not. Yes, about 1000 years ago, there were a good number of hunters in Europe. English has it's roots in Latin and the Teutonic and Celtic languages, not to mention a smattering of other languages. The word order is Europe- an. The Romans, responsible for "civilizing" most of the Western World, were, by that time, well removed from the hunter-gatherers their ancient ancestors were. Most Europeans have been engaged in farming, crafts and commerce over several centuries now. All people were "basically" hunters during ancient times. > I combined those two observations: In real-time communication, > possibility of misunderstanding is fatal. If you say "DON'T touch > it", there is no possibility that the hearer try to touch something. > But if the order were "it touch NOT" which is the case in Japanese, > the hearer may touch it when he hears upto "it touch". It sounds good, but if a child were to go too close to a fire or other danger, the mother of that child would not spend a lot of time saying "it touch not" or "do not touch that", she would scream or use a word equivalent to the English "NO!". Real-time communication is not verbose, it is done with as few words as possible in times of danger. > In farming, on the other hand, there are lots of time. Planning and > cooperation among people is more important than real-time-ness. That > will allow development of language which fits to express very delicate > things, like person's mood. (I think this is why Japanese has very > complicated honorific system.) English-speaking people and even people who speak French and Greek and other languages frequently express very delicate things, as well. But, to respond to your theory, a group hunt would require knowing how all members of the hunting party were feeling. An overly aggressive hunter could endanger the entire party, and an excessively timid one might not be of any help at all. A hunter who is mourning, or happy, or distracted is going to have an effect on the success of the hunt. An individual hunter needs no words at all. > I don't think this explains all the difference of language features, > but at least I find it interesting. Any comments? Your theory could have some relevance, but you would make a better argument for it if you were to compare the word orders of present African hunter-gatherer languages to Japanese. There you would have two modern languages to compare with each other, one a genuine non- hunter language (Japanese) and one genuine hunter language. If your theory has any validity, the African hunter language should have the same word order as English. This would not, of course, be proof, but it would be better research. - Jennifer
d85-kai@nada.kth.se (Kai-Mikael J{{-Aro) (01/17/88)
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.> 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.) /Kai-Mikael (...uunet!mcvax!enea!ttds!draken!d85-kai)
ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) (01/17/88)
In article <1671@russell.STANFORD.EDU>, nakashim@russell.STANFORD.EDU (Hideyuki Nakashima) writes: > Now, English (probably I can say Latin) speaking people are basically > hunters, while Japanese are basically farmers. Hunting is a real-time > job while farming is not. There are ploughed fields in England which have been under the plough for 3,000 years. In the rest of Europe, agriculture is even older. If we are to talk about English specifically, word order in Anglo-Saxon (sixth century on) wasn't all that different from Modern English, and that was an agricultural society. Besides, what about the women? Even when hunting was a major economic activity in Europe, the women weren't out hunting. Their pursuits were no more "real-time" than farming, and the transmission of language was under their control. Don't forget half the human race! And what about fishing? And what about bragging afterwards? When hunting, one says very little (you don't want the game to hear!). > I combined those two observations: In real-time communication, > possibility of misunderstanding is fatal. If you say "DON'T touch > it", there is no possibility that the hearer try to touch something. > But if the order were "it touch NOT" which is the case in Japanese, > the hearer may touch it when he hears upto "it touch". Think not that negatives in English come first always! It doesn't seem likely that "possibility of misunderstanding is fatal" to a higher degree in hunting. Canine and lupine packs typically fail nine times out of ten, and I don't expect my ancestors did much better. The anthropologists tell us that in hunter/gather groups hunting supplies less than half the total amount of food. Make an incautious move while you're hunting deer, and you go hungry. Make the wrong move while you're trying to shift a farm bull from one paddock to another and you're dead. > In farming, on the other hand, there are lots of time. Planning and > cooperation among people is more important than real-time-ness. That > will allow development of language which fits to express very delicate > things, like person's mood. (I think this is why Japanese has very > complicated honorific system.) Hmm. I've just been reading a book about baboons. Seems that they have a complex system of vocal signals which can express mood quite clearly, but practically nothing else. Forgive the ignorance of a foreigner, but is it not the case that the Japanese honorifics are controlled by the status of the speaker, the hearer, and the people spoken about, rather than by what the speaker happens to feel? The point of politeness, after all, is to *conceal* one's feelings, so that people can co-operate without having to like each other. > I don't think this explains all the difference of language features, > but at least I find it interesting. Any comments? Frankly, I can't see that it explains *any* differences. How do you account for the word order differences between English and German? How do you explain the honorific pronouns in Samoan, absent in Maaori? A good test case for your idea might be South American languages. Did the agricultural societies speak differently structured languages from the others?
nakashim@russell.STANFORD.EDU (Hideyuki Nakashima) (01/18/88)
I've got many (negative :-) responces to my postings. Thank you. Now, I know that the issue I raised was too simple minded. Nevertheless, and respite of lots of exceptions, I still think it is one of the POSSIBLE explanations. In article <2617@calmasd.GE.COM> wlp@calmasd.GE.COM (Walter Peterson) writes: > >Not only does Japanese ( and Korean, which is *VERY* close to Japanese >grammatically and which I know far better than I do Japanese ) "delay" the >verb until the end of the sentence, but it is also *Post-positional* rather >than *prepositional* as English is. One would say "store to going am I" >rather than "I am going to the store". The above point is closer to what I wanted to point out. In (one of) Japanese phrase structure grammar(s), there is only one syntactic rule: phrase --> prefix + head. Any important thing comes in the second position in the binary tree. In the cases of English or German, I think there are several rules. Some of them are counter examples to my theory. I DON'T MIND HOW MANY CONTER EXAMPLES THERE ARE AS LONG AS POSITIVE EXAMPLES OUTNUMBER HTEM. In the area of AI, I believe you should first attack the center of the problems and leave the details or exceptions out. The problem you are attacking is too complicated to worry about the boundary conditions. Words ordering in a syntax is not chosen at random. There must be some explanation to it. If you know a better one, please let me know. >There is a serious flaw in any arguments like this. They all assume that >the culture comes first and that the culture directs the development of the >language. I don't know that that is actually the case. The language may >define the culture or there may be such a complex feedback between language >and culture that it is not possible to tell which has the stronger effect >on the other. Of course they are bi-directional. I canNOT imagine that culture had NO effect on language. >From: inspect@blic.BLI.COM (Mfg Inspection) > Your theory could have some relevance, but you would make a better > argument for it if you were to compare the word orders of present > African hunter-gatherer languages to Japanese. There you would have > two modern languages to compare with each other, one a genuine non- > hunter language (Japanese) and one genuine hunter language. If your > theory has any validity, the African hunter language should have the > same word order as English. This would not, of course, be proof, but > it would be better research. I think that this is a good point. Does anyone has data? However, I am more interested in the origin of the language, than its current form. My view of language is that it is developped by the need of communication. What you want to communicate with others is by no means linear (one dimentional) like an uttered sentence. You must linearize it. What do you do if you do not have predefined syntax? Pigin is one of the good examples. -- Hideyuki Nakashima CSLI and ETL nakashima@csli.stanford.edu (until Aug. 1988) nakashima%etl.jp@relay.cs.net (afterwards)
ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) (01/18/88)
In article <1729@russell.STANFORD.EDU>, nakashim@russell.STANFORD.EDU (Hideyuki Nakashima) writes: > linearize it. What do you do if you do not have predefined syntax? > Pigin is one of the good examples. There are many pidgins in the world. I do not know which one(s) he has in mind. The only one I know anything at all about is the one spoken in the Solomon Islands (there is a book called "Pijin belong yumi" containing a grammar and dictionary which the appropriate embassy should be able to locate for you if you are interested; the copy I have read belonged to an uncle and aunt of mine who learned the language as adults). Roughly speaking, Pijin is straight Malayo-Polynesian grammar with Solomon Islands phonology and more-or-less English vocabulary. I understand that the Pidgin spoken in Niugini is similar. I don't know what Hideyuki Nakashima means by "no predefined syntax". Pijin certainly has just as much of a syntax as Indonesian or English *now*. As for "predefined", the first people to speak Pijin already spoke *some* language, and everyone tried to keep as much of his/her own language as possible.
inspect@blic.BLI.COM (Mfg Inspection) (01/19/88)
Regarding word order, Japanese compared to English, the premise being that English-speaking people are "basically" hunters and Japanese are "basically" farmers, guess what I found out after spending 20 minutes with my home encyclopedia? Farming became a part of European and English-speaking Europeans around the year 2000 BC long before English was even a language. Farming did not come to Japan until the Yayoi Period around the year 250 BC. So much for the theory of hunters vs. farmers. A little research would have been in order and the history of agriculture is fascinating. Try opening a book and doing some research before proposing arrogant and specious theories.
colin@pdn.UUCP (Colin Kendall) (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. In general, in English, head features
- (dominant information) come first while in Japanese they come later.
- Another example is negation marker. In English it comes very early
- while in Japanese it comes at the end. You cannot tell if the sentence
- is positive or negative until you hear the very last, in Japanese.
-
- Now, English (probably I can say Latin) speaking people are basically
- hunters, while Japanese are basically farmers. Hunting is a real-time
- job while farming is not.
-
- ...
-
- I don't think this explains all the difference of language features,
- but at least I find it interesting. Any comments?
-
In Latin, the verb comes at the end.
--
Colin Kendall Paradyne Corporation
{gatech,akgua}!usfvax2!pdn!colin Mail stop LF-207
Phone: (813) 530-8697 8550 Ulmerton Road, PO Box 2826
Largo, FL 33294-2826asg@pyuxf.UUCP (alan geller) (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. In general, in English, head features > (dominant information) come first while in Japanese they come later. > Another example is negation marker. In English it comes very early > while in Japanese it comes at the end. You cannot tell if the sentence > is positive or negative until you hear the very last, in Japanese. > > Now, English (probably I can say Latin) speaking people are basically > hunters, while Japanese are basically farmers. Hunting is a real-time > job while farming is not. > ... One problem language here would be German. While technically German follows English word order (more or less), in many (most?) German sentences a helper verb (to be, must be, can be, etc.) appears in the first or second position, while the 'real' or 'action' verb comes at the end of the sentence, conjugated as a past tense or a gerund. In English, the action verb is often moved up to follow the helper verb directly. I believe that this is true in many East European langauges, as well. For that matter, if I can remember my smattering of Latin correctly (corrections appreciated), even in Latin the word order can vary, depending on the emphasis desired. Also, historically, Old English often follows the word order of modern German. The word order change took place (over a period of a few centuries) roughly at the same time as the Norman Conquest. By this time, most Englishmen were farmers; almost none were subsistence hunters. In fact, the Angles and Saxons never were subsistence hunters, nor were any of the other Germanic tribes; they farmed just like everyone else, although they probably fished more than most Central European tribes (something they have in common with the Japanese). Unfortunately, I don't have a good alternate theory to explain the word order of modern English. I do have some questions/conjectures which might provide a starting point, though: - 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. - 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. - Is there any correlation between form of government and placement of action verbs? This is pretty far-fetched, but I notice that Germany, Japan, and Rome all had 'imperial' forms or government (relatively absolute monarchies), while England's monarchy never had that level of power. Alan Geller Bellcore ...{princeton,rutgers}!pyuxp!pyuxf!asg
rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik) (01/19/88)
The original comment was that Japanese and English word orders are somehow affected by the type of culture that the speakers have. The question of what causes different word orders is very interesting, and it is covered in great detail in the linguistic literature. The issue is not just between English and Japanese, but between global language types. Verb-first and verb-medial languages tend to have very different syntax from verb-last languages such as Japanese. For example, the former tend to have prepositions/prefixes and the latter postpositions/suffixes. Auxiliary verbs precede the main verb in the former, but they follow in the latter. In other words, there is a kind of "head-first/head-final" dichotomy among the world's languages, although this is an overly simple way of putting it. It is easy to show that the hunter/farmer distinction is irrelevant to the question of word-order typology. Word order types are distributed randomly over all types of cultures as far as we can tell. Furthermore, Indo-European languages, of which English belongs to the Germanic branch, appear to have descended from the verb-last type--i.e. structurally parallel to Japanese. So the change to verb-medial structure would have to be connected with a cultural shift from farming to hunting, according to the hypothesis offered. Verb-last languages are so common in the world that it would be very difficult to find a cultural common denominator to explain their existence. Finally, this topic really belongs in sci.lang. It has little to do with AI. In fact, there has been much discussion on this topic in that newsgroup. -- =========== Rick Wojcik rwojcik@boeing.com
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
reddy@uiucdcsb.cs.uiuc.edu (01/20/88)
/* Written 11:16 am Jan 17, 1988 by nakashim@russell.STANFORD.EDU in uiucdcsb:comp.ai */ In the area of AI, I believe you should first attack the center of the problems and leave the details or exceptions out. The problem you are attacking is too complicated to worry about the boundary conditions. Words ordering in a syntax is not chosen at random. There must be some explanation to it. If you know a better one, please let me know. /* End of text from uiucdcsb:comp.ai */ In making theories of languages, we have to first remember that languages EVOLVED. Evolution is necessarily nondeterministic, and several choices are possible at each stage. Once a choice is made by a line of culture, other things just have to get tagged on. The prior choices cannot be retracted. It may eventually appear that the final outcome is complex, wrong or unnatural from some perspective, but that has to be understood in the context of the history of the language. I am no linguist, but I can certainly imagine the following line of evolution: 1. Langage V: only verbs. (Come, go, give, went, ate). 2. Language SV: subject + verb. (I went. You hunt. She ate). At this stage there are two choices for word order. S-V or V-S. All the languages I know have S-V. Anybody know the other one? 3. Language VO: verb + object (Come here. Ate ham). Even for this, there are two choices for word orders. V-O or O-V. Both SV and VO are equally plausible after V. Different cultures may have developed them in different order. Or, it is also possible for a language to have had separate SV and VO components at the same time. 3. Language SVO: subject + verb + object (I kill it. She ate ham). Given the word order of SV and VO there are at most two ways to combine them. S-V + V-O = S-V-O V-S + V-O = V-S-O or V-O-S S-V + O-V = S-O-V or O-S-V V-S + O-V = O-V-S It sounds somewhat ridiculous to put object at the front, but there may indeed be languages that do so. What this shows is that languages could have evolved purely by ARBITRARY choices at each stage of evolution, without any REASONS for those choices. Some choices may indeed have reasons. For example, there are strong reasons to favor S-V order over V-S order in the language SV. Most languages, in fact, show this. But, between the order O-V and V-O, there seems to be no preferred one. So, we find wide variation in this. Uday Reddy
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." <=
michael@crlt.UUCP (Michael McClary) (01/20/88)
In article <1729@russell.STANFORD.EDU>, nakashim@russell.STANFORD.EDU (Hideyuki Nakashima) writes: > I've got many (negative :-) responces to my postings. Thank you. [] > > Words ordering in a syntax is not chosen at random. There must be > some explanation to it. If you know a better one, please let me know. Here comes another one. (Am I delaying enough to be polite? B-) ) Why must the choice of words ordering in the syntax rule set for a natural language be non-random? We see from the currently-used languages that several orderings work about equally well. Seems to me the null hypothesis fits very well. Any language at all confers a significant advantage over none. Once a language is begun, any >change< in something as basic as words ordering rules increases confusion, reducing the utility of the language until many people have learned the revised rules. A change would have to confer a very strong advantage to be a net gain during the transition, and alternative words ordering rules do not do so. Thus a randomly-selected rule that works will be very strongly conserved. (We see a a similar phenomenon with our keyboards. Several layouts give significant speed and accuracy improvements over QWERTY. {Indeed, one rumor claims QWERTY was developed specifically to >slow down< typists, so early mechanical machines wouldn't jam.} New machines can handle the speed and don't jam, but the changeover to one of the improved layouts would cost so much, in capital and confusion, that it doesn't happen.) I would expect changes in words ordering to occur only in situations where communications >barriers< were an advantage. The only examples I can think of are "oppressed classes": Slaves, inhabitants of conquered provinces, alternate-lifestyle subcultures, minority religions, secret societies, traveling entertainers, teenagers. All have business to conduct that must be concealed from power-wielding members of the majority culture, and all find or develop ways to hide their communication. Thus I expect words ordering rule differences will prove to be a fossil record of either separate development of languages from scratch (extremely unlikely) or the resolution of political conflicts, not a parameter that was tuned to maximize information transfer. (And speaking of "oppressed classes" and words ordering rules: wasn't there some work done recently {with descendants of about three groups of slaves, in different parts of the world, with strongly differing languages [both owners' and ancestors']} that indicated a "natural" set of words ordering rules that occur in languages developed by language-education-deprived people?) =========================================================================== "I've got code in my node." | UUCP: umix.cc.umich.edu!node!michael | AUDIO: (313) 973-8787 Michael McClary | SNAIL: 2091 Chalmers, Ann Arbor MI 48104 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Above opinions are the official position of McClary Associates. Customers may have opinions of their own, which are given all the attention paid for. ===========================================================================
ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) (01/21/88)
In article <165000005@uiucdcsb>, reddy@uiucdcsb.cs.uiuc.edu writes: > 2. Language SV: subject + verb. (I went. You hunt. She ate). > > At this stage there are two choices for word order. S-V or V-S. > All the languages I know have S-V. Anybody know the other one? > Polynesian languages are more-or-less VSO. For example: Ka inu a Pita te wai. <inceptive> ingest <personal> Peter the water Ka inumia te wai i a Pita. <inceptive> ingest+passive the water by <personal> Peter It might be better to describe the order as <Predicate> <Subject> <Comment> Although English is my native language, this seems a more sensible order to me.
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
coray@nucsrl.UUCP (Not playing with a duck) (01/26/88)
Reddy writes: >In making theories of languages, we have to first remember that >languages EVOLVED. ... [he goes on to suggest that there is an ordering to the evolution of different phrase structures. First verb, then subject and verb, then subject verb and object. ] -------------------------- Linguistic evolution is hard to measure. Some interesting things have been done with the evolution of color terms. Berlin and Kay used to be the source, but that's probably pretty dated. You have fairly sophisticated phrase structures from pretty sophisticated modern languages when you look at "subject" "verb" "object". Can't imagine that these grammarical segments arrive separately and sequentially. Things tend to evolve contemporaniously by virtue of differentiation as you move a level down on the tree. At the root of the tree you might imagine that there are command words and question words and statement words. (The builder yells to his assistant "Slab".--yes, I know, I stole that from Wittgenstein--I have no original ideas...) Maybe linguistically ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. For instance, a friend of mine (who is about 2), says "chicken". This means "Put on Warren Zevon's `Werewolf in London' again". Now, most people might not recognize that as such, but it shows a certain economy of language at the root of the development tree. -Elizabeth
gilbert@hci.hw.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) (01/27/88)
In article <1729@russell.STANFORD.EDU> nakashim@russell.UUCP (Hideyuki Nakashima) writes: >I DON'T MIND HOW MANY CONTER EXAMPLES THERE ARE >AS LONG AS POSITIVE EXAMPLES OUTNUMBER HTEM. > Your understanding of the corpus problem in scientific linguistics seems non-existant. I may be wrong, but nothing in this posting suggests familiarity with the methodological problems of linguistic theory formation. Given this cavalier approach to relevant disciplines and methodological dilemmas, I presume you must be in AI :-) -- 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
inspect@blic.BLI.COM (Mfg Inspection) (01/28/88)
In article <6565@drutx.ATT.COM>, clive@drutx.ATT.COM (Clive Steward) writes: > in article <143@blic.BLI.COM>, inspect@blic.BLI.COM (Mfg Inspection) says: > > Try opening a book and doing some research before proposing arrogant and > > specious theories. > There is something quite Japanese (perhaps what is often seen as vague) in > Mr. Nakashima's original posting, and you have missed it entirely. After spending a year with a Japanese man, (13 years ago, no bitterness then or now) I am not unacquainted with this "vagueness" you mention. I found HIM as transparent as glass. Now, Mr. Nakashima proposed a theory that the language structuring differences might have evolved because he believed that the Japanese were "basically farmers" and the Europeans were "basically hunters". What's to miss? It was his lack of prior research and his asser- tation that the Japanese were more attuned to nuance and people's moods that I found arrogant. Having lived in the San Francisco area most of my life, I have been exposed to many cultures and people from "elsewhere", that and a rather voracious appetite for eclectic reading have led me to believe that there are no superior cultures or "races". There are those in the US and abroad who maintain that there ARE superior cultures and "races": theirs. Even the implication, my own inference if you prefer, that one group is over- all superior to another is repugnant to me. > Perhaps there is something really different about the organization of > information from generality to heuristics, as it is done in the east. No argument. But the farmer/hunter premise is invalid. > Perhaps this is interesting to someone doing creative work. Even in > the positivist side of ai technology. The 10% inspiration is laudable, but the 90% perspiration is required to make the difference between day-dreaming and research. I know, I am a day- dreamer and diletante; knowing this forces me to research ideas before offering them to newsgroups. Mr. Nakashima was given several paths to explore and information on the history of agriculture in Europe and in Japan: his farmer/hunter premise was wrong. This should be a whole new starting point for his continued research, if he so chooses. Being in- volved in creative work has its risks and one of those is being wrong. I took constructive critisms for my own creative works and, you know, the critics helped me improve a lot of my work. Once one rubs away the first stings of criticism, it can feel good to follow a more effective path. > Actually, you might want to consider your own arrogance with such talk. > I hope it gets to be something you can appreciate better than to be rude. I was dubious about my second posting on the subject, as regards rude remarks, but as Mr. Nakashima insisted, despite evidence to the contrary, that his theory had merit (regarding the farmer/hunter premise), I made a concious decision to write what I did. Ignoring the facts in favor of maintaining a pet theory is arrogant and specious and bad research. However, it was rude of me to point that out, and I apologise.
gilbert@hci.hw.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) (01/28/88)
In article <3532@bcsaic.UUCP> rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik) writes: >Finally, this topic really belongs in sci.lang. It has little to do with AI. If every topic raised in AI was restricted to its proper discipline, this news group would be empty. Personally, I would rather see the computational paradigm properly distributed through the disciplines, rather than left to the intellectual margins and scholarly wastelands of AI. However, given that AI exists, takes funding and pushes itself onto the popular consciousness as a valid contribution to the understanding of humanity, it is far more sensible for disciplined and informed discussion to keep pushing into comp.ai. AI workers complain regularly about the oppressiveness of other disciplines when trying to develop a computational view of human nature. Lets keep up the oppression :-) -- 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
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.
nakashim@russell.STANFORD.EDU (Hideyuki Nakashima) (01/29/88)
I first appologize that the first half of this article is not ment to appear at comp.ai. I just couldn't send a mail directly to inspect@blic.bli.com. The real stuff comes in the second half. In article <161@blic.BLI.COM> inspect@blic.BLI.COM (Mfg Inspection) writes: > >It was his lack of prior research and his asser- >tation that the Japanese were more attuned to nuance and people's moods that >I found arrogant. My appology for your misunderstanding. But I never said that Japanese people are more attuned to whatever. I just said that Japanese language is. The example is the honorific system which English lacks. By the way, to see how Japanese is complecated in expressing ones mood, it is not sufficient to have conversation with Japanese people speaking in English. You should speak Japanese yourself. By the way 2: I don't like THAT complicated aspect of Japanese. So, I ment no offence. > Having lived in the San Francisco area most of my life, I >have been exposed to many cultures and people from "elsewhere", that and a >rather voracious appetite for eclectic reading have led me to believe that >there are no superior cultures or "races". I totally agree with you. Is surprises me that you infer the opposite from my discussion. >Mr. Nakashima was given several paths to >explore and information on the history of agriculture in Europe and in >Japan: his farmer/hunter premise was wrong. I was wrong in two points: 1) supposing Europe was primarily hunting culture. 2) supposing Latin was verb-middle. Being both of them negated, isn't there still a chance to corelate real-timeness to word order? (agriculture - Latin/Japanese - verb-last, hunting - English - verb-middle) (I admit that German is an exception.) (BTW: Is Latin head-last?) The original intuition of the theory comes from that it is very difficult to communicate in "really" real-time situation in Japanese. I can say "dame" which is something like "no", but I cannot transfer information of "no what" at the same time. How could such a language survive if it were used in hunting? I just wanted to explain and still want to explain this fact. -- Hideyuki Nakashima CSLI and ETL nakashima@csli.stanford.edu (until Aug. 1988) nakashima%etl.jp@relay.cs.net (afterwards)
ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) (01/29/88)
In article <2026@russell.STANFORD.EDU>, nakashim@russell.STANFORD.EDU (Hideyuki Nakashima) writes: > I was wrong in two points: > 1) supposing Europe was primarily hunting culture. > 2) supposing Latin was verb-middle. > > Being both of them negated, isn't there still a chance to corelate > real-timeness to word order? > (agriculture - Latin/Japanese - verb-last, > hunting - English - verb-middle) > (I admit that German is an exception.) E hoohaa ana teenei koorerorero. A recent issue of Scientific American had an article on the prehistory of agriculture in Europe. It is even older than I had thought. English started out as a Germanic language like Old Norse or Old Icelandic, was phonologically influenced somewhat by contact with Welsh, and then was hit by the Norman conquest: the Normans being Scandinavians who had recently adopted French. Hunting had not been of primary economic importance for any of these groups for a long time. Before trying to find explanations for features of English or any other language in the culture of its early speakers, would it not be wise to take the not-very-difficult step of finding out what that culture WAS? Let me quote a sentence from King Alfred's preface to "Pastoral Care". (Sorry about the transliteration into ASCII; suggestions welcome.) ' v ' ' Tha gemunde ic hu seo ae waes earest on Ebreisc Then recalled I how the law was first in Hebrew ' ' ' ' getheode funden, and eft, tha hie Crecas geleornodon, language found, and in turn, when it Greeks learned, ' ' ' ' tha wendon hie hie on hira agen getheode ealle, then translated it they into their own language entirely, ' ' 'v and eac ealle othre bec. and also every other book. The time period we are talking about is the very late 9th century, about 1100 years ago. Note the position of funden and geleornodon. This is recognisably English, but the word order is rather different. My own suspicion, for what it is worth, is that the loss of inflexions has had more influence on Modern English structure than any strictly cultural phenomena (testable, perhaps, by looking at non-English pidgins?). Modern French is SVO, and the development of French out of vulgar Latin is pretty well documented. Did the French drop agriculture and switch over to hunting? Pull the other one, it's got bells on.
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
fritz@hpfclp.HP.COM (Gary Fritz) (01/30/88)
Regardless of the validity Nakashima-san's linguistic theory, I must agree with him on one of his points: > >It was his lack of prior research and his asser- > >tation that the Japanese were more attuned to nuance and people's moods that > >I found arrogant. > > My appology for your misunderstanding. > > But I never said that Japanese people are more attuned to whatever. > I just said that Japanese language is. The example is the honorific > system which English lacks. > > By the way, to see how Japanese is complecated in expressing ones > mood, it is not sufficient to have conversation with Japanese people > speaking in English. You should speak Japanese yourself. 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 is more finely tuned for subtly expressing one's feelings about a subject than for actually conveying hard information about the subject. This is probably part of the reason why English-speaking people are considered (by Japanese people) rather rude, because they come right to the point and convey information directly, rather than hinting at what they feel. Obviously a year's study does not make me an expert in the language, but I felt Nakashima-san had received enough flames and needed some support on at least one of his points. Gary Fritz
hen@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Bill Henneman) (01/30/88)
In message <2026@russell.STANFORD.EDU>, nakashim@russell.STANFORD.EDU (Hideyuki Nakashima) asks: > (BTW: Is Latin head-last?) Latin, being fully inflected, allows fine distinctions in emphasis by switching word order. I dimly recall a study (probably by Roland Kent) concluding that "normal" word order was used less than half the time in formal Latin, and much less than that in colloquial usage. > The original intuition of the theory comes from that it is very > difficult to communicate in "really" real-time situation in Japanese. > I can say "dame" which is something like "no", but I cannot transfer > information of "no what" at the same time. > How could such a language survive if it were used in hunting? My limited experiance with hunting in groups is that any form of spoken communication is counter-productive. Prey generally have pretty sharp hearing. Hand signals are the most common form of communication.
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) (02/02/88)
In article <158@glenlivet.hci.hw.ac.uk> gilbert@hci.hw.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) writes: >In article <3532@bcsaic.UUCP> rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik) writes: >>Finally, this topic really belongs in sci.lang. It has little to do with AI. > >If every topic raised in AI was restricted to its proper discipline, >this news group would be empty. Personally, I would rather see the I suppose that you could justify debate on anything in this newgroup, in which case it would be the opposite of empty :-). The public seems to want to debate this issue here, so I'll stop trying to move it. Still, it seems to have little to do with the problems that AI researchers busy themselves with. And it has everything to do with what language scholars busy themselves with. Perhaps the participants realize instinctively that their views make more sense in this newsgroup.
tutiya@alan.STANFORD.EDU (Syun Tutiya) (02/03/88)
In article <3725@bcsaic.UUCP> rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik) writes: >Still, >it seems to have little to do with the problems that AI researchers busy >themselves with. And it has everything to do with what language >scholars busy themselves with. Perhaps the participants realize >instinctively that their views make more sense in this newsgroup. I am no AI researcher or language scholar, so find it interesting to learn that even in AI there could be an argument/discussion as to whether this is a proper subject or that is not. Does what AI researchers are busy with define the proper domain of AI research? People who answer yes to this question can be safely said to live in an established discipline called AI. But if AI research is to be something which aims at a theory about intelligence, whether human or machine, I would say interests in AI and those in philosophy is almost coextensive. I do not mind anyone taking the above as a joke but the following seems to be really a problem for both AI researchers and language scholars. A myth has it that variation in language is a matter of what is called parameter setting, with the same inborn universal linguistic faculty only modified with respect to a preset range of parameters. That linguistic faculty is relatively independent of other human faculties, basically. But on the other hand, AI research seems to be based on the assumption that all the kinds of intellectual faculty are realilzed in essentially the same manner. So it is not unnatural for an AI researcher try to come up with a "theory" which should "explain" the way one of the human faculties is like, which endeavor sounds very odd and unnatural to well-educated language scholars. Nakashima's original theory may have no grain of truth, I agree, but the following exchange of opinions revealed, at least to me, that AI researchers on the netland have lost the real challenging spirit their precursors shared when they embarked on the project of AI. Sorry for unproductive, onlooker-like comments. Syun (tutiya@csli.stanford.edu) [The fact that I share the nationality and affiliation with Nakashima has nothing to do with the above comments.]
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
fritz@hpfclp.HP.COM (Gary Fritz) (02/09/88)
> 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"? I disagree. You are, I believe, speaking as a person with no experience in Japanese. (This is why I felt someone with some knowledge of Japanese should support Nakashima-san's statements about "nuances" in Japanese. Too many people were stating opinions with little or no factual/experiential basis.) I have learned a reasonable amount of French and German, and a smattering of Italian, Spanish, and Swedish. None of these languages (to my knowledge) contain the same subtleties of expression of MOOD, and vaguess of expression of CONTENT, that I have observed in Japanese. I have been told the same thing by two different Japanese teachers (both of which speak excellent English), and several other native speakers. Japanese is VERY different from any Western language I am familiar with. This is to be expected, since it does not have the common roots in Greek and Latin found in most Western European languages. It also evolved in a vastly different society than Western languages. Perhaps it isn't "special", but it is very definitely *different*, and I stand by my previous claims. (Disclaimer: I do not have any formal training in linguistics. I have some experience in several languages, including Japanese, but that is all.) Gary Fritz
sp202-ad@garnet.berkeley.edu (02/11/88)
In article <7390004@hpfclp.HP.COM> fritz@hpfclp.HP.COM (Gary Fritz) writes: >.... Italian, Spanish, and Swedish. None of these languages >(to my knowledge) contain the same subtleties of expression of MOOD, and >vaguess of expression of CONTENT, that I have observed in Japanese ... > >Japanese is VERY different from any Western language I am familiar with. >This is to be expected, since it does not have the common roots in Greek >and Latin found in most Western European languages. It also evolved in >a vastly different society than Western languages. Perhaps it isn't >"special", but it is very definitely *different*, and I stand by my >previous claims. I have had no training in Japanese, but from what I have gathered throughout this discussion the issue raised here is that of cultural relativity. The fact that Japanese evolved in a different society than Western languages does not *necessarily* explain structural differences between it and, say, Romance and Germanic languages. Both Basque and Spanish, to give a counterexample, are now spoken in the same bilingual society (the Basque Country, Spain), and yet their structural differences are immense. Material culture and social structures *do* have an effect in language development, but similar nuances *can* be expressed in highly differentiated languages through disimilar procedures. Otherwise, effective translation would not exist. What the participants in this discussion are probably talking about is the question of *codification* of cultural notions in a language's syntax or lexicon. The following early article by Fishman might be useful for anyone interested in the topic: Fishman, Joshua A. 1960. "A systematization of the Whorfian hypothesis." _Behavioral_Science_ vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 323-339. Perhaps we should look, not at the effect of alleged macro-social factors such as a hunting society" vs. "a peasant society" in language development, but, rather, at the opposite process -- the ways in which language use in verbal interaction *signals* social meanings or reflects certain aspects of social organization. The issue of politeness strategies is one fascinating dimension of linguistic pragmatics. But, are we to conclude from comparing linguistic structures and rhetorical strategies from languages A and B that society A is "more polite" than society B -- according, not to a fix, predetermined set of values, but to *each society's* own values? Celso Alvarez (sp202-ad@garnet.berkeley.edu.UUCP)