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From: dlindsle@blackbird.afit.af.mil (David T. Lindsley)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.edu,misc.education
Subject: Re: Another thread gone tangential
Message-ID: <1814@blackbird.afit.af.mil>
Date: 13 Dec 90 19:11:21 GMT
References: <1990Dec11.152706.467@darwin.ntu.edu.au> <1811@blackbird.afit.af.mil> <9237:Dec1315:28:3190@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Organization: Air Force Institute of Technology; WPAFB, OH
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In article <9237:Dec1315:28:3190@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
>In article <1811@blackbird.afit.af.mil> dlindsle@blackbird.afit.af.mil (David T. Lindsley) writes:
>> The widespread irregularity of English verbs makes learning any underlying
>> structure difficult -- more difficult, I'd contend, than in other Western
>> languages.
>
>Hardly. In fact, verb structure is simpler in English than in any other
>language I know of. The verb ``catch'' has just five forms: infinitive
>(to catch), present third person singular (he catches), past (I caught),
>perfect (I have caught), and participle (I am catching).
>
>catch/catches/caught/caught/catching is a *complete* conjugation. What
>other language is so simple? To learn a verb in English you must learn
>just five words.

But there is a notable lack of rules to follow when attempting to generate
the latter four forms from the first (whereas, in Latin, for example,
this is a trivial task for the majority of verbs).

>> In addition, it is difficult to tell gerunds from participles,
>
>A gerund is a noun. A participle is not. That's about as simple as a
>language rule can get.

Simple in theory, yes. But when you get into complex-compound sentences
with multiple subordinate clauses, it's not so easy to tell the
difference -- precisely because there are "just five words".

> [lots of other stuff deleted]

This is getting tiresome.

1. As has already been pointed out, this thread ("the structure or
   lack thereof in English") does not belong in comp.edu.
2. The article I posted (which seems to have started this thread)
   pointed to a lack of structure as *one* cause for a problem
   teaching/learning writing skills.

I was raised bilingually, and in fact spoke another language fluently
language before starting to learn English. Perhaps I am biased as
a result, but it has been my experience/observation that people
who learn English as a second language have less problems with
English grammar than "native-speakers". Consistently.
(I mention this to avoid any accusations of having an axe to grind.
I don't, and in any case, that would be an _ad_hominem_/cirmustantial
fallacy, without any bearing on the argument.)
Now the only reason I can see for this is that English lends itself
less to formal/rigorous definition than (at least some) other
languages do. I have discussed the topic with scholars of language(s),
and I have not found one who disagrees with me. (Not till this thread
started, anyway, and I'm still not sure...)

So I would say that English is unstructured, relatively speaking. And
I do believe that's justified.

>You're talking about these ``problems'' of English as if the subject
>line were ``How to program a natural-language parser.''

If the syntax is (relatively) undefined, I would think it would
necessarily be (relatively) difficult to express oneself clearly.
Thereby making it more difficult to learn to write.
This is *not* intended as a judgment of the English language; it is
merely observation. Observations which have a positive side, I might
add: if I'm correct, that makes English capable of more nuanced
communication than "more structured" languages.

>easy to teach generative parsing to a computer. Sure, linguists have
>only been somewhat successful at formal models of natural languages.
>But people will continue to read. And when I write
>
> [examples deleted]
>
>people will understand me perfectly in each case.

You begin by discussing "formal models of natural languages", then
use semantics to prove your point?


Dave L			dlindsle@blackbird.afit.af.mil
#24601

Opinions. Mine. (Sorry, the words don't come any smaller.)
"If you don't succeed at first, transform your data!"