Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!unc!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary
From: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: AI Natural Language (Esperanto)
Message-ID: <3413@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Oct-84 14:08:50 EST
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.3413
Posted: Fri Oct 26 14:08:50 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 28-Oct-84 04:38:17 EST
References: iuvax.3600013 sri-arpa.13192
Lines: 29

[]
> From: brennan@iuvax.UUCP Thu Oct 25 18:17:00 1984
> 
> One interesting problem with Esperanto is that when humans start 
> using it on a regular basis, the language evolves away from its 
> totally regular verb construction.
> 
> JD Brennan

Just for the record, I've never heard of this happening in 
practice, unless you're talking about the -ata/-ita participle 
flap of many years back (that was more a matter of usage than 
conjugation, however).  It has also been predicted that Esperanto 
would break up into dialects, and it practice this doesn't seem 
to happen because Esperanto speakers tend to read the same set of 
international periodicals and listen to the same set of 
international short wave broadcasts.  

Other than this quibble, the point you raise about understanding 
ungrammatical utterances is a good one, and applies across the 
field of natural language research.  I wonder if the use of 
computers will have a stabilizing influence on languages over 
time the way the broadcast media have eroded regional dialects.  


D Gary Grady
Duke University Computation Center, Durham, NC  27706
(919) 684-4146
USENET:  {decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary