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From: dick@tjalk.UUCP (Dick Grune)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Inflected Languages
Message-ID: <520@tjalk.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 19-Oct-85 11:01:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: tjalk.520
Posted: Sat Oct 19 11:01:48 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 21-Oct-85 07:18:38 EDT
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 52

In <940@enea.UUCP> Erland Sommarskog writes:

> I might have misunderstood what Dick means wirh "inflected" but I like
> to argue a little.

I mean the amount of details that one has to know to be able to
construct a sentence that is correct in a context-free sense.  Here
Swedish requires a lot more rules than English does.  A quick scan
of the Swedish grammar; many examples already supplied by Erland.

Possessive pronouns:
	min hustru --	my wife
	mitt hus --	my house
	mina barn --	my children
	3		1

Participles:
	... hade kallat --	... had called   (active)
	... blev kallad --	... was called   (passive)
	... hade pensionerats --... got pensioned  (reflexive)
	3			1

Gender: 2 in Swedish (den & det), 1 in English (the).  You have to
learn the gender with the word.

Plural: 5 ways to form them, vs 1 in English.  This virtually means
you have to learn each word with its plural.

Etc....

The only place where English has more forms than Swedish is in the
present tense, as explained by Erland.

I still think my point stands and that Swedish has no right to the
title of "least inflected Germanic language". (The fight between
English and Afrikaans goes on!)

I don't mean this to say that English would in any sense be better
(it's not my native language either); I understand what inflextion
is good for, and I like inflected languages.  They allow me to say
some things more succinctly and more poignantly than uninflected
ones, but that is probably a matter of taste, mine.

And I like non-inflecting languages, because they are easier to get
started in (although they tend to collect in syntax what they give
you in grammar).

					Dick Grune
					Vrije Universiteit
					de Boelelaan 1081
					1081 HV  Amsterdam
					the Netherlands