Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!pyramid!voder!blia!blic!inspect
From: inspect@blic.BLI.COM (Mfg Inspection)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: words order in English and Japanese
Message-ID: <142@blic.BLI.COM>
Date: 15 Jan 88 21:17:39 GMT
References: <1671@russell.STANFORD.EDU>
Organization: Britton Lee, Los Gatos, CA
Lines: 55
Summary: better model

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