From sentto-44114-16430-1033833788-lojban-in=lojban.org@returns.groups.yahoo.com Sat Oct 05 09:07:19 2002 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Sat, 05 Oct 2002 09:07:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from n4.grp.scd.yahoo.com ([66.218.66.88]) by digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.05) id 17xrSU-0005WI-00 for lojban-in@lojban.org; Sat, 05 Oct 2002 09:07:14 -0700 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-44114-16430-1033833788-lojban-in=lojban.org@returns.groups.yahoo.com Received: from [66.218.67.201] by n4.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 05 Oct 2002 16:03:10 -0000 X-Sender: jcowan@reutershealth.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_2_2_0); 5 Oct 2002 16:03:08 -0000 Received: (qmail 66494 invoked from network); 5 Oct 2002 16:02:53 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m9.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 5 Oct 2002 16:02:53 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mail2.reutershealth.com) (65.246.141.151) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 5 Oct 2002 16:02:54 -0000 Received: from skunk.reutershealth.com (IDENT:cowan@[10.65.117.21]) by mail2.reutershealth.com (Pro-8.9.3/Pro-8.9.3) with SMTP id MAA01989; Sat, 5 Oct 2002 12:14:27 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <200210051614.MAA01989@mail2.reutershealth.com> Received: by skunk.reutershealth.com (sSMTP sendmail emulation); Sat, 5 Oct 2002 12:02:11 -0400 To: a.rosta@lycos.co.uk (And Rosta) Cc: lojban@yahoogroups.com (lojban) In-Reply-To: from "And Rosta" at Oct 05, 2002 02:51:48 PM X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL6] From: John Cowan X-Yahoo-Profile: john_w_cowan MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list lojban@yahoogroups.com; contact lojban-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list lojban@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2002 12:02:11 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [lojban] Re: prescription & description (was: RE: Re: a new kind of fundamentalism Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII X-archive-position: 1919 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: jcowan@reutershealth.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list And Rosta scripsit: > Even in English it is largely > restricted to retired colonels writing to complain to broadcasters > and newspapers. Not on this side of the pond. William Safire writes a weekly column on "usage", though to be sure he does lots of description too, mostly of current slang and jargon. He has been doing this since 1979 and has published ten fairly successful books full of columns. There are plenty of other lesser lights, and many "usage books" are available as well that are encyclopedias of hard-core prescription: "barbarous" is their favorite word, closely followed by "illogical". One of the minor public activities of linguists in this country is denouncing the denouncers. Nevertheless, use "they" as a generic singular in public print, and you can expect, if not actual denunciation from the pulpit, certainly a stream of self-righteous private letters. Assuming you can get it printed at all. > Less hardcore in English are statements of the form "You should write > in Standard English" but there is not even much of this in Lojban > culture either, and what prescriptivism of this sort that there is > tends to come from the Fundamentalists. Agreed. > So when it comes down to the statement "X is (not) part > of Language Y", it is descriptive if based on the idiolects > of Y's speakers, and prescriptive if not. The underlying assumptions of this sentence seem bogus to me, but after some thought I cannot explain exactly how. I will carry on anyway (both in the BrE sense "proceed" and in the older AmE sense "raise a fuss"!). > For another thing, > the question of which dialect of Lojban is 'Standard Lojban' is > not settled, so that even if we did have accomplished speakers > of a dialect of Lojban, we could not take it for granted that > their dialect was Standard. The fact is, for an invented > language, the counterpart of description of natlangs is invention > or stipulatiion. Well, not always. It may be invention, or reference to something invented by others, or it may be in fact description. Xorxes, for example, has certain idiosyncratic usages, but the rest of what he does is very close to what sociolinguistically plays the role of StdL, though not so named. > (1) "People commonly say 'We was'" > (2) "'We was' is not Standard English" > (3) "You should never deviate from Standard English" > (4) "'Less people' is bad English (or: not Standard E)" > > (1) is clearly descriptive. (3) is clearly prescriptive. > > (2) is descriptive. (4) is prescriptive, because it conflicts > with the reality of the idiolects of Std E speakers. No, I don't accept that. If "'Less people' is bad English" is prescriptive, then so is "'Me see she' is bad English", though it *does* agree with the reality of Std E speakers. To me, statements like #4 are essentially equivalent to #2, but carry an additional freight, viz. "Non-standard E is bad, not merely bad E, but bad tout court". #4 has a mabla in it that #2 lacks, which is indeed why sentences like #2 (which are a matter of the last fifty years or so) were first devised. -- "No, John. I want formats that are actually John Cowan useful, rather than over-featured megaliths that http://www.ccil.org/~cowan address all questions by piling on ridiculous http://www.reutershealth.com internal links in forms which are hideously jcowan@reutershealth.com over-complex." --Simon St. Laurent on xml-dev ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> 4 DVDs Free +s&p Join Now http://us.click.yahoo.com/pt6YBB/NXiEAA/MVfIAA/GSaulB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe, send mail to lojban-unsubscribe@onelist.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/