Hallo conlangers!

I wanted to reply to this, but wasn't sure, then forgot about it,
but here is my reply.

On Thursday 02 June 2011 22:36:34, And Rosta wrote:

> Jörg Rhiemeier, On 31/05/2011 15:23:
> > On Monday 30 May 2011 23:25:34, And Rosta wrote:
> [...]
> >> Yes, but why is a fictional natlang loglang not a good idea?
> > 
> > Because I consider it very, very unlikely that the kinds of
> > change natlangs undergo come up with a loglang.
> 
> I meant: Why does a fictional natlang loglang's implausibility make
> fictional natlang loglangs a bad idea?
>  
> I don't see why implausibility entails badness; and I can think of various
> virtues that implausible fictions can have (for example, in this instance,
> by contemplating the virtues of a natlang loglang (within an implausible
> fiction) we might gain insights into the consequences of nonfictional
> natlangs' lack of loglanginess; fantasy fiction can often illuminate our
> understanding of the real world).

Of course, what makes a good or a bad story depends on whom you
ask, but most people would say that an implausible story was a
bad one.  It is true that fantasy fiction (or, for that matter,
science fiction) can often illuminate our understanding of the
real world, but even there, most people care about plausibility
(in the confines of an alternative reality where *some* things
work differently than in the real world, of course).

Perhaps it is that we value different types of fiction and
different types of conlangs.  I admit whole-heartedly that I
am a follower of the "naturalistic" school, and try to make
languages that could be believed to be natlangs in a world that
isn't really that different from our own.  (Both Old Albic and
Roman Germanech are "lostlangs", i.e. languages spoken in a
variant of the real world that differs mainly in having a few
extra languages.  And in that framework, naturalism and
linguistic plausibility are part of the game.)
 
> >> Also, the example of Livagian raises the questions of whether a natlang
> >> shaped by deliberate planning and prescriptive pressure -- as some
> >> natlangs indeed are -- remains a natlang, and whether a language that is
> >> actively used, but learnt only through education, such as Latin and
> >> Sanskrit are or have been, is a natlang.
> > 
> > "A natlang shaped by deliberate planning" - what?  We are
> > obviously using the word "natlang" in different meanings!
> > To me (and probably to everyone else on the list save you)
> > a natlang is a language that grew out of centuries of
> > *unplanned* linguistic evolution.
> 
> Of course I recognize that a natlang is a language that grew out of
> centuries of *unplanned* linguistic evolution. But that doesn't rule out
> additional shaping effects of planning.

Sure.  Language planning can have a major impact on the language's
makeup.  In most vernaculars of Europe, two negation markers in a
clause only add force to the negation; in many standard varieties,
under the influence of formal logic, they cancel each other out
via the "~~A = A" rule.  A very common source of misunderstandings!
 
> Keith Gaughan mentioned the bonsai analogy in a reply to this, which I
> think is apt. Or, to use the analogy of biological evolution, one can
> point to the effects of sexual selection and of systematic breeding
> programmes.
> 
> Natlangs *are* shaped by deliberate planning and prescriptive pressure.
> Even in preliterate societies the prescriptive pressure of tabooing can
> have a large effect. But I was thinking primarily of literate societies,
> where we sometimes find prescriptive language academies prescribing
> standard orthographies and more, and we find clear cases of language
> change induced by prescriptive pressure, and we find cases of
> prescriptivism that ostensibly seek to make language more logical. Put all
> those things together, and it is not *that* implausible that you could end
> up with quite a loglangy natlang.

Also, it is well known that some natlangs *are* very regular.
Turkish is an often-cited example; some people say that Aymará
was a "highly logical" language, though I know virtually nothing
about that language, and it may be exaggerated, and it is simply
a highly regular agglutinating language.  Even my own Old Albic
is highly regular, about on a par with Turkish, which I sometimes
feel that it is *too* regular; but as I said, Turkish is just as
regular, and the classical form of Old Albic, which is the variety
which I have so far explored most, *is* a more or less standardized
language of a literate society with a scholarly tradition of logic,
mathematics and philosophy.
 
> > The adoption of a conlang by a community as the first language to be
> > passed down to their children (so far hasn't happened, unless one
> > counts Ivrit as a conlang, but it *could* happen) doesn't yet make
> > that conlang a natlang.  It *may* gradually move towards natlang
> > status if it is left to evolve for several centuries - but that
> > evolution would probably turn a loglang into something that could no
> > longer be considered a loglang. (I'd even expect it to cease being a
> > loglang after the first generation because loglangs are not really
> > suitable to the kind of communicational needs natlangs have evolved
> > for.)
> 
> My definition of "loglang" is a language that unambiguously encodes
> predicate--argument structure (which I take to subsume
> quantifier--variable structure), without having to leave much of
> predicate--argument unencoded.

What exactly do you mean?  A language that clearly states which
semantic role which argument plays, avoiding such ambiguities as
the SAE notion of a "subject" which can actually play just about
any semantic role imaginable?

>       I agree that, on the basis of our current
> state of knowledge about loglang design space, a full-blown loglang would
> probably be unacquirable as a natlang.

At least, it would probably be "unevolvable", if there is such
a word.  Obviously, no human community could ever evolve their
L1 into something unacquirable.

>       But a slightly diluted loglang that
> encodes predicate--argument structure unambiguously but leaves a lot
> unencoded (-- which is what ordinary Lojban usage is like) doesn't strike
> me as problematic to acquire.

I cannot evaluate to which degree a language like Lojban is
acquirable or not.  There is a community of Lojban users, which
indicates that the language is not completely unusable, but some
people say that those Lojbanists actually speak a less than
perfect version of that language.  To me, at least, Lojban
grammar looks very difficult, though I don't see that it would
be unlearnable, but then I never seriously attempted to learn
that language.

>       And in thinking of a 'loglangy natlang' I
> was thinking of something even more dilute, e.g. one in which there
> existed rules to avoid logical scope ambiguities -- and this I'm sure
> would be acquirable, tho possibly requiring explicit instruction. I agree
> that change over time would erode the loglangy elements, but that doesn't
> demonstrate a fundamental incompatibility between loglanginess and
> natlanghood .

I now see what you are getting at.  Certainly, it is unlikely
that something like Lojban would fall out of the uncontrolled
evolution of spoken vernaculars.  But language planning can do
quite a bit, and the impact of formal logic on language is not
negligible (see the above mentioned example of the ongoing
change of meaning in double negators in European languages),
so some degree of "loglanginess" may be attainable in natlangs,
at least in ones spoken by literate societies.

And I have seen too little of Livagian to judge whether it would
make a plausible natlang or not ;)

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