A language can be more or less logical than another

Introduction: Thanks to my opponent for offering this interesting challenge. I fear that I may have had a somewhat different interpretation of the resolution than he intended, but since no definitions were given I am going to proceed as I originally intended. As a student of theoretical linguistics [1], he should understand my approach. I hope that my approach will not be too difficult for readers who are not familiar with mathematical linguistics to easily grasp. Analysis of the Resolution: The resolution requires that it be possible for a language to be more logical than another (“can be”). It does not require that there actually be an example. If the resolution were “Grape can jump off a building” I would just have to demonstrate my capacity for climbing and jumping; I wouldn't have to actually do it. Definitions: Language – A language is a set of strings formed on an alphabet [2]. I adopt this definition because it is the most rigorous and least chauvinistic definition of a language. Defining language only as those languages that have naturally evolved in human cultures is overly restricting. We should definitely reject Con's ill-defined claim that a language requires a “political agenda.” That clearly has nothing to do with what language is about. Even if we accept Con's definition, it's possible for any set of strings of symbols to be backed by a political force, and the resolution concerns the nature of language, not actual languages. Logical – Reasonable or rational [3]. I adopt this definition because it is the most fair. If we define logical as “of or pertaining to logic” then it is easy to demonstrate that some languages are more logical: there are languages specifically designed for logic! So, my objective for this debate will be to show that certain sets of strings formed on alphabets are more rational or reasonable than others. Affirmative Arguments: A1: Some languages are inherently unusable A language cannot be reasonable or rational if it cannot be used to communicate. There are many was that this barrier could come up for humans. Perhaps a language is so inefficient that the strings are too long to remember. A human language that used an integer for every word (perhaps with special integers for spaces and punctuation) could have the same syntactic and semantic properties as English, but be totally incomprehensible. Languages could also involve impossible items in their alphabets: sounds that are too high or too low to hear, colors that humans can't see. Replace the 1's and 0's in a binary code on a printed page with high pitched sounds and it becomes unreadable. A2: Some languages lack certain semantic content. If you want to give a computer science lecture in ancient Greek, you're out of luck. Some languages are more fully developed in their vocabularies than others. The languages of technological primitive peoples typically do not include the ability to express detailed mathematical concepts [4]. These languages cannot be considered as “logical” as more rich languages because they place a serious limit on their speakers ability to communicate. A3: Some languages are more or less ambiguous. A grammatical ambiguity results when different syntactic structures produce the same final sentence [5]. A famous example in English is the sentence, “They are hunting dogs.” Some languages, such as Lojban, are designed to have fewer ambiguities. The language of first-order logic does not contain any ambiguities at all! A language's resistance to ambiguity is a good determinate of how logical it is. A language that always generated the same string regardless of the underlying grammar would be very difficult to understand indeed! A4: Nonsense languages are possible. A language can be constructed to express only logically invalid arguments or only false propositions. Such a language could never be considered logical. Counterarguments: CA1: Con's arguments don't prove his thesis. To be honest, I don't understand what Con was talking about in the last round. It didn't seem to relate to the debate. All he has shown is that there are different ways of expressing the same semantic content. That should be obvious to anyone right away: “yes” in English and “si” in Spanish both do just fine. But if a five hour long ritual is required to give an affirmative reply in a language, that language is less logical than English or Spanish. There is more to “logic” in a language, whatever that is, than just being able to express basic ideas, and not every language can even do that. Conclusion: It should be obvious that there are lots of ways that a form of communication can be illogical. Some languages clearly must have fewer problems than others just by virtue of being meaningfully different. Con has not given us a very clear idea of what he is talking about, and he has used a very small number of examples to prove a conclusion much weaker than what is required to negate the resolution. Sources: [1] http://www.debate.org... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] http://dictionary.reference.com... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org... [5] http://en.wikipedia.org...