HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: typology of Esperanto
Date: 20 Aug 92 21:47:11 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: SPSS Inc.

In article <1992Aug20.023350.2629@leland.Stanford.EDU> alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU 
(Rich Alderson) writes (quoting me):
>>I'm going to fall back on prototype theory here, and say that Esperanto is
>>a member, but not a very good one, of the category of Indo-European 
>>languages.
>
>I'm not sure what you mean by prototype theory.

As found in Lakoff's _Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things._

>>In any case, I think it's misleading to simply declare that Esperanto (or
>>Papiamentu; the same problems come up for creoles) isn't an Indo-European
>>language; this is certainly not true in the same sense as it is for (say)
>>Chinese or Dyirbal.
>
>Yes, it is true in that sense.  And Papiamentu either has an Indo-European
>core, or it is not Indo-European, any more than Esperanto or FORTRAN.

You mean to tell me Esperanto isn't an IE language in exactly the same sense
Chinese isn't?  Come now.  Your own definition talked about being able to
regularly derive the language from pIE.  The definition only makes sense for
languages which arise out of normal historical change, like French or Chinese.
Your definition doesn't apply to Esperanto any more than it does to pigs 
or symphonies, because none of these things are the sorts of things to which 
it can apply at all.

To put it another way, Esperanto fails to be an IE language (in your sense)
because its vocabulary, though it entirely derives from IE sources, does
not do so *regularly.*  (You can't predict which language Zamenhof will use
as a source for each word.)  Chinese fails to be an IE language because its 
vocabulary does not derive from IE sources at all, regularly or not.

How would *you* characterize the difference between the artificial languages
Esperanto (which is IE-derived) and Solresol (which is not)?  

>(Actually, FORTRAN is a better candidate--all its vocabulary is derived from
>English.)

I hope you're joking.  It's a computer language, whose syntax, semantics,
and mechanisms of change are entirely different from those of human
languages.  Nor is the derivation of Fortran mnemonics from English words
much more regular or predicable than Zamenhof's construction of Esperanto
from IE roots.
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english,soc.culture.usa
From: cockburn@edieng.enet.dec.com (Craig Cockburn)
Subject: Re: New words for gender neutral pronouns in English
Organization: Digital Equipment Co. Ltd., Reading, England
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 16:03:56 GMT


Thought readers here might appreciate these old notes, posted 6 years ago
on the singular use of "they" in English. This usage dates from 1526, 
according to the OED.

I hope that this will establish in everyone's minds that the use of 
singular "they" is as correct as anything can be in English.

Craig

Newsgroups: net.nlang,net.women
From: eddie@cstr.ed.ac.uk (Eddie Rooney)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: New words for gender neutral pronouns in English
Date: 19 Aug 92 09:00:07 GMT
Organization: Centre for Speech Technology Research, Edinburgh University

In article <2A91B612.15919@orion.oac.uci.edu>, cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
|> .... >desire, some formulation will arise on its own.
|> 
|> IT ALREADY HAS!!  People are using "they" as a singular, gender-neutral
|> pronoun more and more; it sounds a little unusual, but you get used to
|> it, and I've found myself using it a few times as well.  As in:
|> 
|> Could the slob who parked in my space move their damned car?
|> 
|> As I said, it's a bit unusual, but you get used to it quickly.

People have been using this for donkey's years!  It comes quite naturally to
me.  And it's a lot less contrived than "he or she" or any of the artificial
alternatives.

=========================================================================

Edmund Rooney					email:eddie@cstr.ed.ac.uk

Centre for Speech Technology Research
University of Edinburgh
80, South Bridge,
Edinburgh EH1 1HN
Scotland

=========================================================================
Xref: sparky sci.lang:6623 alt.usage.english:6796
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: New words for gender neutral pronouns in English
Date: 20 Aug 92 23:30:24 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <1992Aug20.160932.7499@rdg.dec.com> cockburn@edieng.enet.dec.com (Craig Cockburn) writes:
>
>Thought readers here might appreciate these old notes, posted 6 years ago
>on the singular use of "they" in English. This usage dates from 1526, 
>according to the OED.
>
>I hope that this will establish in everyone's minds that the use of 
>singular "they" is as correct as anything can be in English.

The use of singular "they" is as correct as anything can be because it
dates from 1526?  Possibly, but then the use of gender-neutral "he" is
a zillion times more correct, because it dates from the Tower of Babel.

[Quoting an old net.nlang article by steven@mcvax.uucp (Steven Pemberton)
>
>Here we go again. Last June I posted an article quoting the Oxford English
>Dictionary, and tens of worthy authors through the ages from the 1300's to
>the present day, who have used 'they', 'them', 'theirs', etc as SINGULAR
>gender-unspecific words. It is CORRECT English. It was only later
>grammarians who tried to enforce the rule that they are plural words, and
>force us to use 'he', etc.

This is absolutely ridiculous.  Singular "they" was used from the
1300s on (even not 1526).  Gender-neutral "he" was introduced by
grammarians at some later time.  Good.  But what about the centuries
before the 1300s?  Given that every single Indo-European language (bar
the few which have lost the category of gender) uses its equivalent of
`he' as a gender-neutral pronoun, I can't help thinking that this was
the strategy of Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Germanic, etc., and in this
sense gender-neutral "he" is the original state of affairs, hence as
natural as anything.  It obviously didn't need to be invented by
grammarians.  As for "they" & Co, they _are_ plural words, even if at
some point they have developed a secondary (singular) meaning.

>Luckily, most people have not followed their dictates.

Whether it is lucky or not is a matter of judgement.

>  Suas leis a' Gha\idhlig!

Si\os leis a' Bheurla!

-- 
 `If ye hiv ears oan yer heid - then use them tae lissen.' (The Glasgow Gospel)
Ivan A Derzhanski   (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk;  iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,  Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
From: miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Esperanto's embedded sexism
Date: 17 Aug 92 21:22:05 CDT
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services


> Morphemes -- in-
> herited, invented, or accidental [?] -- are all the speaker has to express
> his meaning.  Either the hearer interprets *them*, or he engages in
> mind-reading.  Of course they do not *contain* "Austinian meaning" or
> any other kind, but (especially in invented languages) each morpheme
> is calculated to conjure up a certain meaning to the hearer.

Ah!  Now I see our problem.  You are working with the
encoding/decoding theory of language: the hearer understands the
meaning of an expression by computing it from the morphemes in the
expression, which function like little "vehicles" containing bundles
of meaning.

Current theories involve quite a lot more "mind reading."  These are
sometimes called interpretive theories of meaning.  They are very 
convincing--think for a moment how much more is in the word _farmer_
than one-who-farms.  For one thing, he isn't perpetually farming--
actually tilling the ground.

It would be a exaggeration to say the encoding/decoding approach is
discredited--there are still linguists who use it.  But the newer ways
of thinking about meaning are very promising.  Mail me if you'd like
some reading suggestions.

>> There is much empirical evidence against the notion that grammar
>> reflects, as you suggest, social attitudes.  This is the crux of our
>> argument, and I ask you to simply look at the facts: a very sexist
>> culture can utilize a grammar in which maleness is not "treated as
>> basic" and vice versa.
> 
> Yes, it is the crux, and we may simply have to agree to disagree.
> French says nothing about the French, none of whom now alive invented
> it; but Zamenhof did invert Esperanto, and that's the difference.

But E is spoken now, by quite a lot of people.  Note that E is
somewhat (merely *somewhat*) like Israeli Hebrew.  Besides, I thought
we were talking about natural language too.

	- Ken <miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
From: alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson)
Subject: Re: English Orthography (was "easy to learn?")
Originator: alderson@leland.Stanford.EDU
Reply-To: alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson)
Organization: Stanford University Academic Information Resources
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 92 02:45:42 GMT

In article <1992Aug13.164030.25947@discus.technion.ac.il>, davidba@carmel (David Ben_Ami) writes:
>Well, the fact that English has problematic spelling causes Great variance 
>in pronounciation (at least contributes to it). if English were to have

No it doesn't.

>reasonable spelling (like say: German or Italian and Finnish (not sure))
>The problem of setting a standard is problematic but it's been done.
>[again Italian is a good example and even Hebrew to some extent]

Variations in pronunciation between different areas arise whether a lnaguage is
written or not.  The fact that a language *is* written has only a mildly
conservative effect on the process.
-- 
Rich Alderson   'I wish life was not so short,' he thought.  'Languages take
                such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.'
                                                        --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alderson@leland.stanford.edu                              _The Lost Road_
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: bbs-hrick@jwt.UUCP (Rick Harrison)
Subject: Esperanto's embedded sexism
Reply-To: bbs-hrick@jwt.UUCP
Organization: The Matrix
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 05:03:09 GMT

 
Janis C writes:
 
>I do not think I am being unjust.  My mom is my mom, not my 
>Mrs. Dad.  My dad is my dad, not some word kernel.  Think about it 
>-- in most instances, the female parent is the basic one; look at 
>any litter of puppies or examine any old human Paleolithic 
>settlement.
 
>Anyhow, I don't like a language that relegates an entire section 
>of humanity to a suffix.  Yes, I KNOW lots of them do that, but 
>Esperanto should be able to surmount this; it HAS no excuse of 
>"historical value" or even "habit" to explain it.  Zamenhof plainly 
>thought that the father was basic and the mother a variant on him.  
 
Actually, Zamenhof himself eventually acknowledged that E-o's
assumption that people-nouns are inherently male was a design
flaw, and he advocated reforming it.  This problem has in fact
been fixed in many Esperanto reform projects such as Ido.  "The
Ido words for pilot, nurse, cousin, child, spouse, bee, elephant,
cat etc are general rather than specific, and it is not necessary
to imply male or female, although it is of course possible to do
so where required." -- from the brochure _Why_Ido?_, which I just
received in the mail today.  (I am not an Ido-advocate.)
 
Regarding a proposal to institute a similar gender-neutral system
in Esperanto, Zamenhof wrote: "Pripensinte c^i tiun proponon,
mi trovis ke g^i estas ne sole tre logika sed ankau^ tre oportuna."
-- _Esperantisto_ magazine, March 1894.
 
Unfortunately Esperanto attracted and continues to attract a few
fanatics who view the initial draft of the language as a holy
scripture, and who resist logical changes (even those which were
advocated by Zamenhof himself).  Please don't judge all planned
language enthusiasts by the behavior of fervent Esperantists.
 
=================================================================
 Rick Harrison    hrick@genesis.nred.ma.us / uunet!jwt!bbs-hrick
 Journal of Planned Languages, Box 54-7014, Orlando FL 32854 USA
Xref: sparky sci.lang:6651 alt.usage.english:6845 soc.culture.usa:6787
From: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Re: Problem with 'they' (etc) as 3p singular common gender pron.
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english,soc.culture.usa
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 23 Aug 92 07:09:56 GMT

In article <1992Aug23.052841.161@news.columbia.edu> gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener) writes:
>In article <1992Aug23.023626.22025@midway.uchicago.edu> gal2@midway.uchicago.ed\
>u writes:
>>
>>I don't think anyone has mentioned yet that in today's English 'they' /
>>'them' / 'their(s)' cannot refer to (some?) specific singular antecedents:
>>
>>* Every good chef knows their ingredients.
>
>20 years ago, this would have been properly written as "every good chef
>knows his ingredients."  But since the PC crowd has been jumping up and
>down about nonsexist usage, today I would write the sentence as "all good
>chefs know their ingredients."  

Oh, calm down.  People are using this construct very frequently.
Whatever the motivation, the language will change to suit the needs and
preferences of the people using it.  Consider that, in about 500 years,
there will exist linguists who will see this upsurge of the singular use
of "they" and conclude things like, "This part of Western history must
have seen a massive re-working of gender roles."

The language changes to suit the needs and preferences of the people
using it.  Lots of people -- whether you choose to label them as the
dreaded "PC"'ers or not -- feel the need for something like this.  And
this need is being met.  Chill. 

>Seems a lot better than the his/her
>business, especially since the English-speaking world is unable to grasp
>the linguistic concept so prevalent in other languages, namely that a
>generic male pronoun can refer to people in general, not just men.

EVER so sorry, but this is not natural to me.  Gee, I wonder what
language I speak? 

Regards,
Janis C.



Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson)
Subject: Re: Esperanto's embedded sexism
Originator: alderson@leland.Stanford.EDU
Reply-To: alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson)
Organization: Stanford University Academic Information Resources
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 03:05:17 GMT

In article <1684612D3E.JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU>, JAREA@UKCC writes:
>This is an assertion, and thus dangerous.  It has also been asserted
>that words such as:
> 
>     ma+ter
>     pa+ter
>    fra+ter
> 
>and others (including the word for daughter) result from an earlier
>combining of stem and affix.   I do not accept this, but am too
>timid to deny it, and thus would not haave made the above assertion.

Oh, I think it's clear that the formal terms, as listed above, are such
derivatives.

However, I think that it is just as clear that they are the result of folk
etymology on nursery words...
-- 
Rich Alderson   'I wish life was not so short,' he thought.  'Languages take
                such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.'
                                                        --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alderson@leland.stanford.edu                              _The Lost Road_
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: evan@hpl.hp.com (Evan Kirshenbaum)
Subject: Re: New words for gender neutral pronouns in English
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 01:21:03 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard

In article <1992Aug21.205058.14757@enea.se> sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes:
>Inventing pronouns is a silly game. "He" serves the mission quite
>well. Of course, if you find it more important to be politically
                                                      ^^^^^^^^^^^
>correct than to be clear and stringent, then, by all means, use
 ^^^^^^^
>"they", "he or she" or whatever.

I keep hearing this, and I don't understand it.  Some of us (including
many of us who are generally considered quite educated) use "they" as
the default for persons of unknown or unspecified sex.  It is quite
normal for me.  I would have said

  "Someone left their wallet on my desk but I don't know whose it is."

This isn't being "politically correct", it's not even a conscious
choice; it's simply the normal word for an indeterminate pronoun in my
dialect. 

It is also generally (as in the sentence above) at least as "clear and
stringent" as it would have been using "his".  ("His" is either
deictic or ambiguous between being gender neutral and gender specific;
"their" is either deictic or necessarily singular as it is the
antecedent of "someone".)

Evan Kirshenbaum
    HP Laboratories
    3500 Deer Creek Road, Building 26U
    Palo Alto, CA  94304

    kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com
    (415)857-7572
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: typology of Esperanto
Organization: SPSS Inc.
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 18:48:29 GMT

In article <1992Aug15.033352.13370@leland.Stanford.EDU> alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson) writes:
>In article <1992Aug14.161000.4764@spss.com>, markrose@spss (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
>>The reference to Indo-European is also strange; I think Esperanto can only be
>>described as a member of the Indo-European family, though an artificial one.
>
>As an Indo-Europeanist, I have to say no, it cannot be so described.
>
>The concept of an Indo-European language is strictly an historical one, based
>on the *regular* derivability of the attested stage(s) of a language from an
>artificial construct, the reconstructed parent language called Proto-Indo-
>European.  This is not the usual direction of the definition given in intro
>texts, but it is the correct view with regard to the history of linguistics and
>the actual practice of historical and comparative linguists.
>
>Esperanto, for all that it may use roots that are derived by a logical process
>from various Indo-European languages, cannot be regularly derived from the
>reconstructed parent.  Neither its derivational nor its inflectional morphology
>is do derivable, nor is there a regular set of phonological correspondences
>between Esperanto and the Indo-European languages properly constituted because
>of its mixed heritage in its roots.*
>
>It is therefore *by definition* *NOT* an Indo-European language.

I'm going to fall back on prototype theory here, and say that Esperanto is
a member, but not a very good one, of the category of Indo-European 
languages.

Perhaps the typology of artificial languages is not worth discussing at all.  
But if it is, historical linguistics has nothing to contribute to the 
discussion (not even a definition), since, as you correctly note, Esperanto 
(and other artificial languages) cannot be regularly derived from pIE.  

If we still wish to classify Esperanto, we could do it on lexical or
morphological grounds.  In this case we note that every word, affix, and
ending in the language derives from Indo-European models; if it belongs to
any category at all it is surely Indo-European.

In any case, I think it's misleading to simply declare that Esperanto (or
Papiamentu; the same problems come up for creoles) isn't an Indo-European
language; this is certainly not true in the same sense as it is for (say)
Chinese or Dyirbal.
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: qcg@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Qing Guo)
Subject: New words for gender neutral pronouns in English
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois.
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 18:31:43 GMT

There have been some discussions about gender neutral pronouns in English in
this news group. Since we feel inconvenient with the wordy expressions 'he or
she', 'his or her', etc., why don't we make some new words to make it easier?

My basic idea is to use 'e', which is the last letter of both 'he' and 'she',
as gender neutral third person singular pronoun. Let:

E (always capital, as 'I') = he or she
e = him or her
es = his, her, or hers
eself = himself or herself

Example
Old style: Someone left his or her wallet on my desk but I don't know who he or
she is.
New style: Someone left es wallet on my desk but I don't know who E is.

By the way, we can also simplify 'you' by replacing 'you', 'you', 'your', 
'yours', 'yourself' and 'yourselves' with 'U', 'u', 'ur', 'urs', 'urself' and
'urselves', respectively. But this is not as important as the above case.

Qing Guo


Newsgroups: sci.lang,soc.culture.esperanto
From: brewer@sol.cs.wmich.edu (Steve Brewer)
Subject: Re: [Anglolingvo/English] easy to learn English?
Followup-To: soc.culture.esperanto
Organization: W M U Centro de Scienca Edukado
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 12:10:23 GMT

In article <2A89A85E.17288@noiro.acs.uci.edu> cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu 
(Janis Maria Cortese) writes (in slightly edited form):
>
>>>And I'd rather not speak a language that classifies my mom as a female
>>>father, thank you.
>I do not think I am being unjust.  My mom is my mom, not my Mrs. Dad.
>My dad is my dad, not some word kernel.  
>Anyhow, I don't like a language that relegates an entire section of
>humanity to a suffix.  

English is probably as sexist as Esperanto, yet you speak it.  English
relegates femaleness to a suffix just like Esperanto does -- it just
doesn't do it consistently. 

Furthermore, words have only the meanings that we associate with them --
they don't have any inherent meaning at all.  If you're in great danger
of seeing your dad as a 'word kernel,' then perhaps Esperanto is too
much for you handle.  This doesn't seem like an excessive danger for most 
people, however.

Besides, 'patrino' and 'panjo' don't have anything to do with Mrs. Dad.
I think you're being intentionally obtuse about the issue.  I've seen
other postings that you've written where you didn't find a need to distort
issues to such an extent.

>What a dead language then.  You suppose that NO ONE ever talks about
>emotions in Esperanto?  If it is that limited, then as a lingua franca,
>it sucks.

Sven (to whom you respond here) doubtless seeks to rebuff your ignorant
remarks, though he also is not entirely cognizant of Esperanto culture.
Your remarks again either show intentional obtuseness or ignorance.
If only ignorance, you can solve that problem easily by learning about
what you speak.

Esperanto works for those who choose to use it.  If it didn't, we wouldn't
use it.  I think it's the most expressive language I know.  

I've reset the attribution to s.c.e only (as the sci.langers have heard this
discussion too many times already) and enlarged the distribution to world.
Please read the FAQ and don't bash Esperanto in this forum.  Constructive 
dialog, however, is always welcome.

-- 
Steven D. Brewer  brewer@cs.wmich.edu     ****     99brewer@lab.cc.wmich.edu
                  Center for Science Education,  Western Michigan University
Vi trovos lin nur post la tajda forkuro, bakita de l' suno, frapita de ondoj
Newsgroups: sci.lang