ESL Linguistics Discussion Forum

Re: Proficiency alongside "poverty".

Cool Breeze — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 08:28:07 GMT

You are right, Forbes, we have had this discussion before! Maybe we can introduce some new angles to it.

I repeat that I have never said English is easier than other languages. I have said that its grammar and syntax are easy.

"What have you locked the book I was being read to out of up for? (Five prepositions in a row at the end of a sentence.)"

That looks a little complicated, I admit. However, all the words are in a logical order; there is nothing ungrammatical or grammatically exceptional in the sentence. Understanding it calls for a good command of English but a good command of a language is always required if one wishes to understand complex sentences. That applies to all languages. By the way, up isn't a preposition in the sentence. It's an adverb.

"The Cumbria Water Board Lake Windemere region staffroom silverware safe key custodian. (Ten nouns used attributively in a row.)"

Nothing grammatically unusual. If a noun can be used attributively, there is no limit as to how many nouns can occupy that position. English would be difficult if there were restrictions. Adjectives can be used in the same way in English and many other languages. There is nothing exceptional about this:

a sad song

a beautiful sad song

an unforgettable beautiful sad song

"Compact disc cleaner. (We know it is a cleaner for cleaning compact discs.)

Carbon fibre cleaner. (We cannot be sure if it is a cleaner for cleaning carbon fibres or a cleaner made of carbon fibres unless we know the context. In fact, I have a box which says it contains a compact disc cleaner and a carbon fibre cleaner and since it is designated a hi-fi cleaning set I know without opening the box that the carbon fibre cleaner is made of carbon fibres and is not intended for cleaning carbon fibres.)"

In your opinion this is an example of how complex and difficult English syntax is. In my opinion it is a good example of how simple English syntax is. Any nonnative speaker knows what you know without opening the box. What makes English easy for him is the fact that ne need not worry about having carbon fibre or compact disc in the right grammatical case because no special case is required in English. Couldn't be simpler!

"I was given a book. (This is perfectly standard English, but looks like a passive when clearly it is not.)"

The sentence is in the passive voice and synonymous with A book was given [to] me. I was taught the English passive voice when I was a 15-year-old schoolboy.

"This wine drinks well. (We can say that although the wine is not doing any drinking; however, we cannot say This wine drinks â the adverb is essential. Nevertheless, we can say This wine keeps well and This wine keeps.)"

The fact that it is possible to use many verbs in the way you describe certainly is a fascinating feature but I fail to see the difficulty it poses for nonnatives. All languages abound in expressions that are complete or that are not complete without a word or two. Of course mastering all this takes time - but it takes time in all languages, not just English.

Cheers

EDIT: Unfortunately the "select text colour" feature doesn't seem to work. I have what I quoted from you in blue but it doesn't come out that way in the final product.

Re: Proficiency alongside "poverty".

Forbes — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:17:29 GMT

I think we have had this discussion before!

I repeat that English is often regarded as easier than other languages by many non-natives who learn it because it is the first language they learn and they take it easy and/or it is a language they are exposed to because it is all around them.

Here are a few examples of possible difficulties (I appreciate that some are a bit way out, but they are to make my point):

What have you locked the book I was being read to out of up for? (Five prepositions in a row at the end of a sentence.)

The Cumbria Water Board Lake Windemere region staffroom silverware safe key custodian. (Ten nouns used attributively in a row.)

Compact disc cleaner. (We know it is a cleaner for cleaning compact discs.)

I was given a book. (This is perfectly standard English, but looks like a passive when clearly it is not.)

This wine drinks well. (We can say that although the wine is not doing any drinking; however, we cannot say This wine drinks â the adverb is essential. Nevertheless, we can say This wine keeps well and This wine keeps.)

Re: Proficiency alongside "poverty".

Cool Breeze — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:52:47 GMT

I meant the morphology is simpler. I'm sorry I didn't express it clearly enough the first time. I disagree with you about all languages being equally complex. In my opinion there is nothing particularly complex in English syntax compared with the syntax of the other languages I am familiar with.

To my mind, spelling is by far the most difficult aspect of English, which is manifested in quite a few native speakers' occasional misspellings even in these forums.

CB

Re: Proficiency alongside "poverty".

Forbes — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:34:43 GMT

Modern English is not simpler than Old English, it has just changed the areas of complexity. All languages are equally complex.

English has moved from being a synthetic language to an analytic language. The complexities of Modern English lie in syntax rather than morphology. As you have hinted, analytic languages tend to rely on context for meaning more than synthetic languages do, but no language ever changes so that it ceases to be of use to the people who use it.

It is like driving a car. When cars first came out they were difficult to drive, but there were no road traffic regulations. Now cars are easier to drive, but there are a host of road traffic regulations you need to know. So, over all, driving has not become easier.

Re: Proficiency alongside "poverty".

Cool Breeze — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 09:58:49 GMT

Anonymous
In that respect, I would like to know when and how the auxiliary "do" appeared in English. What kind of people introduced it into the English language?
I would like to know who decided about the value of tenses of the Past. They do not correspond to the value of the tenses of the Past in latinoÃ¯d languages. Who can give me answers ?
In this debate, I do not think there is an evolution towards simplicity nor towards more complicated structures. The
communities of native speakers of a language constantly change the rules and the meaning of words (although the main core remains more or less stable for facility reasons.)
Ethnic languages are tools of inclusion and mainly exclusion (internal and external). That is why there are so many exceptions.
No ethnic language is that easy to learn. When I say "to learn" I mean to learn it to be on equal footing with a native speaker of the language. There will always be a difference, a discrimination.
From what I have experienced ( I am very interested by languages), there is no easy language. All has been done by training.
There is no natural language : everything has been constructed by Man.
I invite the readers to learn an interlanguage such as Esperanto, compare it with your mother tongue and with languages you have studied later. 90% to 95% of the time is spent to the learning of exceptions. That is why a language without exception such as Esperanto is ten to twenty times faster to learn than ethnic languages.
It is fascinating to see how a universal congress of Esperanto works and to compare it with an international congress in only one language. Many prejudices fall.
Maybe I am opening new interests in the debate..
George/Belgium

Do existed in Old English more than a thousand years ago as a regular verb and meant to cause. It is impossible to say who introduced it to English. It's use as an auxiliary in questions and negations was established in Shakespeare's day when it was correct to say both

I know not him
and
I do not know him.

It is very common that the usage of tenses varies from language to language, especially if the languages are not closely related. No reasons can usually be given for this. You might just as well ask why the usage of tenses in the Romance languages differs from that in English. Linguistic changes are often shrouded in the past and there is no knowing why they occurred.

All words and grammatical structures people are not used to sound wrong and/or odd and therefore people usually object to changes that are about to happen in their lifetime and think the language is deteriorating. This is true about all languages, not just English. People tend to think a language is at its most beautiful right now and any change will just make it worse.

English grammar has become so simple over the centuries that I cannot envisage it becoming any simpler without the risk of English becoming even more inexact than it is now. However, not all changes have made the language simpler in structure. In Old English there was just one relative pronoun and it had only one form. That made communication with relative clauses very awkward and it wasn't a great surprise that who, whom, whose, what and which began to be used as relatives to facilitate communication.

CB

Re: Proficiency alongside "poverty".

Anonymous — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 14:06:55 GMT

In that respect, I would like to know when and how the auxiliary "do" appeared in English. What kind of people introduced it into the English language?

I would like to know who decided about the value of tenses of the Past. They do not correspond to the value of the tenses of the Past in latinoÃ¯d languages. Who can give me answers ?

In this debate, I do not think there is an evolution towards simplicity nor towards more complicated structures. The

communities of native speakers of a language constantly change the rules and the meaning of words (although the main core remains more or less stable for facility reasons.)

Ethnic languages are tools of inclusion and mainly exclusion (internal and external). That is why there are so many exceptions.

No ethnic language is that easy to learn. When I say "to learn" I mean to learn it to be on equal footing with a native speaker of the language. There will always be a difference, a discrimination.

From what I have experienced ( I am very interested by languages), there is no easy language. All has been done by training.

There is no natural language : everything has been constructed by Man.

I invite the readers to learn an interlanguage such as Esperanto, compare it with your mother tongue and with languages you have studied later. 90% to 95% of the time is spent to the learning of exceptions. That is why a language without exception such as Esperanto is ten to twenty times faster to learn than ethnic languages.

It is fascinating to see how a universal congress of Esperanto works and to compare it with an international congress in only one language. Many prejudices fall.

Maybe I am opening new interests in the debate.......

George/Belgium

Re: Proficiency alongside "poverty".

milky — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 10:26:34 GMT

<Mastering all the complexities and nuances of a verb is difficult in all languages. Complexities and nuances are not an exclusivity of English. What makes English easier than some other languages, in my opinion, is its simple morphology.>

I'd say "relatively" simple.

Re: Proficiency alongside "poverty".

Cool Breeze — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 09:28:49 GMT

Milky wrote:
He has to go and

He must go.>

Well, I guess that would be part of the mastering part of the language - i.e. the complex part. It's easy for anyone to claim that English is not complex, or is much simpler than many other languages, if he/she avoids talking about mastering the language.

I am not avoiding talking about mastering English. I am just being pragmatic and concentrating on what I consider essential. I don't mind it at all if your ideas about the difficulty of English differ from mine and I fully understand that should is an important modal for some of your students. By all means, teach them what is important to them.

What surprises me is the fact that because the English modal auxiliaries have a number of rare or otherwise exceptional uses, they must be very difficult for nonnative learners of English. It never seems to cross these people's minds that modals or other verbs have similar uses in other languages as well. Such uses are by no means unique to English. In other words, similar difficulties exist in other languages.

It would come as a big surprise for a Swede if he were told that will never means to want. This is because the corresponding verb in Swedish is the most common word meaning to want. Its present tense is spelled vill. And as the German wollen is of the same etymological origin, Germans have no problems with associating volition or desire with will.

Mastering all the complexities and nuances of a verb is difficult in all languages. Complexities and nuances are not an exclusivity of English. What makes English easier than some other languages, in my opinion, is its simple morphology.

CB

Re: Proficiency alongside "poverty".

Cool Breeze — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 09:03:24 GMT

MrPedantic wrote:
If native speaker A and native speaker B disagree about the meaning of structure/phrase X, then clearly, when A uses X, B does not understand X as A intends.

In which case, if A and B are representative of the native population as a whole, the best that non-native N can hope for, when he uses X, is to be misunderstood much of the time by many people.

MrP, the lucidity of your thinking is admirable!

CB

Re: Proficiency alongside "poverty".

MrPedantic — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 22:20:48 GMT

Cool Breeze wrote:

What is not important are endless arguments about the real or imaginary differences between, say:

He has to go and

He must go.

I would agree that time spent on such things by learners could probably be better spent; though the writing and understanding of the posts in question may be incidentally useful.

If native speaker A and native speaker B disagree about the meaning of structure/phrase X, then clearly, when A uses X, B does not understand X as A intends.

In which case, if A and B are representative of the native population as a whole, the best that non-native N can hope for, when he uses X, is to be misunderstood much of the time by many people.

MrP

Re: Proficiency alongside "poverty".

milky — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 15:38:33 GMT

I see. So when you refer to knowing how to use an item, you mean knowing how to use it syntactically, right? Well, that's probably the easy part of much English usage. Semantic and pragmatic knowledge are often much harder to learn/master.

BTW, what would be the difference between "I know how to use modals" and "I've mastered modals", IYO?

<What is not important are endless arguments about the real or imaginary differences between, say:

He has to go and

He must go.>

Well, I guess that would be part of the mastering part of the language - i.e. the complex part. It's easy for anyone to claim that English is not complex, or is much simpler than many other languages, if he/she avoids talking about mastering the language.

Again, you seem to be jumping thoughts. Are you saying that the difference in use between "have to" and "must" is not a common thing?

<Compared with other languages, this is not an insurmountable task at all.> *<How surprising that you should know it.>

Again, your view is quite subjective and personal. *Compare the above with other languages by showing us examples from other languages.

And often, the less common uses are based on differences in register or text type. The language that one needs at any time in his/her learning, and what is or is not common/ frequent for that student, depends on his/her personal situation. For, example, many of my students are lawyers. They need formal language. The above use of "should" would not be uncommon at all in their environment. Therefore, they would need to learn it early in their training.

Re: Proficiency alongside "poverty".

Cool Breeze — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 13:58:16 GMT

I'm surprised. Most people including teachers, would say that English modals are one of the most difficult areas to master.

They may be difficult to master. I said nothing about that, I said it is easy to learn them. As far as structures are concerned, I can't envisage how they could possibly be made simpler: there has to be a difference between the present and the past, which is achieved through the two infinitives English has. Take the verb to write. Its two infinitives are:

[to] write, [to] be written

[to] have written, [to] have been written

To use any other form of write with a defective auxiliary is always wrong, except for reductions like: He will have. Looks extremely simple to me! If English were an arttificial language, I can't imagine how anyone could possibly make this simpler without adding considerably to the ambiguity of English.

Modals are not important?

You have misunderstood my post. I didn't say modals are not important. Of course they are, being some of the most common words of the language. What is not important are endless arguments about the real or imaginary differences between, say:

He has to go and

He must go.

Instead of reading post after post dealing with these differences, the learner will certainly benefit a great deal more by increasing his vocabulary and improving his command of the language in other ways. I have heard opinions about the differences between some of the modals since I was a teenager. What good has it done to me? It has taught me English is inexact in many respects.

After the learner has a good command of the basics, he should of course be taught the not-so-common uses that some modals have. For example.

How surprising that you should know it.

Compared with other languages, this is not an insurmountable task at all. In every language, words have very common uses and less common uses. There is nothing exceptional in English in this respect.

Re: Proficiency alongside "poverty".

milky — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 10:42:32 GMT

I'm surprised. Most people including teachers, would say that English modals are one of the most difficult areas to master.

Modals are not important?

Re: Proficiency alongside "poverty".

Cool Breeze — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 09:17:26 GMT

Milky wrote:
<To my mind, the articles are the trickiest part of English grammar>

And modals?

They are similar to other Germanic languages in structure and as there are only two infinitives in English (and in Swedish, for that matter), the modals or defective auxiliaries are very easy and simple to learn. They have no inflections for different grammatical persons, which is also helpful.

Like many other words in many languages, these words have a number of meanings and uses, and regional differences exist. The average user need not devote a lot of his time to subtleties that rarely present themselves in real life. He may never have to face a situation where a Scot uses shall or will in a sense that is unfamiliar even to most native speakers of English.

Disagreement regarding the use and meanings of some of the defective auxiliaries is widespread even in standard English. That doesn't make learning them more difficult for nonnatives. It's easy to learn the fact that people disagree on something, that some people think that certain verbs should or should not be used in some situations.

A learner might as well focus his efforts on more useful things to improve his English.

CB

Re: Proficiency alongside "poverty".

Cool Breeze — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 12:05:04 GMT

Forbes wrote:
Cool Breeze, your English is faultless!

I think that Mr P has hit the nail on the head. In English the complexity resides in the syntax. Many say that English has no "grammar" because you do not need to grapple with conjugations and declensions, but of course if it had no grammar it would just be soup.

I have been to Thailand many times. I have made a not very sucessful attempt to learn Thai, which is even more analytical than English.

Forbes, in one respect I am more British than you: I have also been to Thailand many times but have never bothered to try and learn the language. I have noticed that they never put an English noun in the plural and that there are some other local peculiarities.

MrP's comment about syntax makes sense to me as well.

Thank you for your comment regarding my English. I wish it were faultless! I think I'm just fairly good at fooling people into thinking it is better than it actually is. I achieve this by using mainly words and expressions I am familiar with, in other words, I use English I have seen or heard before. However, occasionally I step aside from the well-trodden path either inadvertently or on purpose because I feel imprisoned by the obligation or compulsion to sound 'natural'. Maybe I'm something of a nonconformist. For example, I know full well that native speakers like to place only in the same position as the adverbs of frequency (often, always, never etc.). I quite often place it elsewhere...

My word power in Finnish is from another planet compared with my English vocabulary. I would never dare to proofread a legal document written in English, for example. But since I don't make many mistakes in what I consider English grammar and I have a good ear that helps me avoid doubtful expressions, I often make an unwarrantedly favourable impression on the reader.

Cheers
CB