Complex morphological structure of IE languages in comparison to other language families

[francisgranada]

... A language may for example use inflections to form causative verbs: eat > make-to-eat = feed. The question is whether a native speaker of such a language considers make-to-eat a different word to eat.

This is also the case of Hungarian. In general, as a native speaker, I'd say that they are not considered different words, the same way as e.g. the present and the past forms of a verb. That's because the function of the causative suffix is unambiguous and clear. So e.g. olvastatni (to make someone read) is spontaneousely "felt" as a form of olvasni (to read) and not as a different verb (at least I feel so).

However, in case of an agglutinative language, where the causative is formed by an affix followed by the personal endings etc., maybe we can still speak rather about derivation.

 

[Hulalessar]

These are not self-evident facts. The only clear fact is that grammarians have traditionally codified dogs and dog as the same word (in dictionaries, etc.), and wise/unwise as different words.

Surely if dog and dogs are different words -s cannot be an inflection. It would also mean that in Latin dominus, domine, dominum, domini, domino, dominos, dominorum and dominis ​are all different words.

 

[Gavril]

Surely if dog and dogs are different words -s cannot be an inflection. It would also mean that in Latin dominus, domine, dominum, domini, domino, dominos, dominorum and dominis ​are all different words.

Maybe they are all different words; I don't see anything untenable about that possibility.

In any case, my point (from message #89) was that I don't see why Slavic aspectual pairs (dajati/dati, ustavljati/ustaviti, etc.) cannot be called "inflectional" simply because they involve a change in the verb's meaning. A bigger problem for calling them inflectional is that this change of meaning is not uniform from verb to verb.

 

[Angelo di fuoco]

It's not only not uniform from verb to verb, it's also that a verb often - mostly- has several prefixes (with different meanings) and suffixes (lesser number). That's why lexical approach is better than purely morphological.

 

[Hulalessar]

Maybe they are all different words; I don't see anything untenable about that possibility.

Neither do I, but I am not sure it is very useful way to classify words.

 

[francisgranada]

Maybe they are all different words; I don't see anything untenable about that possibility...

No problem, but calling all the verbal forms "different words" probably would make even more problematic to express ourselves quite understandably ...

In any case, my point ... was that I don't see why Slavic aspectual pairs (dajati/dati, ustavljati/ustaviti, etc.) cannot be called "inflectional" simply because they involve a change in the verb's meaning.

I'd say that the problem is elsewere. These pairs in general (or mostly) do not change the verb's meaning, at least not significantly. It is not the same phenomenon as the verbal prefixes which make the verbs perfective and at the same time modify their meaning. Dajati is rather an iterative or "continuative" of the verb dati. We can form such verbs also from prefixed (eo ipso perfective verbs). An example from Slovak: dať > dávať, but also predať > predávať. Perhaps the reason is that this algoritm is not automatically applicable for all verbs and there are many irregularities (I guess ...).

 

[Johnnyjohn]

In compiling the description of a language, a grammarian can choose to omit irregular variants (contracted forms, etc.), making the grammar of that language seem more regular, or he can choose to include them, making it seem more irregular.
He can also choose to designate certain word variations as "derivational", and others as "inflectional". The latter choice can potentially make a language seem more irregular than it otherwise would: for example, if the imperfective/perfective alternation in Slavic is considered inflectional rather than derivational or lexical, it hugely increases the perceived irregularity of the Slavic languages.
So, I don't necessarily agree that "irregularity is irregularity": the regularity and irregularity seen in inflectional tables can reflect the biases of the grammarian(s) who first compiled them.
"are definitely conjugated/declined forms"? I don't share your certainty here: inflectional tables are products of grammarians' methodologies, not obvious and transparent reflections of reality.
(I am not saying that inflectional tables don't reflect reality at all, but I think that their accuracy should be gauged in terms of whether they can help you read, understand and/or communicate in a given language.)

It's at least part of the issue. Agglutinativity is a straightforward ("1-to-1") correspondence between meaning and morpheme; fusionality makes this correspondence less straightforward (though it is not the only way of doing so).
You mentioned that Georgian is agglutinative despite its verbal irregularities: if these irregular processes disrupt the 1-to-1 correspondence between morphemes and meanings, then maybe it is more accurate to call these processes fusional. A language can be fusional in some areas and agglutinative in others.
Can you elaborate on "controlled classes if irregular in a way"? Some specific examples would be helpful.

I have explained it before, sound change is only a fraction of why IE languages are exceptionally irregular. If there are multiple unpredictable ways to form a different case or tenses, not one way to form a tense that gets obscured by sound change, they were all separate formations.
Georgian has some fused forms but most of its irregularity manifests in unpredictable thematic suffix extensions in some verb forms where the extension can be one of several separate ones, the fact the future is formed with a prefix that must be learned by heart, and by changes in transitivity classes in some verb forms etc.
Controlled classes refers to the fact languages in the rest of the world may have an irregular or complicated area but said area is made of only a limited amount of stems such as navajo with only 550 underived verb/adjectives. Even if the verb system is not closed, languages outside of Europe or not influenced by IE tend to have their less morphologically elaborated sides such as Georgian being genderless and with only 1 declension or Navajo having nominals even simpler than English and no separate adjectives.

Learning Arabic, Korean, Georgian, or Navajo involves learning complicated systems and applying them with easier sides of the languages, like climbing a hill to reach the summit. Learning Russian or Ancient Greek can be liked to climbing a hill only to find there is another hill one after the other with further walls of stone along the ways followed by another hill.

Adjectives:
1. Whether a Latin 3rd-declension adjective takes -er, -is, -e or -is, -is, -e is generally quite apparent. You can tell upon seeing the adjective for the first time. I don't know what you're talking about with irregular ablative forms, but the ending is -i (singular) for every single third declension adjective except vetus, veteris, which acts like a noun and takes -e
2. Not sure what "loan any flexibility" is supposed to mean... the masculine, feminine, and neuter cases only differ in nominative and sometimes accusative, and they do it in a predictable fashion.
3. Comparatives are formed by dropping the ending and adding -ior for m/f and -ius for neuter. The only irregularities are with a few adjectives that are irregular in English, too.
4. Again, comparatives are regular.

Verbs:
5. Perfect stems are unpredictable in every conjugation except the first, yes. However, they do form in regular and semi-predictable patterns. Someone familiar with the language can often correctly guess the perfect stem of a new verb if given the present.
6. -io verbs aren't irregular, just another part of morphology (which you said doesn't count as irregularity), only perfect passive participles are irregular (but like the perfect stem, semi-predictably so), missing forms only apply to fewer than 10 verbs, deponent verbs actual express a voice other than active and passive which has since disappeared (so they're not irregular, just a part of morphology), and we're not talking about Russian.

Nouns
7. Nouns are almost entirely regular as long as you know the declensions (again, that's just morphology). There are only a handful of irregular ones.
8. Not sure how this is relevant. There's no issue with what you're describing in Latin.
9. There are not "page upon page" of irregularities. I could fit them all on one page

10. Only two cases govern prepositions, so naturally prepositions are needed. There are far more prepositional concepts than cases, so it makes sense to have two general cases that give the sense of how each preposition functions.
11. English prepositions are used very irregularly. Latin has extremely regular prepositional use. especially compared to German and English.

I should also like to point out that instead of comparing one IE and one non-IE language, you are picking one IE language and then several non-IE languages, choosing languages that are non-irregular in the grammatical/morphological realm being discussed. For instance, if you want to compare Arabic and Latin, you need to point out that Arabic plurals are far more pervasively irregular than the Latin case system.

-An adjective ending in -er could be 1st or 3rd, but even if its all predictable, no other language has adjective suffixes are exception filled and irregular as Latin. Arabic has its broken plurals but the other parts of its morphology are not as complex.
-Comparative irregularities are more than that of English, and comparative irregularities are absent completely in most other language families, its not universal.
-Even if there are rules for latin adjectives, these complexities simply don't exist elsewhere, IE adjectives were modified by derivation and continue to systemize to this day.
-Perfect stems are unpredictable, there are tendencies, but the perfect stem is formed multiple ways, it originated as a separate lexical word and so did the non-finite forms, that's why many Slavic presents are not predictable from their infinitives. Like I have said before, it is not sound change here, and Indo European verbs were not a closed controlled systemized class like Navajo.
-This also explains why the future was formed differently in conjugation 1 and 2 and another way in 3 and 4, the future originated also as a lexical word.
-Fair enough about the cases, the stems are not what I was referring to but the different amounts of suffixes. Its not that corpus-corporis, but portui but cornu, portibus but artubus, ae/i/u/s/ all being different suffixes for one case. Arabic/Sanskrit/Korean case suffixes tend to remain constant except for some sound changes here and there and Arabic has broken plurals (but plenty of other areas in its grammar that make it very regular compared to Russian/Ancient Greek types).
I also mentioned Chechen, where extentions are added randomly in nouns such as "biesh-bieshuo-bieshamazh" or
"wa-wanaruo-wanarazh" while "kuotam-kuotamuo-kuotamazh" reconstructions show the suffixes are not fused forms but separate morphemes, they originated as derivational suffixes for nouns the way we prefix verbs but when cases and plurals were created they used them to create the new forms, its not sound change here.

 

[arielipi]

I have explained it before, sound change is only a fraction of why IE languages are exceptionally irregular. If there are multiple unpredictable ways to form a different case or tenses, not one way to form a tense that gets obscured by sound change, they were all separate formations.

I'm sorry, how do you define this observation? in all languages there is more than one way to describe anything.
secondly, what do you define as unpredictable? i think most of the times, even frustrating, languages tend to put things in order, and maybe to you theres no logic (yes, i have several friends who came to live in israel from several countries of different languages and its mostly the IE ones that struggle with verbs, its interesting to see this because they really mess up the use of verbs and one could say that the verb system in hebrew is unpredictable, but it pretty much is)

 

[HerrK]

Fair enough about the cases, the stems are not what I was referring to but the different amounts of suffixes. Its not that corpus-corporis, but portui but cornu, portibus but artubus, ae/i/u/s/ all being different suffixes for one case. Arabic/Sanskrit/Korean case suffixes tend to remain constant except for some sound changes here and there and Arabic has broken plurals (but plenty of other areas in its grammar that make it very regular compared to Russian/Ancient Greek types).

But you said yourself that it's irregularity--not complex morphology--that you're using as your basis for determining that IE languages are uniquely complex. It's silly to compare "portus" (4th declension masculine) to "cornu" (4th declension neuter), because they belong to different inflectional categories. Within those categories, the endings are perfectly predictable and consistent. Having multiple morphological categories is then hardly unique to IE languages. From what little I know of Arabic, I can point out the Sun-Moon letter distinction: someone unfamiliar with the distinction might see the consonant assimilation as irregular, but it makes perfect sense to those familiar with it.

On that subject, my primary point here is that you are selecting multiple non-IE languages to compare to a single IE language. If I take Arabic adjectives and compare them to Latin ones, I suppose I could make Latin seem strange, irregular, and complex. However, if I were to take the non-predictable Arabic plurals and compare them with the completely predictable Latin ones, I would create the opposite appearance. To make a true comparison, multiple IE languages need to be compared against multiple non-IE languages in their entirety.

 

[Ben Jamin]

Maybe they are all different words; I don't see anything untenable about that possibility.

In any case, my point (from message #89) was that I don't see why Slavic aspectual pairs (dajati/dati, ustavljati/ustaviti, etc.) cannot be called "inflectional" simply because they involve a change in the verb's meaning. A bigger problem for calling them inflectional is that this change of meaning is not uniform from verb to verb.

Just in your example the lexical meaning of the words don't change. The change in aspect in these words is, by the way, not changed by adding a prefix, but by changing the suffix. This is the only part of the body of verbs where you can track any morphological regularity, and where both morphological and lexical approach can be used, while the morphological approach used on prefixed vs non prefixed verbs leads to something like Ptolomeian orbital epicycles.

 

[Ben Jamin]

It's not only not uniform from verb to verb, it's also that a verb often - mostly- has several prefixes (with different meanings) and suffixes (lesser number). That's why lexical approach is better than purely morphological.

An example from Polish:
konać: archaic to end/finish, modern to be dying, to be in agony, imperfective
perfective forms:
wykonać: to perform
przekonać: to convince smb
dokonać: to achieve
skonac: to die

 

[Nino83]

An adjective ending in -er could be 1st or 3rd

Yes, it's true, but If I'm not wrong the adjectives ending in "-er, -is, -e" of the 3rd declension are...13, plus September, October, November, December (which in Latin are adjectives)

Comparative irregularities are more than that of English, and comparative irregularities are absent completely in most other language families, its not universal.

Are you speaking about "bonus, malus, parvus, magnus, multus" and "dīves, iuvenis, senex", i.e 8 adjectives? English has 5 irregular adjectives, "good, bad, little, much, far" (and "old/elder").

Perfect stems are unpredictable, there are tendencies, but the perfect stem is formed multiple ways

English has about 300 strong verbs while Italian has only 150 irregular verbs, most of all in passato remoto. The difference is that passato remoto is little used in Italian (and is almost archaic in spoken French) while in English simple past is, probably, the second tense in importance (after simple present).

 

[Gavril]

I have explained it before, sound change is only a fraction of why IE languages are exceptionally irregular. If there are multiple unpredictable ways to form a different case or tenses, not one way to form a tense that gets obscured by sound change, they were all separate formations.

I'm not sure what part of my post you're responding to, but fusionality is not only the coalescence of morphemes due to sound change (if that's what you are saying). The basic definition of fusionality is the combination (“fusing”) of more than one grammatical function in a single morpheme.

For example, the Latin suffix -(i)bus can be seen as a fusional suffix because it indicates plurality, dative case and ablative case, even though it did not arise through coalescence of the plural/ablative/dative suffixes (unless the final-s of -ibus was originally a plural suffix).

Incidentally,it seems likely that contrasts in Latin such as -ibus vs. -is (ablative/dative plurals for different noun classes) *are* motivated at least partly by sound change: if -is were used as the abl./dat. plural of the 3rd declension, there would be a risk of confusion with genitive singular -is (from earlier *-es). To give another example, if the suffix -es was used as the nominative plural of the 1st and 2nd declensions, the vowel of this suffix would probably have coalesced with the stem vowels -a- and -o-, creating a risk of confusion with accusative plural -os and -as (from earlier *-ons/*-ans).


I realize that sound change does not account for all of these developments – e.g. we still need factors such as the generalization of pronoun endings to noun stems in order to explain the initial step toward irregularity. But I would be very surprised if generalizations of this kind, and consequent “reshuffling” of affixes, had never occurred in a non-IE language.

Controlled classes refers to the fact languages in the rest of the world may have an irregular or complicated area but said area is made of only a limited amount of stems such as navajo with only 550 underived verb/adjectives.

550 seems like a respectable enough number. English probably has more unique word-stems than that (since we do not have as many modifying affixes at our disposal), but the available set of stems is not necessarily much more “open” than that of Navajo, if we consider the number of words that most English speakers use in day-to-day communication.

Learning Arabic, Korean, Georgian, or Navajo involves learning complicated systems and applying them with easier sides of the languages, like climbing a hill to reach the summit. Learning Russian or Ancient Greek can be liked to climbing a hill only to find there is another hill one after the other with further walls of stone along the ways followed by another hill.

If we grant that e.g. Arabic is more complex but less irregular than Russian, I don't understand why it would be harder to learn a system with some complexity and irregularity than a system with less irregularity but much greater complexity.

Also, it is debatable whether fluency in a language requires the systematic study of that language's grammar to begin with. Have you read (or conducted) any studies on the average length of time it takes for English speakers to master Arabic versus the length of time it takes them to master Russian?

 

[berndf]

550 seems like a respectable enough number. English probably has more unique word-stems than that (since we do not have as many modifying affixes at our disposal), but the available set of stems is not necessarily much more “open” than that of Navajo, if we consider the number of words that most English speakers use in day-to-day communication.

That is actually the same order of magnitude as in Proto-Germanic. The estimate of Proto-Germanic strong verbs is about 800. All weak verbs can be understood an "derived".

 

[Johnnyjohn]

Yes, it's true, but If I'm not wrong the adjectives ending in "-er, -is, -e" of the 3rd declension are...13, plus September, October, November, December (which in Latin are adjectives)
Are you speaking about "bonus, malus, parvus, magnus, multus" and "dīves, iuvenis, senex", i.e 8 adjectives? English has 5 irregular adjectives, "good, bad, little, much, far" (and "old/elder").
English has about 300 strong verbs while Italian has only 150 irregular verbs, most of all in passato remoto. The difference is that passato remoto is little used in Italian (and is almost archaic in spoken French) while in English simple past is, probably, the second tense in importance (after simple present).

-Its still more than the majority of languages in the rest of the world. There are far more exceptions too even if predictable.
-English has 150 irregular verbs of which 50% are strong verbs, not 300.

I'm not sure what part of my post you're responding to, but fusionality is not only the coalescence of morphemes due to sound change (if that's what you are saying). The basic definition of fusionality is the combination (“fusing”) of more than one grammatical function in a single morpheme.

For example, the Latin suffix -(i)bus can be seen as a fusional suffix because it indicates plurality, dative case and ablative case, even though it did not arise through coalescence of the plural/ablative/dative suffixes (unless the final-s of -ibus was originally a plural suffix).
Incidentally,it seems likely that contrasts in Latin such as -ibus vs. -is (ablative/dative plurals for different noun classes) *are* motivated at least partly by sound change: if -is were used as the abl./dat. plural of the 3rd declension, there would be a risk of confusion with genitive singular -is (from earlier *-es). To give another example, if the suffix -es was used as the nominative plural of the 1st and 2nd declensions, the vowel of this suffix would probably have coalesced with the stem vowels -a- and -o-, creating a risk of confusion with accusative plural -os and -as (from earlier *-ons/*-ans).
I realize that sound change does not account for all of these developments – e.g. we still need factors such as the generalization of pronoun endings to noun stems in order to explain the initial step toward irregularity. But I would be very surprised if generalizations of this kind, and consequent “reshuffling” of affixes, had never occurred in a non-IE language.

-I understand some parts of the 5 declensions have purposes but some such as genitive don't have much explanation other than mixing. There are other of identical form where context is just used.

550 seems like a respectable enough number. English probably has more unique word-stems than that (since we do not have as many modifying affixes at our disposal), but the available set of stems is not necessarily much more “open” than that of Navajo, if we consider the number of words that most English speakers use in day-to-day communication.

-They include adjectives, add adjectives to the count for English.

If we grant that e.g. Arabic is more complex but less irregular than Russian, I don't understand why it would be harder to learn a system with some complexity and irregularity than a system with less irregularity but much greater complexity.
Also, it is debatable whether fluency in a language requires the systematic study of that language's grammar to begin with. Have you read (or conducted) any studies on the average length of time it takes for English speakers to master Arabic versus the length of time it takes them to master Russian?

-Irregularity means one must learn more unique forms. A language with 100 irregular verbs requires more drills than one with 5 predictable declension, 5 distinctions for all verbs vs 100 distinctions of unique words. Complexity can be learned and known as one knows how to ride a bike or do a math exam, irregularity is like a history exam where pure memorization is all that matters. One learns hundreds of trivial facts for one, the other a few dozen formulas that are always regular.

But you said yourself that it's irregularity--not complex morphology--that you're using as your basis for determining that IE languages are uniquely complex. It's silly to compare "portus" (4th declension masculine) to "cornu" (4th declension neuter), because they belong to different inflectional categories. Within those categories, the endings are perfectly predictable and consistent. Having multiple morphological categories is then hardly unique to IE languages. From what little I know of Arabic, I can point out the Sun-Moon letter distinction: someone unfamiliar with the distinction might see the consonant assimilation as irregular, but it makes perfect sense to those familiar with it.

-But why is Cornu not the same as portus? It doesn't disambiguate anything. It was due to suffix exchange, while they may be predictable in this case, it is redundant. Multiple morphological distributions don't occur the same way, they are found in fewer areas.

On that subject, my primary point here is that you are selecting multiple non-IE languages to compare to a single IE language. If I take Arabic adjectives and compare them to Latin ones, I suppose I could make Latin seem strange, irregular, and complex. However, if I were to take the non-predictable Arabic plurals and compare them with the completely predictable Latin ones, I would create the opposite appearance. To make a true comparison, multiple IE languages need to be compared against multiple non-IE languages in their entirety.

-I've made big comparisons before, I could compare Navajo and Russian, and Latin and Arabic fully, I'll type something up right now.

Languages tend in my opinion to not be as distributed in difficulty the same way as conservative IE.
My metaphor is this: imagine an RPG where one can spread lets say 12 points (maybe korean?) over 4 stats, one may concentrate some points in one area or the other but it all adds up to 12. But there are those with 24 points (like Russian), and while others may have 9 in one stat (Georgian verbs), they would only have 1 in the other three (Georgian is genderless with fixed stress and one plural suffix).
One may have 4 in one area (Latin plurals) compared to 7 in another (Arabic plurals) but the other points average out higher (Latin has more "points" when added up). I have only found levels above 14-ish in IE, the exception are the NE Caucasian languages but only in the pronouns/nouns, which would be 9 if including the 4 genders but the others aspects average up to 9 as usual for 18 total points. This is my opinion, you can disagree, its alright, this is not a theory, just my hypothesis on difficulty ranking.

Maybe I described it wrongly, but why do all you think IE languages look so unique to me? If I am incorrect, where would I get this misconception from? I just notice a combination of irregularity and complexity that sticks out, I can't find it elsewhere in the world, other languages don't look or feel as difficult as them when I study their grammars (except for NE caucasian nouns and the Estonian adjective inflection from IE). I cannot find a single language that gives me the same impression as Russian for example. On the other extreme end we can find languages that are extremely straightforward like Turkic, Austronesian, and Inuit languages with low complexity, and then we find languages in east Asia where the grammar is so bare one wonders how they could not have innovated during their entire history at least some complexity, their existence puzzles me too.

 

[Gavril]

-I understand some parts of the 5 declensions have purposes but some such as genitive don't have much explanation other than mixing.

What specifically do you mean by the genitive? The different genitive suffixes of each class (-i vs. -is, -rum vs. -um) could have been motivated in the same way as the dative/ablative plurals (-is vs. -bus) -- i.e., by stem-suffix coalescences and a resulting desire/need for disambiguation.

There are other of identical form where context is just used.

True, but that doesn't mean that avoidance of ambiguity is not a (potential) mechanism for the creation or re-shuffling of suffixes. Sometimes disambiguation does not happen (or doesn't catch on) because the relevant distinction comes up less frequently.

-Irregularity means one must learn more unique forms. A language with 100 irregular verbs requires more drills than one with 5 predictable declension, 5 distinctions for all verbs vs 100 distinctions of unique words. Complexity can be learned and known as one knows how to ride a bike or do a math exam, irregularity is like a history exam where pure memorization is all that matters.

If we are talking about inflectional paradigms, more complexity means more data points to learn (i.e. memorize).

I'm pretty sure that most IE languages do not have 100 irregular paradigms, i.e. 100 irregular paradigms that cannot be collapsed into a much smaller number of patterns. Even a language like Ancient Greek probably does not have that many, unless all principal parts of a verb are seen as being inflectionally related to each other, rather than derivationally or lexically. At least some of the principal parts in Greek (such as the perfect) raise similar questions to the ones pertaining to Slavic aspectual pairs.

 

[berndf]

-But why is Cornu not the same as portus? It doesn't disambiguate anything. It was due to suffix exchange, while they may be predictable in this case, it is redundant. Multiple morphological distributions don't occur the same way, they are found in fewer areas.

If two declensions are sufficient in Latin to generate the complete declension set of a noun than it has the same level of irregularity than Arabic where you also need two.

 

[fdb]

If two declensions are sufficient in Latin to generate the complete declension set of a noun

If .......

 

[Gavril]

I suspect that cornu vs portui is an example of how the inflectional tables in a grammar book don't necessarily reflect the actual behavior/knowledge of a language's speakers.

In other words, maybe the variants portu (contracted) and cornui (uncontracted) both occurred in the corpus of spoken and written Latin (just as the plural forms portibus and portubus are both attested), but the variants portui and cornu happened to be dominant in the samples that were used (by grammarians) as the basis for the "correct" dative singular forms of these words.

Also, phrases like "to the horn" (cornu) and "to the knee" (genu) are probably not heard very often to begin with, so the first compilers of Latin grammar guides may not have had much to work with when they were trying to codify the dative singular form of neuter u-stems.

 

[Johnnyjohn]

I suspect that cornu vs portui is an example of how the inflectional tables in a grammar book don't necessarily reflect the actual behavior/knowledge of a language's speakers.

In other words, maybe the variants portu (contracted) and cornui (uncontracted) both occurred in the corpus of spoken and written Latin (just as the plural forms portibus and portubus are both attested), but the variants portui and cornu happened to be dominant in the samples that were used (by grammarians) as the basis for the "correct" dative singular forms of these words.

Also, phrases like "to the horn" (cornu) and "to the knee" (genu) are probably not heard very often to begin with, so the first compilers of Latin grammar guides may not have had much to work with when they were trying to codify the dative singular form of neuter u-stems.

I have considered that written latin is not how they actually spoke, similar with Ancient Greek, maybe the spoken language was more straightforward the way Swiss German has simpler morphology than High German. But modern language like Russian/Lithuanian and sort are the way they are, we can see it for ourselves. We could argue the extreme difficulty of IE languages compared to the rest of the world is due to prescriptivism but I cannot believe it.

If two declensions are sufficient in Latin to generate the complete declension set of a noun than it has the same level of irregularity than Arabic where you also need two.

You have to look elsewhere to see why I may see Latin as more overwhelming than Arabic, adverbs are easier in Arabic, derivation is extremely transparent, pronouns are more regular, agreement is consistent (why do 1st and 2nd person pronoun genitives in Latin agree but not the 3rd?) and the regular verbs of all modes other than the first are all predictable, and all regular verbs have pretty much the same suffixes, and one less gender. I posted a metaphor on "rpg points" a few posts up which explains how things seem more overwhelming in Latin to me, and the IE family in general (except for NE caucasian nouns) compared to other families.

 

[Gavril]

I have considered that written latin is not how they actually spoke, similar with Ancient Greek, maybe the spoken language was more straightforward the way Swiss German has simpler morphology than High German. But modern language like Russian/Lithuanian and sort are the way they are, we can see it for ourselves. We could argue the extreme difficulty of IE languages compared to the rest of the world is due to prescriptivism but I cannot believe it.

Spoken languages are not immune to the effects of prescriptivism: my English would probably be different (perhaps more regular in some ways) if I had not been taught to follow certain standards growing up. Regardless, even though prescriptivism may not explain IE irregularity as a whole, it seems like a plausible enough explanation (pending further evidence) of small differences like cornu/portui.

By the way, I saw the update you made to your last post and wrote a response:

Maybe I described it wrongly, but why do all you think IE languages look so unique to me?

IE languages look unique to me too in some ways, but I do not have much perspective (I've only studied a few non-IE languages in any depth, and I've only achieved any real proficiency in one of them).

It's possible that the IE languages look unique to both of us because the standard grammatical descriptions of non-IE languages have all been "filtered" through the framework of IE to some degree: the study of older IE languages played an important role in developing the standard categories grammarians use today. This doesn't mean that grammar books of non-IE languages cannot be reliable guides for communicating in these languages; it just means that they do not necessarily tell the whole story.

 

[Giorgio Spizzi]

Hullo.

Just for the record, L. Lepschy and G. Lepschy's The Italian Language Today (Huchinson & Co., 1977) lists approximately 220 irregular and defective verbs.

GS

 

[Nino83]

And more sites (this, for example) say that in Modern English there are 370 irregular verbs (not 150).

 

[Johnnyjohn]

And more sites (this, for example) say that in Modern English there are 370 irregular verbs (not 150).

Many of those are prefixed words.

Spoken languages are not immune to the effects of prescriptivism: my English would probably be different (perhaps more regular in some ways) if I had not been taught to follow certain standards growing up. Regardless, even though prescriptivism may not explain IE irregularity as a whole, it seems like a plausible enough explanation (pending further evidence) of small differences like cornu/portui.

Possibly explains why it takes longer than usual for things to regularize too. I know of a Russian speaker who mentioned they learn a "correct" version in school.
The question is if this type of prescriptivism is unique to European culture, other kinds actually simplify or at least regularize the grammar (Sanskrit irregularities and redundancies were removed, not preserved deliberately when standardized),and Navajo also doesn't feel as prescribed, it has irregularities but things that would seem sloppy to us are part of the language such as the strong simplicity of the nouns. Is IE prescriptivism and languages who use IE style prescriptivism in their classrooms unique?

I mean it annoys me when I hear someone say "My language is so complex I have trouble learning it and must still learn to this day!" which makes absolutely no sense unless prescriptivism.

Edit: I think I can put my finger further on IE (and NE caucasian nouns), the thing is that there tends to always be some incomplete process going on, so many non-productive forms, adjectives that take 2 or 3 genders in Ancient Greek for example, its not by sound as in Latin, two rhyming adjectives could have completely gender agreement. Some sort of piling upon piling of techniques or very slow gradual simplification (often going back to what caused the irregularity, aspect pairs in Russian according to the inflectional view yet the language still has unpredictable infinitive and participle stems, but verb class 1 is the most productive so the irregularity will go sometime soon), not so stable.

 

[mexerica feliz]

Hullo.

Just for the record, L. Lepschy and G. Lepschy's The Italian Language Today (Huchinson & Co., 1977) lists approximately 220 irregular and defective verbs.

GS

According to Spanish Verb Institute's ''Statistics of Spanish verbs'':

Out of 95,284 verbs only 49,171 are regular (predictable from the infinitive form in all tenses),
this is just 51% in percentage.

http://www.verbolog.com/arbol.htm

Spanish verbs are difficult even for us, speakers of Portuguese, because in Portuguese there are not many irregular verbs (percent-wise).
So, unless we've been studying it for a long time, we're likely to ''regularize'' Spanish verbal forms, in a Portuguese-like fashion
saying things like '' te defendo porque dependo de ti '' instead of ''te defiendo porque dependo de ti.''

 

[mexerica feliz]

Yes, it's true, but If I'm not wrong the adjectives ending in "-er, -is, -e" of the 3rd declension are...13, plus September, October, November, December (which in Latin are adjectives)



Are you speaking about "bonus, malus, parvus, magnus, multus" and "dīves, iuvenis, senex", i.e 8 adjectives? English has 5 irregular adjectives, "good, bad, little, much, far" (and "old/elder").



English has about 300 strong verbs while Italian has only 150 irregular verbs, most of all in passato remoto. The difference is that passato remoto is little used in Italian (and is almost archaic in spoken French) while in English simple past is, probably, the second tense in importance (after simple present).

Italian is similar to Spanish, in many verbs labeled as ''regular'', foreign learner cannot guess the present form from the infinitive,
but this is not aknowledged in L1 grammars of Italian:

for example the present form of véndere is (io) vèndo, a completely different vowel is used,
(unlike in prèndere which is regular: (io) prèndo).

the present form of
giocare is (io) giòco, but of
toccare is (io) tócco,

completely unpredictable from the infinitive (since you don't know when the vowel is going to be open or close),
that means many Italian verbs are morphophonologically irregular (if regularity is defined as ''predictability from the infinitive form'').

 

[Angelo di fuoco]

According to Spanish Verb Institute's ''Statistics of Spanish verbs'':

Out of 95,284 verbs only 49,171 are regular (predictable from the infinitive form in all tenses),
this is just 51% in percentage.

http://www.verbolog.com/arbol.htm

Spanish verbs are difficult even for us, speakers of Portuguese, because in Portuguese there are not many irregular verbs (percent-wise).
So, unless we've been studying it for a long time, we're likely to ''regularize'' Spanish verbal forms, in a Portuguese-like fashion
saying things like '' te defendo porque dependo de ti '' instead of ''te defiendo porque dependo de ti.''

If you think that there are few irregular verbs in Portuguese, that is simply not true. You just are accustomed to them. Portuguese, like Italian, does not always indicate the quality (openness or closeness) of a vowel, although more often than Italian. Portuguese has no diphthongs like e-ie or o-ue, but it has close or open e, e-i and e-ei, i-ei, o-u (not for all persons) and other modifications. In some cases the phonological difference between two words is the openness or closeness of the stressed vowel, like in almóço and almôço (and don't ask me which is which).

 

[Nino83]

Italian is similar to Spanish, in many verbs labeled as ''regular'', foreign learner cannot guess the present form from the infinitive,
but this is not aknowledged in L1 grammars of Italian:

for example the present form of véndere is (io) vèndo, a completely different vowel is used,
(unlike in prèndere which is regular: (io) prèndo).

As you probably know, in Italian the difference between "é" and "è", "o" and "ò" is not distinctive.
In writing there's no difference while in speech every regional accent have different distribution between mid-open and mid-closed vowels and it is not important at all (there are very very few minimal pairs), this is why it's not written.

Read here about this irrelevant distinction.

I always suggest to those people who want to learn Italian that they study double consonants, which is the most important thing, due to the fact that there are, really, a lot of minimal pairs and that they leave aside the opposition between mid-open and mid-closed vowels (which is, really, useless).

So, these verb forms are regular.

 

[mexerica feliz]

As you probably know, in Italian the difference between "é" and "è", "o" and "ò" is not distinctive.

It is in standard Italian.
In Angolan and Moçambican Portuguese open and close e and o's are many times merged, but no one in the world would consider them an example of STANDARD Portuguese.

In this thread, people are comparing standard variants of languages, and not dialects or idiolects.
If you want to change the 7 vowel system of standard Italian, write to Accademia della Crusca,

Passar bem.

So, these verb forms are regular.

They're not morphophonetically regular in standard Italian.

 

[Nino83]

It is in standard Italian.
In this thread, people are comparing standard variants of languages, and not dialects or idiolects.
If you want to change the 7 vowel system of standard Italian, write to Accademia della Crusca

Devoto Oli and Treccani weren't (clearly) speaking about dialects or idiolects, and they didn't say that the Italian vocalic system has 5 vowels. They say something different, i.e that this distinction is irrelevant.
Standard Italian pronunciation is spoken by actors and some journalist, which is less than 1% of the total (also within Tuscany there are some variatons in the distribution of these vowels).

 

[mexerica feliz]

From my experience, most Italians from Central Italy (Tuscany, Lazio with Rome, Marche, Umbria) have a robust 7 vowel system, as indicated in dictionaries
(as you know, modern dictionaries like De Mauro and Oxford/Paravia include all varieties of central italian vocalism: lèttera/léttera, pòsto/pósto, cèntro/céntro,
in only a handful of words vowels vary in central Italian). Northern Italian singers (like Paola e Chiara or Laura Pausini or Nek) really try to respect this vocalism
in singing since it sounds nicer. So, it's not true that the difference has died out outside of Florence.
It would be better to say it was always marginal in areas of Galloromanic and South Italic languages and people there never cared to master the phonology
of standard Italian (unless they were newscasters, actors or singers).

There must be a reason Perugia is highly regarded as the place to learn Italian,
and not Milan, Turin or Naples. Monica Bellucci has a perfect standard accent, and in an interview she said she had never taken enunciation classes.
Many people from Central Italy speak perfect standard Italian, just like many people from Oxfordshire speak standard British English.

It's always funny to see Italians saying things against the standard Italian accent while at the same time being crazy about acquiring RP.
More Italians speak with standard Italian accent (as indicated in dictionaries) than there are Englishmen using RP.

 

[Nino83]

This should be part of another thread (I think).

From my experience, most Italians from Central Italy (Tuscany, Lazio with Rome, Marche, Umbria) have a robust 7 vowel system, as indicated in dictionaries

Yes. Northern Italians have 7 vowels but the opposition is between closed and open syllables.
So, in Northern Italy (Emilia Romagna, and Laura Pausini, included) they say "vèndere" (and not "véndere").

(as you know, modern dictionaries like De Mauro and Oxford/Paravia include all varieties of central italian vocalism: lèttera/léttera, pòsto/pósto, cèntro/céntro,
in only a handful of words vowels vary in central Italian). Northern Italian singers (like Paola e Chiara or Laura Pausini or Nek) really try to respect this vocalism
in singing since it sounds nicer. So, it's not true that the difference has died out outside of Florence.

One thing is singing in a cd, another thing is speaking. In this video Laura Pausini starts with a "tutto béne" (and it's normal, she's Emilian). The journalist didn't correct her (because it's irrelevant).

It would be better to say it was always marginal in areas of Galloromanic and South Italic languages and people there never cared to master the phonology of standard Italian (unless they were newscasters, actors or singers).

As you can read in that article (of Treccani) also in Rome there is a different distribution (and it's easy to say if an anchor is from Rome).

Anyway, nobody in Italy would say that "vendere" is an irregular verb.

 

[mexerica feliz]

Anyway, nobody in Italy would say that "vendere" is an irregular verb.

I guess nobody in Italy would say ''says'' is an irregular form either.
If a form has irregular/unexpected pronunciation, it is an irregular form in my book (although it may not be a strong verb).

Anyway, nobody in Italy would say that "vendere" is an irregular verb.

Just like most Spaniards wouldn't say defender is an irregular verb, even though it builds the present tense with defiendo.

General linguists would say
véndere: vèndo in standard Italian and
defender: defiendo in Spanish
are morphophonetically irregular verbs, even though they're not strong verbs morphologically.

 

[Nino83]

If a form has irregular/unexpected pronunciation, it is an irregular form in my book (although it may not be a strong verb).

Yes, only if the expected pronunciation would be considered wrong (this is not the case in Italian, unless you're an actor during a shot, in that case Italian language will have a lot of "irregular" verbs, but when the actor comes home, Italian will be very regular).

 

[Hulalessar]

According to Spanish Verb Institute's ''Statistics of Spanish verbs'':

Out of 95,284 verbs only 49,171 are regular (predictable from the infinitive form in all tenses),
this is just 51% in percentage.

Unfortunately the webpage given is not available to see what they mean by regular. Assuming they mean that only 51% of verbs follow exactly the forms of hablar, beber or vivir, the statistic does not tell the whole story. The 49% will include radical changing verbs, verbs that are only irregular in that changes have to be made to comply with the rules of Spanish orthography, and verbs such as parecer which only have a minor irregularity and of which there are quite a few. However, if it is only verbs following hablar, beber or vivir that you label as regular that is no more than a choice; whilst there has to be a limit as to how far you go otherwise you will not end up with any irregular verbs at all, there is a case for extending the "regular" categories to include radical changing verbs, orthographically changing verbs and verbs like parecer. Indeed, if Spanish orthography were revised so that there was a one to one correspondence between phonemes and graphemes some verbs would become regular overnight.

In fact, notions of regularity are best approached in two distinct ways. The first is didactic. It is convenient and indeed desirable to introduce pupils to paradigms that a large number of verbs follow and to point out the exceptions. The second is descriptive. There, for example, you can point out that from a historic point of view what looks irregular is in fact perfectly regular if sound changes have taken place.

When it comes to complexity, any amount of irregularity introduces unpredictability, at least until you know all the irregularities. However many the irregularities the overall complexity is the same because when faced with a word you do not know how it is going to behave.

When it comes to something like the plural of Arabic nouns it is pretty pointless talking about unpredictability or irregularity. The best approach is simply to say that you have to learn singular and plural separately for each noun. Whilst that adds to what needs to be learned, it is no more a complication than having to remember the gender of a noun.

What can be said about Arabic nouns can be said about Latin third conjugation verbs - you simply learn the four principal parts. You may not be able to predict what the principle parts are, but that does not make third conjugation verbs irregular. There are only ten truly irregular verbs in Latin.

 

[Johnnyjohn]

What can be said about Arabic nouns can be said about Latin third conjugation verbs - you simply learn the four principal parts. You may not be able to predict what the principle parts are, but that does not make third conjugation verbs irregular. There are only ten truly irregular verbs in Latin.

This kind of quality finds itself in a far more controlled fashion outside of IE grammar or NE caucasian nouns. Having gender, plurals, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs altogether irregular in having to memorize every new word is not a universal.

 

[Angelo di fuoco]

You have to memorise every new word in some way or another, even in your native language. However, learning a language is not limited to learning by heart morphological particles compressed into a few tables. Am I right to suppose that your studying so many different languages is mostly limited to reading books about the languages with little practice, especially the oral part?
Language is about communication, which means producing meaningful texts, and that's a thing you seem to forget. Intuition and the ability to produce sense is just as important.

You could turn your statement upside down: "not having... is not a universal" would still be true. That's why we have about 7000 human languages on this planet.

I mean, just stop complaining and making lists of the kind like "this kind of language is better because its morphology is easier to memorise for me, a native speaker of English". It's not only annoying. After a while it becomes boring.

Sorry for the emotional outburst.

 

[Johnnyjohn]

You have to memorise every new word in some way or another, even in your native language. However, learning a language is not limited to learning by heart morphological particles compressed into a few tables. Am I right to suppose that your studying so many different languages is mostly limited to reading books about the languages with little practice, especially the oral part?
Language is about communication, which means producing meaningful texts, and that's a thing you seem to forget. Intuition and the ability to produce sense is just as important.

-To communicate one needs to know how to modify words in a sentence, it is a matter of memorization, having to know 10 words for each word requires more storage in the brain.

You could turn your statement upside down: "not having... is not a universal" would still be true. That's why we have about 7000 human languages on this planet.

-I am dealing with tendencies based on families. If all language families except language family 98# lack quality A, 98# would not be just different from 97#, it would be different from #>98>#. Many features can be shared, why does Navajo have a continuous like English? Are they related?
But if Navajo inflected adverbs for case, gender, number, tense, referentiality, mood, aspect, and politeness in completely unpredictable ways by suffixing a unique random extension for every single form that can never be predicted, It would be fair to point out the difference since there is no recorded language that does all of that.

I mean, just stop complaining and making lists of the kind like "this kind of language is better because its morphology is easier to memorize for me, a native speaker of English". It's not only annoying. After a while it becomes boring.

-Its not necessarily good or bad, I am putting forth a point that IE and NE caucasian nouns are unique and the comparisons don't lie, maybe the data is incorrect, maybe grammar books on Russian are just pulling my leg.

Sorry for the emotional outburst.

-I gotta calm myself too, considering all the offensive comments my native languages gets all the time, while I gave my criticisms concerning some of the relatives of yours, none approached anything of the same level offensive we get really.

 

[berndf]

-To communicate one needs to know how to modify words in a sentence, it is a matter of memorization, having to know 10 words for each word requires more storage in the brain.

This is not the case in any of the languages we have discussed. Some languages might have greater or smaller number of irregularities. But the overwhelming number of word forms are still easily predictable.

I agree with you that some IE languages possess a unusually complex morphological system. What I feel strange is you tendency in this discussion to identify complexity of morphology with complexity of a language. Morphology represents but a tiny part of the overall complexities of a language and a language that is complex in one aspect isn't necessarily complex in another as aspect.

 

[Angelo di fuoco]

-To communicate one needs to know how to modify words in a sentence, it is a matter of memorization, having to know 10 words for each word requires more storage in the brain.

I don't know why you insist on the 10 words for each word. A couple of different endings don't make a word a different word. Given that we use only a tiny part of our brain's capacities, I don't see any problems with that. Or do you think that memorising the heavily used auxiliary verbs and tenses is that much easier, especially when you need not one, but two, three or four components for a verbal form?

-I am dealing with tendencies based on families. If all language families except language family 98# lack quality A, 98# would not be just different from 97#, it would be different from #>98>#. Many features can be shared, why does Navajo have a continuous like English? Are they related?

No idea. I haven't studied Navajo. Why don't many other languages have that?

But if Navajo inflected adverbs for case, gender, number, tense, referentiality, mood, aspect, and politeness in completely unpredictable ways by suffixing a unique random extension for every single form that can never be predicted, It would be fair to point out the difference since there is no recorded language that does all of that.

Study Basque, study Tagalog, study Japanese thoroughly.
As to "completely unpredictable" and "random", you are, as always, grossly exaggerating.

-Its not necessarily good or bad, I am putting forth a point that IE and NE caucasian nouns are unique and the comparisons don't lie, maybe the data is incorrect, maybe grammar books on Russian are just pulling my leg.

Or they just aren't any good. Maybe they failed to explain that the difference between imperfective and perfective verbs in Slavic languages isn't only grammatical, but also semantical.

-I gotta calm myself too, considering all the offensive comments my native languages gets all the time, while I gave my criticisms concerning some of the relatives of yours, none approached anything of the same level offensive we get really.

Not in this thread and not in the one where you started lamenting. I didn't see English receive any sort of criticism that you speak of.
Anyways, the relative morphological simplicity of English is seen by many as an asset and one of the keys to the international success of your language.
For my part, I had to go through great pains to explain the phonology of my language to some singers (native speakers of Germanic languages) and to achieve a more or less decent pronunciation.

 

[Cenzontle]

For those interested in the cyclic nature of "simplification" and "complexification" of grammar as a language changes over the centuries,
I recommend a book by Guy Deutscher, The Unfolding of Language (Henry Holt, 2005), especially chapter 5, "The Forces of Creation" (144-170), which you can see online here.

 

[Johnnyjohn]

For those interested in the cyclic nature of "simplification" and "complexification" of grammar as a language changes over the centuries,
I recommend a book by Guy Deutscher, The Unfolding of Language (Henry Holt, 2005), especially chapter 5, "The Forces of Creation" (144-170), which you can see online here.

It didn't occur just this way in Indo European verbs/adjectives or NE caucasian nouns, its not sound change that makes them so irregular. Even some different declension endings are not fused forms. Some irregular plurals in Russian are like Brat-bratja, -ja was a collectivizing suffix that was made the plural marker for this and a few other words, it is not fusion. There were three basic ways to form the aorist in PIE, it was not sound change but unpredictable extension or mixing of suffixes to create new declensions.

I didn't see English receive any sort of criticism that you speak of.
Anyways, the relative morphological simplicity of English is seen by many as an asset and one of the keys to the international success of your language.
For my part, I had to go through great pains to explain the phonology of my language to some singers (native speakers of Germanic languages) and to achieve a more or less decent pronunciation.

Morphological simplicity? There is nothing quite like when some European language native says "English is so primitive and the dumbest language, but don't feel offended, your language is the most spoken one due to its poorness, be happy its the world language!" not that you said that but those who see the lack of irregular morphology in English as exceptional has never stepped foot outside of Europe and seen how things are in other language families. English is not morphologically simple in the long run, it would not be seen the way it is now if all of its relatives and a couple exceptions in the Caucas just disappeared and never left a trace. It wouldn't affect me much.

 

[Nino83]

There is nothing quite like when some European language native says "English is so primitive and the dumbest language, but don't feel offended, your language is the most spoken one due to its poorness, be happy its the world language!"

I still don't understand why you're comparing Modern English with Classical Latin, instead of Modern English with Romance languages (which are very regular, i.e f. s. "a" --> f. pl. "e"/"as", m. s. "o" --> m. pl. "i"/"os", third declension s. "e"/"consonant" --> pl. "i"/"es", the first in Italian, the second in Spanish and Portuguese).
Old English has nouns like "engel/englas", "dæg/dagas", "fōt/fēt", "hnutu/nhyte", "mann/menn", "frēond/frīend", "lamb/lambru" and so on.

Classical Latin has a more complex morphology (than Modern English) just because it has a case system but it doesn't have more "regular irregularities" than Old English.
Romance languages have a less complex morphology than Latin (like Modern English has a less complex morphology than Old English) but nobody says that those languages are dumber.

One example is (as sombody just said) the definite article ("he goes to the cinema" and "he goes to school"), whose use (in Germanic or in Romance languages) is often unpredictable for Slavic speakers.
As somebody just said, one language can be more complex in some area but easier in other areas.

Another example is the difference between "he enjoys doing", he likes doing/to do" and "he wants to do", "he can do". Are they predictable?
In Italian/Spanish/Portuguese/French is a lot simpler: verb + infinitive. "Gli piace fare", "vuole fare", "può fare".

 

[berndf]

There is nothing quite like when some European language native says "English is so primitive and the dumbest language, but don't feel offended, your language is the most spoken one due to its poorness, be happy its the world language!"...

Nobody is saying such a thing, not here nor would any half way serious linguist ever say such a thing. And as a non-native speaker who spent many years studying the subtleties of that language, I can assure you, English is not an easy language. So whom are you fighting?

 

[Angelo di fuoco]

It didn't occur just this way in Indo European verbs/adjectives or NE caucasian nouns, its not sound change that makes them so irregular. Even some different declension endings are not fused forms. Some irregular plurals in Russian are like Brat-bratja, -ja was a collectivizing suffix that was made the plural marker for this and a few other words, it is not fusion. There were three basic ways to form the aorist in PIE, it was not sound change but unpredictable extension or mixing of suffixes to create new declensions.

You make it sound as if all those bad, bad people did all that on purpose for the sake of making your life more complicated.
No, it's not fusion, its lexicalisation, preserved in modern Russian (братия). English has children and brethren. So what?
It is not "mixing", it is shifting.
And, once again, please stop that "unpredictable", "random" and "redundant" stuff.

Morphological simplicity? There is nothing quite like when some European language native says "English is so primitive and the dumbest language, but don't feel offended, your language is the most spoken one due to its poorness, be happy its the world language!" not that you said that but those who see the lack of irregular morphology in English as exceptional has never stepped foot outside of Europe and seen how things are in other language families. English is not morphologically simple in the long run, it would not be seen the way it is now if all of its relatives and a couple exceptions in the Caucas just disappeared and never left a trace. It wouldn't affect me much.

Yes, the morphology of contemporary English is relatively simple, and I don't know why you denie it. The English language as a whole is not simple at all.
I wouldn't say it's the lack of irregular morphology, it's just the rudimentary morphology (first and foremost virtually non-existent declension and drastically reduced conjugation) tout court that speakers of most Indo-European languages find disturbing: a related language that lacks features you would expect it to have.

 

[Gavril]

Originally Posted by Gavril
In any case, my point (from message #89) was that I don't see why Slavic aspectual pairs (dajati/dati, ustavljati/ustaviti, etc.) cannot be called "inflectional" simply because they involve a change in the verb's meaning. A bigger problem for calling them inflectional is that this change of meaning is not uniform from verb to verb.

Just in your example the lexical meaning of the words don't change.

What do you mean by "lexical meaning" here?

 

[Johnnyjohn]

You make it sound as if all those bad, bad people did all that on purpose for the sake of making your life more complicated.
No, it's not fusion, its lexicalisation, preserved in modern Russian (братия). English has children and brethren. So what?
It is not "mixing", it is shifting.
And, once again, please stop that "unpredictable", "random" and "redundant" stuff.
Yes, the morphology of contemporary English is relatively simple, and I don't know why you denie it. The English language as a whole is not simple at all.
I wouldn't say it's the lack of irregular morphology, it's just the rudimentary morphology (first and foremost virtually non-existent declension and drastically reduced conjugation) tout court that speakers of most Indo-European languages find disturbing: a related language that lacks features you would expect it to have.

But the Children and Brethren example are hardly found in the same huge quantities in any other language family. It's not bad, but the sheer amount of derived forms and extensions is unique. English morphology is relatively simple compared to European languages, but that is due to lacking redundancy, it rids itself of the morphology when a new technique such as an auxiliary or particle arises. PIE at some point only had 8 cases and no prepositions, Korean and Japanese only have cases too, so many languages have a handful of cases and maybe a few prepositions for adjunct use and then some languages have prepositions like English or modern Chinese. But what languages used multiple declensions and unpredictable prepositions?
The fact speakers of IE languages are surprised by English's grammar only shows a lack of linguistic knowledge. I know a french woman who was shocked to find out Chinese was less inflected than English, she could not comprehend that there was a language that "has even less grammar" than English. English was the absolute bottom that nothing ever went below for her, nor did the idea that a language like Turkish which is genderless, nearly 100% regular, only 8 vowels and hardly any consonant clusters, no articles, no adjective inflection or irregular forms, and extremely transparent derivation could be easier grammatically despite having conjugations and cases ever occur to her.

Nobody is saying such a thing, not here nor would any half way serious linguist ever say such a thing. And as a non-native speaker who spent many years studying the subtleties of that language, I can assure you, English is not an easy language. So whom are you fighting?

The concept of the exceptionality of English lacking certain morphology. I agree, I do believe English is the easiest Germanic language except for Afrikaans and is overall accessible, it is not hard to learn at all but not exceptionally easy. It looks like a normal language to the rest of the world, not a hard one, but not remarkably simplistic. They would more likely notice Russian's irregularity.
Linguists today are like this guy: http://www.economist.com/node/15108609
Shame.

I still don't understand why you're comparing Modern English with Classical Latin, instead of Modern English with Romance languages (which are very regular, i.e f. s. "a" --> f. pl. "e"/"as", m. s. "o" --> m. pl. "i"/"os", third declension s. "e"/"consonant" --> pl. "i"/"es", the first in Italian, the second in Spanish and Portuguese).
Old English has nouns like "engel/englas", "dæg/dagas", "fōt/fēt", "hnutu/nhyte", "mann/menn", "frēond/frīend", "lamb/lambru" and so on.
Classical Latin has a more complex morphology (than Modern English) just because it has a case system but it doesn't have more "regular irregularities" than Old English.
Romance languages have a less complex morphology than Latin (like Modern English has a less complex morphology than Old English) but nobody says that those languages are dumber.
One example is (as sombody just said) the definite article ("he goes to the cinema" and "he goes to school"), whose use (in Germanic or in Romance languages) is often unpredictable for Slavic speakers.
As somebody just said, one language can be more complex in some area but easier in other areas.
Another example is the difference between "he enjoys doing", he likes doing/to do" and "he wants to do", "he can do". Are they predictable?
In Italian/Spanish/Portuguese/French is a lot simpler: verb + infinitive. "Gli piace fare", "vuole fare", "può fare".

I know about Old English nouns, Old English is more like Arabic than Latin in the difficulties. I originally started with comparing conservative IE to other conservative languages in other families, I must have gotten off topic. Yes the syntactical usage of articles and non-finite forms exists, but weren't the non finite forms and articles even more so complicated in Ancient Greek and the non-finite forms in Latin? I have been making a point that IE morphology and NE noun morphology is unusually irregular not due to sound change only but the type of inflection used, hence they are uniquely irregular in the world in that way.

 

[berndf]

No, Johnyjohn, English isn't easy just because it lacks morphology. It is not at all easy.

 

[Johnnyjohn]

No, Johnyjohn, English isn't easy just because it lacks morphology. It is not at all easy.

I said it was NOT hard, I didn't say it was extremely easy. It is not one of the most difficult languages at all. But as a German, you must have run into many of those who claim English is exceptionally easy and/or we use it as a world language due to it being easy (not mentioning colonial expansion or American entertainment dominance). Mega-Languages tend to have their respective bigger brothers such as French to Spanish, Hakka to Mandarin, Korean to Japanese (yes, I know they are not related but the sprachbund effect makes them very alike) and German to English (nothing like Icelandic or Russian in China that I know of)

Oh to add to the mention of articles by Angelo, memorizing them in derived set phrases is not much nor are the usage of non finite forms considering one must learn what case a preposition uses, what case a verb takes, if the locative case must be used with na and v as is in 150 masculine nouns in Russian, memorizing the present stem that cannot be predicted from the infinitive in many verbs (not all I admit), memorizing prepositional usage that is as complex as in English, and memorizing some of the participle form of many verbs, and mobile stress (which alone isn't so bad, but it is multiplied in memorization amounts due to those other factors)

 

[berndf]

I said it was NOT hard...

... Which is wrong.

Mega-Languages tend to have their respective bigger brothers such as French to Spanish, Hakka to Mandarin, Korean to Japanese (yes, I know they are not related but the sprachbund effect makes them very alike) and German to English

Spanish the "big brother" of French? English the "big brother" of German? I am not sure what this is supposed to mean.