>From: nsn@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Nick Nicholas) Newsgroups: sci.lang Subject: Ido, the Expose Date: 31 Jan 91 01:50:26 GMT Organization: Dept. of Electrical Engineering, University of Melbourne The morphology of Ido is basically a fine tuning to make the lang. more palatable to West Europeans. I have no problem with it. Well, not much. Here goes: [References to the Kompl. Gram. Det. di Ido, by L. de Beaufront, MEIER-HEUCKE publishers, Esch-Alzette (Luxemburg), 1925.] [Note: in Esp. texts, the x convention is used to indicate diacritic: cx, gx, hx, jx, sx, ux] ALPHABET (p. 11) all 26 letters are used. Cf. esp: a b c cx e f g gx h hx i j jx k l m n o p r s sx t u ux v z. PRONUNCIATION (p. 11 ff) Vowels: as for esp, the ideal of medium-closed, medium-long vowels (as in serbocroat, greek & czech) is prescribed, with defacto lengthening allowed. au and eu are declared one syllable: laute - 2 syllables. To do the same, Esp explicitly uses the ux letter: lauxte. This is not applied to compound words: ne + utila -> neutila - 4 syllables. After q or g, u is pronounced as w. eloquenta, linguo. Esp. does not have a pre-vowel w in its phonetics, having chosen the russian-german phonetisation of such words: elokventa, lingvo. Double vowels, usually the result of compounding (hero/o, anarki/isto) are pronounced 'double' in both lingos. Consonants: c: ts j: zh. Cf. Esp: j: y, jx: zh. In the 1881 version of Esp, Zamenhof had zx [z-acute]: zh. q: k. Esp tolerates no disruption of the one-to-one correspondence between phonemes and letters; I personally do not see it as intolerable. r: trilled. Uvularisation is condemned in both langs. s: needless to say, always pronounced as s. w: used before vowels: westo, wato, warfo, wiskio. Esp usually goes for v: varfo, viskio. The neologism uesto has shown up, but I personally consider it a fantasy of lexicographer Waringhien, which will not dislodge the Esp form Okcidento. The transliteration of watt has been a big prob, with about ten forms proposed: vato, vatto, wato, uxato, uato, etc. x: ks or gz, as you please. Esp uses ks, but kz in transliterations of words starting with ex-, to avoid complict with the prefix eks- (former) [note: this avoidance of confusion with preexistent affixes is characteristic of Zamenhof's word-borrowing; espists gave up on applying it to new borrowings after 1910, so riprezenti was replaced by reprezenti, despite re/prezenti]. Thus: maksimumo, but: ekzemplo. ch: sh: not diphthongs when arising from compound words. so shoko, but: chas + hundo -> chas-hundo. ACCENT (p. 15 ff.) On the last syllable of infinitives, but the second last of all other words: am'ar, but 'hundo. In many-syllabled words, i and u immediately before a vowel do not get an accent: Austr'alia (cf. Esp Auxstral'io). This does not apply to monosyllabic stems (tru: 'truo) or their compounds (buton'truo, not bu'tontruo). au and eu are one syllable: 'kauzo Accentuation in esp is always severely on the second last syllable. This has meant that numerals have to be worded in accordance with what people actually say: 'dudek'tri -> dudek tri, not dudektri (du'dektri). ARTICLE (p. 18) Definite article: la, invariant: la domo, la domi. But when no other word indicates the plurality of the noun, le is used. la Gracchus is one Gracchus, le Gracchus is the brothers. le 3 e le 5 esas konfundebla a la 8: the 3s and 5s can be confused with the 8s. Esperanto knows no le, and goes for pluralising the noun, as would English (colloquial): la Gracchus-oj, the Gracchuses. Both languages can elide the article to l'. Ido goes as far as assimilating it into some prepositions, a la Italian: a l' -> al. Esperanto has not done this, and in general (with variations by author), has not much used elision. To my mind, most contemporary Espists do not use it. There is no indefinite article in either langauge. NOUN (p. 21) Singular in -o, plural in -i. Cf. Esp singular in -o, accusative -on, plural -oj, plural accusative -ojn. The omission of indication of gender indicates no gender. There is an explicit male, as well as female suffix: patro, patrulo, patrino. Esp stumbled into nonsexist language much later, and just like English has had to work out halfway solutions. A solution a la Ido, -icx for -ul, made known with the DLT project, will probably fail as revolutionary; the prefix vir- seems to be doing the job, but with familial words (frato, fratino; patro, patrino) the default-male expression is so entrenched that the prefix ge- is increasingly used to denote indifferent gender instead. Thus: sekretario, virsekretario, sekretariino - under the influence of English, with women saying that they are sekretario, not sekretariino; but: gepatroj (parents) -> gepatro (parent), patro, patrino. The Ido grammar advises not to specify sex when this is uncalled for or superfluous. This is so in particular for the two Mr/Ms forms: sinioro (siniorulo, siniorino), and the vocative sioro(siorulo/siorino). For Mrs/Miss, the forms Damo/Damzelo may be used, but not in direct address. Esp has had Sinjoro/Sinjorino/Frauxlino. There is debate on whether Ms is to be rendered as Ino (the mere suffix, 'Female') or, as I hope, Sinjorino. Ido personal names are Latin and non-assimilated: Ioannes, Iakobus, Antonius. Esp assimilates whenever possible: Johano, Jakobo, Antonio. Female names were originally indicated by -in: Johanino, Antoniino; but this century the adjectival form is used instead: Johana, Antonia. ADJECTIVE (p. 27) The Ido adjective ends in -a and is invariant. The Esp adjective ends in -a and is declined as the noun, agreeing with it. I'm not sure this is stupid. Esp likes to use nominative-accusative contrast in attributive (?) constructs: He called Joe stupid/He called stupid Joe: Li vokis Jocxjon stulta/stultan. Ido may elide the adjectival ending, and this seemed to occur frequently. Esp elides the -o ending, but this is encountered only in poetry, where it is quite convenient in getting iambics going. In both cases the accent remains on the now last syllable: amik`al ago, amika akt`iv' There is freedom of position of the adjective in both languages. Comparison: plu kam (more than) [pli ol] tam kam (as - as) [same kiel] min kam (less than) [malpli ol] >From munnari.oz.au!mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU!nsn Thu Feb 7 14:34:24 EST 1991 Article 3343 of sci.lang: Path: munnari.oz.au!mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU!nsn >From: nsn@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Nick Nicholas) Newsgroups: sci.lang Subject: Ido, the Expose: Part 3 Message-ID: <6599@munnari.oz.au> Date: 1 Feb 91 05:38:40 GMT Sender: news@cs.mu.oz.au Reply-To: nsn@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Nick Nicholas) Organization: Dept. of Electrical Engineering, University of Melbourne Lines: 47 PERSONAL PRONOUNS (p.32) me, vu (or familiar tu), lu (for all three genders: can be gender-specified as ilu, elu, olu), ni, vi, li (again: ili, eli, oli), reflexive su, indefinite onu [usually truncated to on]. Cf. Esp: mi, vi (initially ci, but Zam gave up on a distinct 2nd person singular at once), li/sxi/gxi, ni, vi, ili, si, oni. The translation for s/he I prefer is sxli. Someone has proposed that li take the role of lu and hi do the work of ilu, but such change in Esp seems to me fantasising. POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVES AND PRONOUNS (p. 34) The adjs are formed in both langs by the addition of the adjectival -a. Pronouns: in Ido, they are declined: -a singular, -i plural. Make mine a XXXX - Esez mea XXXX. Make mine XXXXs - Esez mei XXXX. Esperanto theoretically uses la before the adj to form the pronoun: la mia, a la French. In practice, no-one these days distinguishes the pronoun from an elliptic use of the adjective, so the 'la' is not seen. DEMONSTRATIVES (p. 36) Esp has the famous tabelvortoj, its table of correlatives, schematically formed. It has tiu (adjectival, pronoun for animates) and tio (pronoun for inanimates and for referring to whole phrases), adding the particle cxi to changes from 'that' to 'this'. Ido has as adjectives ca, ica (this) and ta, ita (that); the pronouns have a plural, and can be gender specified: ilca, elca, olca, olci, olti etc. There is also the neutral form [i]co, [i]to, doing the second of tio's functions: me havas du hundi; ica esas malada, e co jenas me - i got two dogs; this [one] is sick, and this [fact] annoys me. RELATIVES & INTERROGATIVES (p. 38) Correspoding to tiu/tio, Esp has kiu/kio. Ido has qua/qui, and quo,similarly. qua as an adj is invariant. OPTIONAL ACCUSATIVE: quan (whom): la homo quan me vidas. similarly quin, quon. qua can be prefixed by il,el,ol, like ta. Lo (p.39) 'That which is': Lo bela, The Good (as opposed to La beli, the good [people]). Belo in Esp means the Good, and Beluloj means the good, so there is no need for lo. The form was originally Esp experimental, I think, as a noun version of the def. article. Also used instead of to,co when no demonstrative nuance is desired: he's dead, and you don't know it - vu ne savas lo. Esp may have used gxi (it) very early; but now it would use just tio: - vi ne scias tion. >From munnari.oz.au!mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU!nsn Thu Feb 7 14:34:53 EST 1991 Article 3372 of sci.lang: Path: munnari.oz.au!mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU!nsn >From: nsn@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Nick Nicholas) Newsgroups: sci.lang Subject: Ido, the Expose: Part 4 Keywords: ALs Message-ID: <6623@munnari.oz.au> Date: 4 Feb 91 03:58:34 GMT Sender: news@cs.mu.oz.au Reply-To: nsn@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Nick Nicholas) Organization: Dept. of Electrical Engineering, University of Melbourne Lines: 100 (That Keyword alright for you, Rod ?^) INDEFINITE PRONOUNS (p.40) Ido has gone for naturalism and jettisoned Esp's regularity: thus - ula,nula,irga,altra,kelka,singla,omna,multa,poka,plura,tanta,quanta,cetera, ipsa; against iu/ia,neniu/nenia,iu ajn/ia ajn,alia,kelka,unuopa [in one-tuple; Ido allows a similar construct],cxiu/cxia/multa,malmulta,plura,tiom,kiom,cetera,mem. Indefinite pronouns referring to abstractions can be formed, a la quo: ulo,irgo,kelko, etc. Esp does this only in the context of its correlative table: io,nenio,cxio. Outside it, the normal word-formation rules apply, and kelko refers to a quality (the some-ness; cf. multo, multitude), rather than 'some thing'. Adverbs can be formed from these, and so on. VERB (p. 46) Passive & active in both langs. Present, past and future infinitive: -ar,-ir,-or. Esp has unique -i (The compound infinitive, esti -anta etc, is legit but shunned). Present, Past & Future; Conditional and Volitive/Imperative: -as,-is,-os, -us,-ez (in Esp, -u). Active & Passive participles in all three tenses in both langs: -anta,-inta, -onta,-ata,-ita,-ota. Esp has lately seen the analogous use of a conditional participle: la legunto, the would-be reader. Perfect (?) tenses are formed by the affix -ab: me amabis, I had loved. the -abas form is forbidden. Esp uses the classic compound tenses (estis aminta), as can Ido, or increasingly particles: Mi jam antauxe amis. Passives are formed by the verb esar (to be) and participles, OR by use of -es as a suffix: me esas amata, me esabis amata, me amesas. Esp has no analogous simple passive (though the DLT implementation of Esp as a bridge translation language invented one). The synthetic forms of tenses are not classical Esp and are rarely used: they involve verbalisation of the participles. Mi amas, mi amintas, mi amatas. Esperanto neurotically distinguishes between transitive and intransitive verbs: thus in the Vega song, movigxas in 'they don't move fast enough', where 'movas' would be taken as meaning they don't move things around fast enough. Ido does not bother with such verbs, relying on context; with clearly intransitive verbs though, like dormar, the intransitivity is asserted: they cannot be passives, or have direct objects. It is interesting that Interglossa retains the transitive distinction in its verb system. Thus kine (intr.) against mote (trans.) In this respect, at least, Interglossa is as careful about transitivity as Esp A snide aside to those who a priori assert that Esp's accusative make the lang hard: the insistance on transitivity makes it harder than that, and snares even expeet espists (is to drown (intr.) droni or dronigxi? [the former]), and much more ineluctable, being a matter of semantics rather than syntax. Get your facts straight, folks! There are reflexives and impersonal verbs. ADVERBS (p. 56) End in -e, but for the grammatical primitives, in both lings. In both, adverbs can have complements, by analogy with verbs: konforme al modelo (in Esp konforme modelon), in conforming with a model. Semantically, adv's from adjectives expresses manner, and those from nouns express circumstance: heme (Esp hejme), at home. Some of the correlatives of Esp turn up as compound adverbs in Ido: Ie becomes ulube, Kie is ube, Tie is Ibe, Nenie is Nulube, Cxie is Omnube (resp. somewhere, where, there, nowhere, everywhere). Similarly for time (ultempe, nultempe). Ido distinguishes between no and ne (not). Esp doesn't, and has had probs because of this: is neebla denyable, or not possible? For this reason negi (to deny) lurks about as a neologism. PREPOSITIONS (p. 67) Both langs have 'em. Ido don't have the accusative of motion, unlike Esp, but prefixes preps by ad- instead. The Esp antaux (before in either space or time - with malantaux referring only to space, as opposes to post!) is resolved into ante and avan. (Zamenhof himself had quite often proposed to change this, but that's not the way change happens in Esp. I'm not aware of any attempt to change this in Esp succeeding so far. The specification of meaning of de, on the other hand, [cf. Ido da, de, di: by, from, of] has sorta succeeded, by being fare de nowadays, and ekde, disde, for de etc. specifying this vague preposition.) Prepositions can have other words formed from them. All preps can precede infinitives; in Esp, only privative ones do (for the rest, subordinate clauses are the normal means). CONJUNCTIONS (p. 88) Preps can also be stuck next to 'ke' (that) at will: ante ke, dum ke, til ke, segun ke. Esp does this less often, the more usual expression in most cases being x tio, ke: x the following: that. So According that (segun ke) in Segun ke Rod plendis, me shanjis la klavovorto (In acc. to the fact that Rod complained, i changed the keyword) becomes Laux tio, ke Rod plendis, mi saxngxis la sxlosilvorton. While theoretically possible, the x ke construct has taken off in only a few cases: por ke, sen ke. In Esp, dum and gxis are both preps and conjs: this inconsistency is removed in Ido (dum ke, til ke), and in the DLT version of Esp. The interrogative is Ka[d], like Bruce said. The Esp equivalent is Cxu. The Interglossa equivalent is Que. INTERJECTIONS (p. 98) I have yet to see a successful AL equivalent of Wow! >From munnari.oz.au!mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU!nsn Thu Feb 7 14:35:12 EST 1991 Article 3401 of sci.lang: Path: munnari.oz.au!mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU!nsn >From: nsn@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Nick Nicholas) Newsgroups: sci.lang Subject: Ido, the Expose: Part 5 Keywords: AL Message-ID: <6683@munnari.oz.au> Date: 7 Feb 91 03:32:12 GMT Sender: news@cs.mu.oz.au Reply-To: nsn@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Nick Nicholas) Organization: Dept. of Electrical Engineering, University of Melbourne Lines: 73 Back to your fave AL soapie: NUMBERS (p. 94) zero,un,du,tri,quar,kin,sis,sep,ok,non,dek;cent;mil; Cf. Esp nul,unu,du,tri,kvar,kvin,ses,sep,ok,naux,dek;cent;mil Ido treats milion,miliard,bilion=10^12 as numbers; Esp treats them as nouns: miliono da homoj, a million of people. Both langs go for the British -illion system, for reasons that I don't want to fathom. Addition is indicated by e: dek-e-du. Multiplication by -a: dua-dek, dua-dek-e-du. Esp does all this by juxtaposition: dekdu, dudek, dudek du. Both langs have (different) ordinal, multiplicative, distributive and fractional suffixes. SYNTAX (p. 100) "Without being fixed rigorously and inflexibly, the order of words is submitted in Ido to some rules imposed by logic and clarity." Article always preceeds its noun phrase immediately. Adjective can preceed or follow. Attribute (is this the right word?) is thus not dealt with cf. Eng. I called stupid Jack, I called Jack stupid; Esp Mi vokis Jacxjon stultan, Mi vokis Jacxjon stulta. *BUT* p.106, the English solution is presented as the way to avoid overusing -n. Adverbs can preceed or follow, but ne,tre must preceed always. In Esp, the position of a number of 'primitive' adverbs is fixed to preceeding the part of the phrase they immediately qualify: also, indeed, very, etc. Partciples must follow their auxillary verbs. Esp de facto treats its participles as adjectives, so this policy has not been enunciated. An adjective or participle must always be followed by its direct & indirect complements, and follow its noun: la homo estimata de omni. Esp usually adheres to this: la de cxiuj estimata homo is seen, but looks strange. There is a normal SVO, as in Esp; inversion is used to emphasise. To avoid misunderstanding in such cases, the optional -n, which indicates direct object or attribute, is used. This happens most often for relatives. Ido also goes for the Espish accusative after 'as': me amas vu quale mea fratulo/fratulon: I love u as my bro does/as I love my bro. Esp does this consistently: it is a distinguishing Espism. But Ido does not so this after 'like' (kom). Esp does not distinguish between as and like (though kvazaux, as if, can be used for that purpose). It regularly uses the accusative like this for all such constructs. The attribute accusative is alien to Esp. Quo divenas aquo per varmigo? glacio. Quon divenas aquo per varmigo? Vaporo. Esp, like English, in such a case either uses a transitive verb instead to enable the accusative to be used as usual, or uses a preposition before the relative: it would thus skip farigxi (to become), and say: Kio sxangxigxas en akvon per varmigo? (note ugly Euro use of into in change into. I prefer je, but en is very much entrenched) against En kion sxangxigxas akvo per varmigo? TIMES & MOODS (p.106) 'Logical' tense, like Esp. "il skribas": il dicis ke il skribas - He said he was writing. "vu skribez a me": il volas, ke me skribez ad il - He wants me to write to him. Volitive widely used, taking over many of the functions of the subjunctive, like in Esp. Ido seems proud of its past and future infinitive: "Why would we use sys- tematically only the lengthly: me pensas ke me pruvos or: ke mi esas pruvonta, when we may say: me pensas pruvor?" Esp doesn't. In such cases, I reckon the subordinate phrase is much clearer, and in my use of the language I try to use them more often. Esp says: mi opinias ke mi pruvos, or mi opinias min pruvonta (attribute). Beaufront recommends the active rather than the passive whenever possible. In Esp the passive is a pain in the arse, due to the question of aspect versus simultaneity I alluded to previously; so the medial or active voice are routinely used. From: nsn@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Nick Nicholas) Path: mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU!nsn Newsgroups: sci.lang Subject: Ido, the Expose. Extra: Apology & Apologia Expires: References: Sender: Reply-To: nsn@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Nick Nicholas) Followup-To: Distribution: world Organization: Dept. of Electrical Engineering, University of Melbourne Keywords: AL Before I continue with my critique of Ido, I'd like to present my thoughts on ALs in general, so that y'all know where I'm coming from. AL communities have been arguing amongst themselves for at least the past century; they've pioneered the art of flaming (I recall those cute antisemitic flames against Esp by Occidentalists in the '20s, and Waringhien's rabid dismissal of Ido), and have laid waste to any concept of objectivity in interlinguistics. Let us recall that most ALs have aspired to an IL (inter- language) role: a universal language. In such a context, ease of learning is paramount. But as many here have tried to prove, determination of this ease is nigh impossible. For example, it *can* be asserted that German declension is better than Sanskrit, because it can be objectively described as simpler (please correct me if I'm wrong). But assuming the regularity endemic to ALs, what makes a uniformalised (?!) system a la Finnish better than German, if we're no longer talking cases but, in effect, postpositions? These questions are non-trivial, and assertions that Esp's accusative are the root of all evil are just not good enough to attempt to resolve them. Things are especially not-clearcut when one moves beyond morphology. Take syntax. Sure, the use of position to indicate object is *probably overall* better for an AL than Esp's morphemic system. This doesn't mean a good case cannot be made for morphemic indication; and it MUST be recognised that a consistent application of position in such a role requires a major rethink of syntactic structures. Let us recall that Esp, which lacked cases in nouns in 1881, reverted to them because it retained (despite the author's knowledge of Hebrew) the syntactic structures (such as relative clauses) bequeathed us by latin, a langauge which very much used its cases to full advantage; and it ratained them because the European language communities, which were his main target (whether rightly or not), retained these structures, whether they subsequently discarded case or not. To abandon case, and yet retain syntactic coherence, without becoming inconsistently bound to a particular NL's nonce irregular syntax (which is tantamount to NL gravedigging), requires a reformulation of syntax which most ALs aren't prepared to do. If Occidental has no case with nouns, but does with personal or relative pronouns, it is being inconsistent, and hitching itself to what Romance langs and English do to retain both latin-derived syntax and their lack of accusative. This is not good enough: if you're gonna throw out the accusative, throw out all its syntactic baggage too; don't go halfway to satisfy the naively parochial instinct of a particular language group. This is definitely the case with the neo-latin brigade, with Basic English, and at times even with Interglossa, though I suspect this is Hogben's styoopidity in action, rather than any intrinsic fault with what is really a rather nice language (stay tuned for Interglossa expose). Ido's optional accusative solution is similarly laughable. The accusative is used to avert confusion between a nominative and accusative in a phrase; yet it's absence does not unambiguously indicate the nominative case in such a circumstance, whereas it does in Esp. Policing such an accustive is impractical (Waringhien takes delight in quoting Ido howlers with the accusative); it lacks rigour, and must be a shit for computer parsing. (If you wanna see how Esp copes with such parsing, check out the DLT machine translation project, which uses Esp as a bridge lang. More info in soc. culture.esperanto.) More generally, such NL-dependent syntactic liberties and flights of fancy are so dependent on cultural background AND make so many demands on it as to make a mockery of the idea of an IL. Esp's accusative may or may not be hard to learn; but at least an Esp phrase is syntactically unambiguous (in that respect at least; there are fine details at which Esp fails too). I would not say the same for Ido, Occidental, or regrettably even Interglossa. Thus I propose a classification of ALs as to how they treat the accusative, and syntax in general: HONEST ALs: they keep the European NLs' syntax, and the morphology that is its carrier (accusatives, adjective/adverb/noun distinction). Espo, Volapuk GUTLESS ALs (sorry for the impassioned rhetoric): keep the syntax but not the morphology. As a result, follow French or English syntax blindly in whatever it does to get itself out of this mess. They do not challenge the syntax as they should to be consistent, and are thus gutless. Ido (to an extent), the neo-latin projects, Interglossa as practiced by Hogben, Basic English. The traditional NL learning's failure to emphasise syntax, semantics and stylistics (don't laugh! Communication demands some redundancy, and stylistics is the codification of this) should not delude us into thinking that, just 'cause their morphology is simpler than Esp, that they are necessarily simpler, period. Oh, and if anyone still thinks that, if the AL text looks just like latin, its a good AL, could they please give up now. 'Prima Vista' recognisability is bullshit, because it ignores the inherent difficulties in active use of the AL. It's all very well for Occidental to say liber-t'a for liberty, but howcome nobody says liberore? (Occidental has about six synonyms for -ness) In IL, it is a stoopid strategy: if the polyglots can read your AL text, so what? They already know English and French and German and Latin: they don't need your AL as an IL, and are thus the wrong audience. Be simple and orthogonal, and you'll catch the real audience: those who will find your lang easy to learn. It is a myth, of course, that the Esp community does *not* consist of polyglots; but that's for another newsgroup... BRAVE ALs: overhaul the syntax too. Bloody brave of 'em, 'cause a new syntax is much harder for your SWE (Stiff White European) to pick up than any accusative, whatever voodoo Bruce Gibson might invoke (sorry, Bruce, but you treat Esp's accusative so spitefully, I suspect you haven't thought out the consequences). Lojban claims to be like this. Interglossa is potentially like this. Glosa I'm not too sure of. ********* As for me: the langauges I have time for are consistent. Esp is grammatically and agglutinatively consistent, within experimental error (stylistic convention under European influence, etc.) Ido is an unsatisfying compromise between agglutinatism and flexionality (?!). Its morphology is a bit more complex than Esp, and its lexicon better chosen; I do not think these two issues are decisive, since both are ultimately arbitrary (unless you want a panEuro langauge that doesn't offend your syntactic sensibilities). Ido does not diverge sufficiently from Esp to merit attention outside its shadow; nor do the zillions of Esp reform projects. Its wordmaking is a failure; and Esp socio- linguistic policy is such that Esp has cornered the market in its type of AL: there is no room for both Ido and Esp, whereas there is for Occidental and Esp or Lojban and Esp. As a patchup of Esp, Ido is of a lesser value in instructing us on AL methodology, though it is of essential interest to AL history and to Esperantology (its influence on Esp has been considerable), and its choice of vocab was a definite improvement. But it can never escape being compared to Esp; and Esp's predominance is such that Ido suffers in this comp- arison. I have similar doubts on the importance of neo-latins and Basic, not because they don't diverge from Esp, but because they teach little that you couldn't learn from NLs anyway. They may have a sociolinguistic niche (all those AL enthusiasts running away from those nasty Esp kv's %^); they may even be important for Interlinguistics; but Linguistics proper has little to gain from them, in my opinion. Same goes for Basic. And a final recommendation on which AL to learn. If your interest is mainly non-scientific (you want penpals, you want free lodging overseas, you want to see a culture in embryo), I'd be stoopid (or an Idist %^) not to recommend Esp. If you are interested in scientific issues, langauge theory, computer applications, etc., Esp is still worth looking at, but you'll probably gain more from a 'BRAVE AL'. I cautiously recommend Interglosa, am still waiting on Glosa, and redirect you to lojbab's well-written articles for you to make up your mind about Lojban. Ido is not dead, but to me not ultimately interesting. This does not mean the Expose on Ido won't continue, with a critique on morphology (qualified by what I've rambled in this article) coming up. From: nsn@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Nick Nicholas) Path: mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU!nsn Newsgroups: sci.lang Subject: Ido, the Expose: Part 6 Expires: References: Sender: Reply-To: nsn@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Nick Nicholas) Followup-To: Distribution: world Organization: Dept. of Electrical Engineering, University of Melbourne Keywords: AL Critique of Morphology. Alphabet. Esp has an isomorphism between letters and phonemes; Ido has an injective mapping. Though Esp's solution is the optimal one, the solution adopted by Ido and the neo-latins is admittedly not that hard to learn. The resultant similarity between Ido words and their NL sources is nice, but not decisive: If you don't recognise sequere in sekvi, you are being wilful. And as I've tried to prove in my APOLOGIA, first-sight recognition of words in an AL is bad politics, certainly for an IL. Accentuation. Again Esp's solution is optimal. I'm not so sure I like Ido's system: I suspect there's one exception too many. Article: there is no objective need for the plural article le. Interglossa does have a plural article, but it is needed there for the obvious reason that no noun has a plural marker in its form. Ido's exception-making for proper nouns in this respect is too ad hoc. The question of elisions is arbitrary, but I don't think they're necessary: in an AL, you don't want to be concise above being clear. Well, not with elision, anyway. Both languages get along fine without an indefinite article. Noun: The Esp use of +j as a distinct plural marker seems to me somewhat cleaner logically than the Ido -i; but this is again arbitrary. Congrats to Ido for tackling sexism head on. Adjective: Should there be adjectival concord? Probably not. Esp does make semantic distinctions with the agreement or non-agreement of adjs, and Ido does not seem to cope too well with these; this is yet another instance of the Honest/Gutless AL dichotomy: if Ido had dared challenge its syntax (as it in fact halfheartedly tries to do in this case: see Syntax) it would have resolved the issue without having to resort to voodoo. Waringhien claims Esp has concord to maintain a consistent morphological structure. I have my doubts. I believe Zamenhof proposed the removal of concord both in 1894 and 1906. May I again remind readers that pointing out faults in Esp does not mean proposing their removals: Esp has gotten where it's at warts and all, and has to accepted as a package. Pronouns: The vu/vi/tu distinction seems unnecessary; Ido seems prone to dragging in a lot of bells & whistles for no apparent reason. Esp's Vi, analogous to Std English's You, does the job, with y'all/vi cxiuj used if more specification is needed. Ido's gender-nonspecific 3rd person pronouns are quite sensible. Some espists have proposed hi to correspond to ilu; this looks like failing, thank God. I prefer sx/li, analogous to our s/he. The truncations in pronouns like on(u) (they also pop up in prepositions and conjuctions) seem to me pointless; yet they pop up even in Interglossa (or perhaps that shouldn't be a surprise?) This attempt to conform to a certain region's sense of euphony seems to me inconsistent and self- defeating. This gotes for (i)ca etc. too. I am happy with both the qua/qui/quo distinction and the kiu/kio distinction. Lo seems unnecessary. The correlative table of Esp seems to me an asset, and that other ALs seem to sacrifice it on the altar of naturalism is to me a pity. Verb: while the infinitive-with-tense is not evil per se, I fail to see the point of using it instead of subordinate phrases if the meaning is so finely shaded that a tenseless infinitive won't do. In fact, I don't think infinitives are ultimately necessary at all; in both languages you can get away with using the verbal noun instead (i hope to see you - i hope for your seeing), though the semantics hasn't been polished here (would seeing have to include a passive marker) because no-one uses a noun in such a context; if you do use it like that, you sure won't sound colloquial. Interglossa dispenses with the disctinction between infinitive, subordinate phrase and verbal noun; and though it does it in too anglo-specific a manner for my liking, this is a good idea. I don't mind the plethora of participles, but admit that it takes time for people to get used to them. -ab- is to me flexional rather than agglutinative, and thus anathema. It replaces Esp's relative simplicity (esti + participle, which makes sense, or particle with word, which is preferable) with a latinate construct that brings back bad memories of conjugation tables. The use of -es for passive, on the other hand, has been called ingenious even by Espists. Esp's insistence on transitivity is a pain on the learner, who has to learn whether each verb is transitive separately; but Ido's alternative seems to me too dependent on WestEuro semantics. An AL, which is no-one's native language, cannot afford to leave semantics to context. Prepositions. I take back what I mumbled earlier about pedantry in Ido's prepositions. They clean up a couple of things left loose by Esp (positional against temporal 'before', etc.) Numbers: Esp's number system is simpler. In most aspects, anyway. Syntax: I'll let youse decide. In the light of my APOLOGIA, I consider much of Ido's syntax wishful thinking - especially the handling of the notorious optional accusative. In morphology, however, despite some infelicities, Ido can still be compared to Esp without people cracking up laughing. Unless they're dogmatic --- oops! There I go trying to stir up flames again %^) Subject: Ido expose: just a bit more Organisation: Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Melbourne Smiley-Convention: %^) Date: Tue, 16 Apr 91 12:28:26 +1000 From: nsn@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU Ido derivation: (for this one, I'm using as my reference 'Eseo pri Ido' by Tazio Carlevaro, Series: Studoj 5, Kultura Centro Esperantista, La Chaux-de-Fons, France, 1976) Direct derivation (One part of speech from another. Ido and Esperanto both admit the semantic classification of stems into noun, adjective, and verb, though Esperanto did so a posteriori, as a response to Ido's challenge). semantic category: noun vort + o: vorto (word. trivial derivation). a: (something which is a word. eg. vorta texto: a text which is a word, not a text about words (vortala). A better example: orfa homo: a person who is an orphan. Vitra fenestro: a window which is glass. Esperanto does not bother about such niceties, as is shown in Indirect Derivation. An adjective in Esp is 'of or pertaining to'). ar: non-existent. You cannot directly form a verb from a noun, with de Beaufront claiming that 'sanar', to health, is nonsenical, becuase it should mean 'to be health'. Esp has no such problem, with 'sani' used as 'to be healthy'; admittedly the semantics of such verbs, 'to act in a manner associated with the noun' is vague. depending on preference, you can be the subject of 'to car' by driving it, and a car can be the subject of to car, a la lojban, in being it. Still, the problem is not as great as some Idists have claimed, and most NL nonce verbalisations (eg. to house, which has very diverging meanings in English, French, and German) are not carried into esp. semantic category: adjective bon + o: the object or person which is good: the good one. Esp interprets this as the quality described by the adjective: bono there is a terser version of boneco, goodness. The exact semantic difference between these two forms is very muddled in classical Esperanto, but seems to be dying down in current Esp. a: bona, good (trivial). i: non-existent. It does too exist in Esp, as an emphatic version of 'to be good'. semantic category: verb manj + o: the action of eating. Same in Esp, though again some muddling in Esperanto as Zamenhof was not consistent in applying this (mangxo is often "elliptically" used to denote a meal, mangxajxo). Again, I think current usage is moving closer to the prescription. + a: non-existent. In Esp, it's 'of or pertaining to the action of eating', with the vagueness that entails. + ar: manjar: to eat. trivial. In summary: Ido is more precise, whereas Esp is more orthogonal, though the scheme is messy in practice due to its a posteriori origin. I happen to prefer Esp's system, but of course I would %^) Indirect derivation: affixes. Prefixes. before noun stems: arki- chief. (In Esp, the stem cxef- is used 'irregularly' [according to the classical theory] as a prefix) bo- relation by marriage. As in Esp. ex-. Eks- in Esp. gala- gala. Esp uses the stem fest-, though I'm not sure it crops up that often in contexts such that it should be called a prefix, and thus irregular. ge- members of both sexes. As in Esp, where it is now sporadically used to form a gender-nonspecific term. para- prevents. parapluvo - umbrella. No corresponding term in Esp; the closest would be kontraux- -ilo. before verb stems: (by the way, this business of 'before verb stems' holds in Esp too, only there it can convert stems' character. Reformo - formo is converted into a verb, so that what is denoted is a reforming, not a repeated form.) dis-. As in Esp. mis-. As in Esp; I think it was already there in Esp, but was only officially adopted in '22. par-. Completion of action; perfective. Esperanto has gone through many unsatisfactory alternatives for this, and seems to have settled down to the prefix use of the stem fin- retro-. I think this was already in Esp at the time. ri-. re- in Esp. before verb and noun stems: anti-. Sporadic in Esp, but the native form is the preposition kontraux- bi-. The number du- is used in Esp, though this necessitates the secondary, rather than primary, word-part-analysis of the classical scheme, as does the use of prepositions in compounds. But that's a long story. mi- half. Esp uses the native duon- as a prefix (yes, irregular again according to the classical rules. At least these rules have apparently stopped the 'spread' of such irregularities: I don't think new ones are being added to the list.) before verb and adjective: des- un-. Esp uses mal-. Ido discourages the use of mal-; recent Esp both encourages and discourages it, depending on your literary school and kind of inventiveness. before all kinds: pre-, as a synonym of avan- and ante- (which are confused in Esp anyway.) Infixes (Carlevaro's term) You get new nouns from nouns by -edo -full: bokedo: mouthfull. Esp uses the stem -pleno, which necessitates the secondary analysis (mouth-full thing, not fullness of mouth). -io region. dukio duchy. After much controversy in the '30s, this suffix is now established in Esp, replacing the semantically vague -ujo (container). -iero tree or socket. pomiero apple tree, glaviero scabbard. For the first Esp used to use -ujo but now uses -arbo; for the second Esp has -ingo. -uno a bit of, a constituent part of. Esp -ero -yuno offspring of animals. Esp has -ido -ano member (somewhat semantically looser than in English, eg you can have a member of a langauge). as in Esp. -aro a collection or set of. homaro - humanity. as in Esp -estro. leader of, as in Esp -ismo as in Esp -ido offspring, as in Esp. from verbs by -ario - the receiver of something. pagario the payee. This was proposed in Esp in 1974, but the passive participle seems adequate. -uro - the result of an action. konstrukturo: construction. Ido has a fine semantic distinction between -uro and -ajo, which Esp does not bother with. -ado - duration of an action. Esp uses it both in this sence and more generally to convert a verb into a noun; this leads to conflict in words like 'hammerstroke' [nondurational] (which Esp will dodge with martelbato) -ilo tool. as in Esp. from nouns and adjectives by -ino female -ulo male (in esp, the person suffix: esp has bonulo, not bono. Sexism in Esp is a long story). -eso quality. -eco in Esp. from nouns and verbs by -ajo (object. ajxo in Esp.) one gets new adjectives from nouns by -ea having the colour of. Esp just uses -kolora -ika having the illness of. Esp doesn't bother with a separate designator. -ivora -ivorous. Esp sneakily appropriated the stem vor- from Ido, and -vora analyses quite classically. Besides, I don't remember de Beaufront listing this one. -oza full of. Archaic Esp form, still occasionally seen. favorite affix overused by Idists, and by Espists to satirise Idists. from verbs by -enda. must be -. Taken by Esp from Ido and officialised in '53. -iva. capable of -. Has status slightly better than -oza in Esp, but the native form is -pova. -ebla. capable of being -ed [passive]. From esp. -inda. worthy of -. from Esp. from nouns and adj by -atra -ish (not quite). Esp deals with this periphrastically or with a wider interpretation of -eca. from nouns and verbs by -ala relating to. Esp just uses -a. Some ambiguity can result, and is usually resolved by word compounding a la German (Komputscienco) one can get verbs from nouns by -agar to act. Esp has no special infix corresponding, as seen in direct derivation -ifar to produce: floro - florifar. Esp has no special form, though periphrasis is always possible. -izar to provide with. krono - kronizar, to crown. -iz is the third quasi- Esp affix lurking in the backround, but is rarely called upon. Esp s quite happy to say kroni ('what do you do with crowns but put them on people's heads, right?') from adjs and verbs by -eskar inchoative, to become. Covered in Esp by -igx (passive) and ek- (active, though the dichotomy is obscured in early Esp). all types by: -igar to make someone do something. from Esp., where it is used (as is igx) to distinguish between transitivity and intransitivity. These infixes only modulate the meaning of the stem they are appended to (ie they give verb from verb, adj from adj, and noun from noun): -ach disparaging. From Esp (just. It was officialised in 1909) -eg. Augmentative. From Esp -et. diminutive, from esp -um indefinite semantic relation, "used even less frequently than in Esp" (in any case, um in Esp, like the prefix use of stems, has gradually become limited to a few specific circumstances of use.) That'll do for the Ido Expose for now.