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Re: [glosalist] glosa + english ?
Robin Fairbridge Gaskell (Robin Fairbridge Gaskell <drought-breaker@...>) on December 7, 2005
At 04:19 PM 12/3/05, you wrote:
What will we have, if we use a gram. of Glosa with english words? Let’s make a try
Nikolao
Saluta Plu Glosa-pe, It could be done, and might be beneficial. But an “English” with Syntax-based Grammar would be a very specialised usage of the lexicon.
If we wanted a fool-proof English-type language that could be used between automatons, but which was also understandable to flesh-and-blood humans, also, then there would be a value in it.
Such a language which was strictly syntax-driven would have to be devoid of 'non-literal language' such as metaphor and idiom - as Ron Clark specified originally for Glosa! We could get around this straight-jacket by using metaphor as "slang" possibly either using italics or bold or even ^some symbol^ as a flag to signal the non-literal usage. This type of English would be in the category of meta-language: a very tightly-defined subset of English, and it would probably use the full (or verbose) form of the language, not using elision.
Needless to say, I imagine that Nikolao makes his suggestion for computer (and programming) usage, and not for speech.
I think that a streamlined, standardised and very straight form of English could be used in an emergency multicultural scientific-type environment, and then it could be spoken, but this sounds a bit like using a subset of Latin to describe a new species of plant... a little forced.
An example of #English (# = Syntax-based, unelided, literal)
v-English "I am shopping." (v- = vernacular)
#English "I am doing the shopping."
The VERB is not ‘to be shopping’ it is ‘to be doing’ OR ‘to do’.
Here “shopping” is the NOUN, object of a transitive VERB.
Alternatively, the phrase “to be shopping” could be used to describe themself by a person who has been the bought item in a slave market.
Native speakers of English would, I imagine, find it almost intolerable to limit themselves to such a subset of English as #English.
But as a Bridge Language, or an interface between people and machines, or between machines, it could be a goer … and would probably work better than a subset of any other national language.
However, I still feel that Glosa, itself, would do these jobs better than #English.
Saluta,
Robin
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