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From: jack@vu44.UUCP (Jack Jansen)
Newsgroups: net.ai,net.nlang
Subject: Re: natural language deficiencies?
Message-ID: <453@vu44.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 30-Oct-84 15:55:17 EST
Article-I.D.: vu44.453
Posted: Tue Oct 30 15:55:17 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Nov-84 04:39:08 EST
References: <12582@sri-arpa.UUCP> <12300003@uicsl.UUCP> <194@oliveb.UUCP> <619@gloria.UUCP> <801@aplvax.UUCP> <334@ptsfa.UUCP>
Organization: The Retarded Programmers Home, VU, Amsterdam
Lines: 30

I think that there are two issues mixed up at the moment, being
1. Some languages have a single word-construction for an idea
   that needs several words in some other language.
2. Some languages *CAN NOT* be used to express certain ideas.

An example of the first is Dick's 'leraresje' who has to be
called 'little female teacher' in English.
I don't think this is really a deficiency, because it is possible to
communicate the idea, even if you need more words for it.
'Eisenbahnknotenpunkthinundherschieber' has to be written as
'An official working for a railway company who, occasionally,
moves a big handle in one or the other direction, to make sure that
trains get to their destination'. This is cumbersome, but it is still
possible to tell an Englishman that my uncle is an Eisenbablahblahblah.

On the other hand, the Aborigines have no construction for 'what if',
which is much more serious. This really is a language deficiency,
since it will take *lots* of trouble to communicate this idea.

What I would like to know is whether anyone knows of a language that
contains constructions like this that can not be expressed in
English. Of course, it will be very difficult to communicate the idea
of this construction to us, but still ....

	Jack Jansen, {seismo|philabs|decvax}!mcvax!vu44!jack
	or				       ...!vu44!htsa!jack
  "Only the great masters of style ever succeed in being obscure"
			Oscar Wilde, 1894.
  "Most unix(tm) programmers are great masters of style"
			Jack Jansen, 1984.