Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 (MC840302); site mcvax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!mcvax!steven
From: steven@mcvax.UUCP (Steven Pemberton)
Newsgroups: net.ai,net.nlang
Subject: Re: natural language deficiencies?
Message-ID: <6115@mcvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Oct-84 11:49:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: mcvax.6115
Posted: Wed Oct 24 11:49:14 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Oct-84 06:58:58 EDT
References: <12582@sri-arpa.UUCP> <12300003@uicsl.UUCP> <194@oliveb.UUCP> <619@gloria.UUCP> <801@aplvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: steven@mcvax.UUCP (Steven Pemberton)
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 18
Xref: mcvax net.ai:1452 net.nlang:90Summary: 

I find this talk of 'deficiencies' a little disturbing.

A deficiency is in the ear of the listener, surely. If a language doesn't
have a particular feature, then that is only because the speakers of that
language don't need it. If they perceived a need for it, something would
develop.

As an example, 'standard' English doesn't distinguish between 'you' singular
and plural, while many languages do. Is this a deficiency of English? Most
English speakers would probably say not because they get along fine as it is.
However certain dialects of English apparently found it a deficiency, because
they went and invented a plural version (y'all in USA, youse in England).

A similar example is the difficulty in English of saying something in a
gender-neutral way (Chinese has a single word for 'he or she' for instance).
Many English speakers find this a deficiency, and so are developing ways to
express these things.