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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxt!marcus
From: marcus@pyuxt.UUCP (M. G. Hand)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: natural language deficiencies?
Message-ID: <208@pyuxt.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 30-Oct-84 22:27:29 EST
Article-I.D.: pyuxt.208
Posted: Tue Oct 30 22:27:29 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 31-Oct-84 01:42:01 EST
References: <215@turing.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J.
Lines: 13

For goodness sake! A language is only deficient if it is impossible to
express something in it.  (It may be cumbersome, however.)  By that
standard, English is clearly not deficient.  The fact that reflexive
forms are circumlocutory has little bearing - frequently they are un-
necessary complications:  the idea can be conveyed adequately without
using them (not so French, for example.)  Furthermore, if a language
lacks certain qualities, attributes or words, new usages and words
are borrowed from other languages, or existing words bastardized.  I
think the whole argument is somewhat sterile since languages in common
usage are continually developing and changing in response to the real needs
of its speakers (whatever the Academie Francais may prefer to think.)

		marcus hand  (pyuxt!marcus)