[Gllug] Monthly GLLUG grammar report

[Nix]

On Tue, 26 Nov 2002, dylan at dylan.me.uk mused:
> On Tuesday 26 November 2002 17:04, Dave Cridland [Home] wrote:
>> Ah, but that is, I think, a known factor - people who learn a foreign
>> language usually tend to speak it more correctly then a native speaker.
> 
> The form of a language taught to foreign learners is usually the socially 
> preferred form (for English, we might call it 'BBC' English) and is usually 

RP, actually; `Received Pronunciation'.

`BBC English' is merely because the BBC once used to standardize on it;
nowadays, they seem to allow just about any rabble to become announcers
and newsreaders (especially on the World Service), and some of them have
accents so strong even I can't follow them (and I can follow thick
Scottish, Irish, Welsh, and Cornish accents without overmuch trouble).

>> Learning the grammer of your own native language is significantly
>> harder, I think, than learning the grammer of a foreign one.
> 
> Children generally manage to learn the core by the age of 3 to 5, with little 
> if any direct coaching...

Indeed. They have substantial advantages over a later learner, too; the
brain is much more plastic, for instance. It is known that e.g. the
auditory cortex detects inter-word gaps and emphasises them, and detects
differing vocables that should map to the same syllable from the POV of
the native language, and performs that mapping `in hardware' (trimming
back neurons).

This latter is the cause of the Japanese `r'/`l' confusion; they often
literally can't hear the difference between the two, and it's damned hard
to get it right in speech if you can't hear when you're going wrong.

> Depends how you count them. Actually, the only ones which don't fit the 
> general rules are: BE, HAVE, GET and DO. The other 'irregular' verbs simply 

i.e., the really common ones.

> have patterns which are so subtle and complex there's no point consciously 
> learning them (unless, like me, you're a theoretical linguistics geek.)

I see irregularities and weird complex grammar and raise you Finnish.

(Compositional semantics? What's wrong with them then?)

-- 
`I keep hearing about SF writers dying, but I never hear about SF
 writers being born.  So I guess eventually there'll be none left.'
                                    -- Keith F. Lynch


-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at linux.co.uk
http://list.ftech.net/mailman/listinfo/gllug