English Gaps
(First draft just being
begun)
A lifelong hobby of mine
has been inventing my own language. I suppose this began with a
consideration of the more obvious flaws and foibles of the English
language. Before I reached the age of 13, I was already imagining
regularized spelling, and more orderly declensions of pronouns and conjugations
of verbs. I started my own metalanguage, as it were. As
the decades passed, I peered further and further into the structure of English,
incorporating more and more improvements into my own language, Nuu, which as it
now stands, is no longer just a metalanguage, but rather an independent
language, with no perceptible relation to English. Below I will
discuss various deficiencies of English and other languages that I have noticed
over the years, and perhaps later I will try to organize my observations into a
cohesive whole.
1. Declensions,
Prepositions or Postpositions?
1a. The Genitive
Relation
Often English describes
a relation between two nouns by means of an interposed preposition: a
friend of the queen. The whole phrase of the queen forms
an adjective that answers the question whose friend? In
another language, like Russian, Greek or Latin, there may exist a single word
meaning of the queen. In Latin, for example, we
have amica reginae, with the second word meaning of
the queen. Reginae is said to be the genitive case of regina (queen). In
Hebrew, there is no word for of the queen, but rather we find
a word that means the friend of. Thus we have khaveret
hamalkah, where khaveret, called the construct state
of khaverah (friend), means the friend of. In
Arabic, the lead noun, subject to less change than in Hebrew, is not called the
construct state, as far as I know. Also Arabic does have a genitive,
so we have sadiqat ulmalkati, where sadiqat, a
modified version of sadikah, and a following genitive make Arabic's
collocation a compromise between those of Latin and Hebrew. Hindi uses a
postposition and reverses the order of nouns from that of the English phrase
instanced above: maharani ki saheli. Maharani is queen and saheli is friend. If
we think of ki as the equivalent of the English possessive
suffix ’s, we have agreement: maharani ki saheli…queen ’s
friend. Chinese behaves like Hindi, with wanghou de pengyou,
where wanghou is queen and pengyou is friend. Turkish
has yet another syntagma in kraliçe arkadaşı, which, translated
literally, means, the queen, her friend. The
head word is in apposition with the suffix of the second word, as if we were to
say friend of her the queen. Among all these ways of
expressing the genitive-possessive relation, is there a superior way, or is the
language-maker free to choose one at his whim?
1b. Mathematical Basis
Let us begin with a very
simple equation: X = Y. This may be read as X equals Y, and
therefore is obviously a sentence in symbolic form. Mathematical
equations probably came into existence as a sort of shorthand for fully
verbalized sentences. I suppose that equals may be
considered either copulative or transitive, depending on the precise definition
used, so that Y would be classified as a predicate noun or direct object
accordingly. For simplicity, we will say that Y is the object of equals. Ostensibly,
the equation was formed for the purpose of stating what X
equals. Had it been formed to state what Y equals, we would have had
Y = X. So we call X the subject. Thus, the equation X = Y
is a sentence consisting of a subject, a verb and an object in that
order. We may call this order SVO. The SVO order is the basic
order of English and a great many other languages, but there are languages with
different orders. For example, Japanese and Hindi often have SOV
sentences, whereas Arabic has a good many VSO sentences. Languages
like Latin, Greek and Russian, with their many inflexions, have more variable
orders, but SVO is common in all three. Romance languages use SVO
unless the objects are pronouns, in which case they use SOV.
It would appear that the
SVO order of words within a sentence is the most prevalent
order. Furthermore, it agrees with the order of terms in a typical
mathematical equation. The only question to answer now is whether
this order is superior to other conceivable orders. Some writers may
say that, instead of saying X = Y we should say = : X, Y and read it, “The set
of all equalities includes the pair X and Y.” Without disputing the
logic of this opinion, I merely note that this form of the equation takes 5
symbols instead of 3, and enjoys almost no recognition in the world at
large. Therefore, I can state emphatically that X = Y is the better
way of writing the equality, and that the SVO word order, following from it, is
the superior word order.
We cannot reduce the
sentence, “Bandits kill pilgrims,” to an equation like X = Y, because kills is
not copulative. However, we can reduce it to a sentence of the form
X = f (Y). Just as we have X = sine (Y), we may have, “Bandits are
killers of pilgrims.” We might write B = k (P). Thus any
transitive verb is rendered as = f ( ), where f stands for the agent
of the action of the verb, i.e., killers in this case, and the
letter placed within the parentheses functions as the genitive of the object,
i.e., of bandits, in this case.
1c. Relative Clauses
“Bandits are killers of
pilgrims,” as the explicated form of, “Bandits kill pilgrims,” is a complete
sentence. “Bandits who are killers of pilgrims,” or simply,
"Bandits who kill pilgrims," is a relative clause derived from
it. Other ways of putting this are possible. For example,
we may say, “pilgrim-killing bandits”, or “bandits who are pilgrim-killers,”
but these involve needless inversions of the underlying word
order. For the time being, I will consider the participial phrase,
“Bandits killing pilgrims,” to be a mere paraphrase of the relative clause
instanced above, as they both echo the original SVO order. Let us
suppose that r means who, that or which. If
we let B = k (P) mean, “Bandits are killers of pilgrims,” the derivative
relative clause may be written B r = k (P), “Bandits who are killers of
pilgrims,” “Bandits who kill pilgrims,” or, “Bandits killing
pilgrims.” Thus r = f ( ) becomes the prototype of both
participles and relative clauses. We may call this SRO, analogously with
SVO.
1d. Prepositions and
Participles
Sometimes it is possible
to find a preposition and a participle that are virtually synonymous, as in
these pairs: the wall around the city, the wall surrounding the city; a
book without a frontispiece, a book lacking a frontispiece. This
is especially true in English, where a phrase like around the city or without
a frontispiece may be either adjectival or adverbial. In
languages like Latin and Hindi, many such prepositional phrases are often
strictly adverbial and may not modify nouns directly. For example,
in Latin we might say moenia circum urbem stantia, walls standing
around the city. Here then the prepositional phrase is used
adverbially and modifies stantia, an adjective participle
that, in turn, modifies moenia, with word order
inverted. It might be convenient to have both adjectival and
adverbial versions of the prepositional phrase, avoiding the necessity of
inserting a superfluous word. If an adjectival form of the
preposition existed, we might conclude that the preposition and the participle
are synonymous.
Continuing this line of
reasoning, we may consider the prepositional phrase and the participial phrase
as synonymous with a relative clause containing the same verb that the
participle contains: the wall around the city, the wall
surrounding the city, the wall that surrounds the city. The third
version is in the prototypical relative-clause form W r = s (C), a special case
of X r = f (Y). The sequence r = f ( ) then becomes a
paradigm for participles, adjectival prepositions and for the introductory words
of relative clauses:surrounding, around, that surrounds.
Most declensional cases
of foreign nouns are translated into English by means of prepositional
phrases: l’ud’am (to the people, Russian), angelorum (of
the angels, Latin), talossa (in a house,
Finnish). Most languages that decline nouns, as Russian, Latin,
Finnish and Greek use suffixes to denote case, as in the examples
above. If we take regnum angelorum to mean kingdom
of the angels, we see that the suffix -orum, corresponding to of the (plural), performs the function
performed by a deverbal connective, i.e., preposition, participle or relative
clause, which I have used the letter R to denote. So it might be said
that the Latin phrase uses the order S OR, where OR is shown without a
space to demonstrate the suffixal nature of the deverbal, which involves a
needless inversion of the underlying order SVO. Why should we say, using
the Latin analogy, cities mountains-upon instead of cities upon mountains, when we say cities surmounting
mountains, if we use SVO, mountains-upon being the ad hoc
contrived superessive case of mountain? I might mention that English has
a few suffixes that resemble case-endings, such as -less in headless, -wide in nationwide, and -ful in colorful, but there infrequency
keeps them from being called case-endings or postpositions.
The English phrase kingdom of the angels is a specimen of S
R O, a perfect replica of the underlying sentence, “The kingdom belongs to the
angels,” if, for the nonce, we consider belongs to as a single
verb, which, of course, it might have been if English had been better
planned. In view of these considerations, I have concluded that a
suffix-based declension of nouns is a poorer way of approaching relations among
nouns than the method that employs prepositions, participles or relative
clauses. Simply put, S R O is better than S OR. The question
remains whether we should use S R O, or S RO, which is tantamount to
asking which is preferable: journeyers over land or journeyers
overland, where overland is a postposed
adjective. In the second version, overland is the
equivalent of a case of land based on a prefix rather than a
suffix.
2. Gerunds, Infinitives,
Action Nouns, Agents and Instruments
2a. Gerunds, Infinitives and
Action Nouns
Most English verbs give
rise to gerunds and infinitives. Many also give rise to
action nouns. There are two infinitives and one gerund associated with a typical
verb, and it may have zero, one or more action nouns. Examples of verbs having
clearcut fourfold sets are these:
Allocate, to allocate, allocating, allocation
Enjoy, to enjoy, enjoying,
enjoyment
Admire, to admire, admiring,
admiration
Allocate is used after
auxiliaries like may, should and would, and in some other
constructions. To allocate is used after verbs like want, try and hope, and
elsewhere. The gerund is like the action noun in many respects, but,
unlike it, it may govern objects and adverbs:
Allocating resources wisely is good business.
The wise allocation of resources
is good business.
There are plenty of
verbs that lack action nouns, for example: impart, remain, belong, afford,
happen, shine, be, become, withhold, load, obtain, forget, dwell, handle,
share. Apparently, there is nothing about the meaning of such verbs that
mandates that they lack action nouns. Compare:
They procured the materials, but the procurement was
involved.
They obtained the materials, but the … was involved.
Here we might like to
have a noun like obtainment, obtention or
obtinence, but no such nouns
exist. In some cases gerunds
have come to take the place of nouns of action, and we might here both of these
sentences:
Withholding paychecks was the company’s response.
The withholding of
paychecks was the company’s
response.
It would appear that the
existence of two infinitives, one with and one without to, is a mere linguistic
curiosity that could well be eliminated by developing more consistent syntactic
rules. It would also appear
that the existence of both gerunds and action nouns is unnecessary, because we
are hardly even conscious of defective verbs’ lack of action nouns. Latin generally had an
infinitive, a gerund and one or two action nouns, one signifying a single act
and one a process or action.
Agere, agendum, actus,
actio (to act, acting, act, action)
An Arabic verb has no
infinitive or gerund, but may have one or several action nouns. A Chinese verb is
invariable. Spanish has an
infinitive and, usually but not necessarily, a noun of action, but no
gerund. Hindi has two
infinitives and often one or more action nouns, but no gerund. In English,
another problem with the gerund is that it is the same as the active
participle:
Studying mathematics is
good mental exercise.
The man studying
mathematics is my father.
2b. Agents and
instruments
A verb whose subject is
necessarily personal gives rise to an agent, usually formed by suffixing either -er or –or: singer, dancer, caller,
educator, teacher, painter, surveyor, broker. There are other,
equivalent, suffixes that are used with other verbs or closely related nouns:
watchman, guardian, engineer, electrician, artist, communicant. However,
there is a great number of verbs whose subjects may be either persons or
things: cut, bend, weld, carry, load, destroy, wrap, fold, copy, hold. In these cases, the –er/-or suffix is ambiguous:
cutter, bender, welder, carrier, loader, destroyer, wrapper, folder, copier,
holder. In such a
case, we don’t know out of context whether an agent or an instrument is
meant. If we do an online
search or consult a bilingual dictionary forloader or folder, there’s no telling
what we will get. Other verbs are usually impersonal: blow, heat, diffract, sparkle,
diffuse, clink. The –er/-or forms denote instruments or sometimes just things:
blower, heater, diffractor, sparkler, diffuser, clinker.
From this, it would
appear that it would be salutary to have both an agent and an instrument, or
more accurately, a personal deverbal noun and an impersonal deverbal
noun. This is rarely the case
in English, and often a clarifying phrase must be used. Compare:
I need a welder. I need someone to do
some welding.
I need a welder here. I need a welding
machine here.
The loader isn’t working. It’s in the repair shop.
The loader isn’t working. He called in sick.
2c.
