People who think you can get a superior language by systematically planning the grammar according to a rigorously defined conceptual scheme strike me as the spiritual kin of people who think you can get a superior economy by having a board of experts make all the important economic decisions. It's just fine if you think you can arrive at a static solution that will be completely and permanently right, but it's seriously suboptimal if you want to leave things open to the dynamic emergence of superior solutions, including solutions to problems we haven't even thought of yet.
I tend to look at natural languages as a vast garden of wild grammars. A little judicious pruning and weeding may be worthwhile, but I don't want anything as formalist as 18th century French landscaping.
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zvi and
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Date: 2009-06-20 03:14 am (UTC)I tend to look at natural languages as a vast garden of wild grammars. A little judicious pruning and weeding may be worthwhile, but I don't want anything as formalist as 18th century French landscaping.