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Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 08:23:45 -0400
From: John Colagioia <JColagioia@csi.com>
Organization: No Conspiracy Here...
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Subject: Re: Strange (human?) languages for IF
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"John W. Kennedy" wrote:

> Magnus Olsson wrote:
> > But I think many peopel confuse "grammar" with "inflections".
> Millions of people make that mistake.  But, even more generally, the
> truly nave always believe that their language has "no grammar".

Well, actually, it's a fairly logical conceptual progression.  Once one
has been immersed in a language, that person begins to understand which
rules can be broken without changing or hiding the meaning of what is
being said.  Once that becomes second nature, the language (or, at
least, the pseudo-dialect that ends up being used) ceases to have a
formal grammar.

That is, English "has no grammar," because I can say, "English
good-talker me is," and the vast majority of readers will understand the
meaning.  This is why English seems to have so many exceptions to some,
and to be grammar-free to others.  Well, that, and the fact that English
grammar comes from a wide variety of sources...


