From: Jack Durst Good work, Stephen.
As the body of this proposal was debated in full the last time and all of
the major modifications were debated as they arose, or, at the very
least, garnered no objection and have since been the accepted practice, I
see no need for a through examination here. Current practice and existing
rules are re-stated correctly.
As for the few nits I did find:
Modules: The word "morpheme" is, by definition the smallest meaningfull
part of a word; if a morpheme could be generated by a module, then the
parts from which it were derived would be the morphemes, not the larger
unit (which, if it had any special meaning beyond the morphemes, would be
a lexeme or a word) Words and grammar features, not morphemes, are
generated by modules.
I prefer the view of core grammar as generics plus pick a module
statements as opposed to the set of modules ratified for a reason: it
makes the theoretical structure of the language much simpler, and has
practical ramifications. In order to speak grammatical NGL, one really
need know only one of the three word orders, even though all are official
and part of the same module; likewise, to speak grammatically, one need
not know number at all, as generics can be used throughout. Even
something so general as general derivation is modular, as the most minimal
possible definition of the language need not include it. Indeed, modules
do not become official until ratified, but they remain modules, outside of
the pure most minimal description of the language; which can have
consiquences as to both their description, ratification, and use.
I, personally, would be more comfortable defining a "modular morpheme" as
follows:
The definition is vague, this definition would provide a bright-line rule
as to weather a morpheme belonged to a module.
The module rules state that modular morphemes can (and indeed strongly
implies that it is desirable to) be shared between several modules.
(Number, for example, is carried over as a whole from nouns, to verb and
adjective agreement) so there is no restriction on the cross-borrowing of
parts from other modules provided that the meaning is the same, generics
are preserved, and the rules applied don't interfere with each other.
Outside of modularity, I see nothing wrong with the proposed revision.
Sincerely,
Jack Durst
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [NGL] Proposed Revision of Vocabulary Rules for Public Posting
From: Jack Durst
Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 23:08:15 -0700 (PDT)
A morpheme to which a special rule of grammar is attached in its
use within a module; leading to a different lexical meaning.
[email protected]
[this posting written in Net English]