Anonymous B replied with this 2 months ago, 7 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,401,225
@previous (DEI_Hire)
It means America because it sounds like it. And so what? Do you know anything about actual Chinese grammar? How, for example, would you express the conditional future perfect in Chinese? How would you phrase a possessive recursion with multiple subjects?
DEI_Hire (OP) replied with this 2 months ago, 2 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,401,228
@previous (B)
Conjugation is when you change the verb form, auxiliary particles aren’t conjugation. You just googled it and came up with an excuse for why I’m wrong without knowing what you’re talking about.
Anonymous B replied with this 2 months ago, 5 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,401,230
@previous (DEI_Hire) @1,401,228 (DEI_Hire)
I'm very aware of how verbs work. Trust me. And I did not Google anything. I lived in China for many years and I speak Chinese. Chinese grammar is not simple. It's as hard or simple as any other language. Refer to Chomsky's Universal Grammar Theory.
DEI_Hire (OP) replied with this 2 months ago, 2 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,401,231
@previous (B)
I actually think complexity is a bad thing. I think the reason why you’re being defensive is because you think I’m saying it’s not as good of a language somehow, when that’s not actually how I see it. We have opposite judgements about whether simplicity and complexity are good or bad.
Anonymous B replied with this 2 months ago, 54 seconds later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,401,232
@previous (DEI_Hire)
No, I am not being defensive. I subscribe to the Universal Grammar Theory. All languages express the exact same things in different ways. What may seem simpler in one language is made up for by something else being complex to make up for it.
DEI_Hire (OP) replied with this 2 months ago, 2 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,401,233
@previous (B)
Not necessarily, some languages are more efficient than others are expressing the same thing. Like grammatical gender for instance in European languages, what exactly is saying that a glass is female and a bridge is male expressing?
Anonymous B replied with this 2 months ago, 52 seconds later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,401,235
@1,401,233 (DEI_Hire)
Gender is the same as noun categories. It makes things more specific, and it is easier to know which adjectives match which nouns. And, again, where you might see some languages as more "efficient" in one area, they are less efficient in others and it balances out.
DEI_Hire (OP) replied with this 2 months ago, 4 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,401,236
@previous (B)
I’m not sure how that could be quantified. Intuitively, I think that it is possible for one language to be more complicated than another language, but I can see the value in appreciating all languages equally so I do respect your opinion about it.
DEI_Hire (OP) double-posted this 2 months ago, 3 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,401,237
English has features of French and German, but English lost grammatical gender which French and German both have. So I feel like English must have lost some complexity that both French and German do have.
Anonymous B replied with this 2 months ago, 8 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,401,239
@1,401,236 (DEI_Hire)
Where one language is more complicated in one area, it is simpler in another. Every language has to express the same human, universal things, and there is no way to just simplify everything without losing specificity. It's been tried with artificial languages. They tried to simplify everything, but ended up having to use like 30 words to describe things like "anxiety" which can be expressed in one word in many languages. They simplified the number of vocabulary words, but in doing so, made compound words much more complex.
Anonymous C joined in and replied with this 2 months ago, 2 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,401,240
@previous (B)
Although, artificial languages that are simpler tend to be faster. For example arm assembly is faster than x86 assembly because arm has fewer instructions than x86.