🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan20.160900.46570@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes (quoting me):
>> Whether that something is
>> important or worth calling the UG Police in on is another question.
>
>I was trying to suggest in my post that in the case of E it is not!

No need to be so reasonable about it.  :)

>> Do Esperanto learners import their first-language phonology into Esperanto?
>> E.g., do English speakers pronounce "patro" with an aspirated p, Spanish
>> and French speakers with an unaspirated one?
>
>Yes, there is this tendency.  Ideally, however, one tries to avoid
>giving away one's nationality; at least I do...<:->

What then is the "ideal" realization of (say) p?  Aspirated or unaspirated?
Is t dental or alveolar?  Is an advanced /k/ before /i/ ok?  How do we know?

>> [Esperanto's Victorianness seen in Z's]
>> relative lack of interest in syntax.  (Would any modern linguist dream
>> of fully describing the syntax of a language in 16 rules?)  
>
>I don't happen to have anything around here that contains the 16
>rules, but I don't remember them having anything to say about syntax.
>Weren't they just about the morphology?

Most of them are, but there's just a bit of syntax (e.g. placement of 
adpositions, use of case, description of the passive, proscription of double
negatives).  It seems obvious Zamenhof hadn't read Chomsky...

>> As a result, Esperanto syntax is about as idiosyncratic and complex 
>> as that of any natural language.
>
>I dunno about that.  *Any* natural language?  I think German syntax
>could grind E syntax into cole slaw...<:->

Not knowing German, I couldn't say.  Strike "any" above and read "the average".
I'm just pointing out that Esperanto's simple morphology doesn't imply 
simplicity of syntax.