Re: There Are a Number vs. There is a Number

Donna Richoux wrote:
Alexei A. Frounze <alexfru@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Why doesn't exist a perfect language without so many exceptions from the rules?..

Alex, have you ever considered studying Esperanto? I hear it's very regular.

Esperanto, like several other languages, uses exactly the same word for
"there is" and "there are". Indeed, I've just remembered that Russian
does the same. You could legislate the problem out of existence, even
in English, by inventing a new word. It doesn't seem to help much,
though. I suspect that large numbers of English speakers would vote for
Russian as one of the most difficult languages to learn.

Even Esperanto has its problems. My son, who knows more about the
matter than I do, tells me that Esperantists still argue over the
difference between a future auxiliary used with a past participle and a
present auxiliary used with a future participle. (Or something like
that. I don't pretend to know the details. I'm still struggling to
understand the difference between the suffixes -igxota and -igonta.)
Verb tenses are particularly regular in Esperanto, but you still have to
figure out which one to use.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org

Please note the changed e-mail and web addresses. The domain
eepjm.newcastle.edu.au no longer exists.
My e-mail addresses at newcastle.edu.au will probably remain "live"
for a while, but then they will disappear without warning.
The optusnet address still has about 5 months of life left.
.

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