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--- Carl Edlund Anderson <cea@hidden.email> wrote: > > On 05 Mar 2005, at 01:48, Gregory H. Bontrager > wrote: > > Infinitive: l�nchar = to have lunch <snip> > I've pretty much internalized > many of these kinds of > "rules", so I expect the effects from both > Spanish-speakers adopting > English and English-speakers adopting Spanish would > tend to merge. <snip> Delurking to comment. As an English speaker with no familiarity with Spanish I tend to think that English speakers would be very reluctant to adopt any kind of conjugation system that was more complex that that of English. The first language I studied in high school 45 years ago was Latin, and the whole concept of conjugation was initially a very alien thing to try to get my head around. I just can't see "Joe Sixpack" ever learning how to conjugate adopted verbs in the Spanish manner. Clearly the native Spanish speaker would have no trouble conjugating verbs adopted from English, but I seriously doubt the two sides would ever merge. English speakers are just too lazy to ever consent to adding "pointless" (in their view) complications. Personal Bias Disclaimer: My own embrionic romconlang project is an isolating Latin inspired by Lingua Sistemfrater, so I tend to try to avoid inflections of any kind anyway. Also, English seems to be evolving toward isolating. Philosophically, I have to wonder what use inflections serve since so many languages get along fine without them. So bear in mind that my observations are (dis)colored by that preference, and should be taken with a grain of salt. :) --gary