Usefulness and Clarity
As noted above, the only limits to free word-building in Interlingua are clarity and usefulness. These concepts are touched upon here:
Any number of words could be formed by stringing roots and affixes together, but some would be more useful than others. For example, the English word rainer means a person who rains, but most people would be surprised that it is included in English dictionaries. The corresponding Interlingua word pluviator is unlikely to appear in a dictionary because of its lack of utility. Interlingua, like any traditional language, could build up large numbers of these words, but this would be undesirable.
Gode stressed the principle of clarity in free word-building. As Gode noted, the noun marinero (mariner) can be formed from the adjective marin, because its meaning is clear. The noun marina meaning navy cannot be formed, because its meaning would not be clear from the adjective and suffix that gave rise to it.
Read more about this topic: Free Word-building In Interlingua
Famous quotes containing the words usefulness and, usefulness and/or clarity:
“This monument, so imposing and tasteful, fittingly typifies the grand and symmetrical character of him in whose honor it has been builded. His was “the arduous greatness of things done.” No friendly hands constructed and placed for his ambition a ladder upon which he might climb. His own brave hands framed and nailed the cleats upon which he climbed to the heights of public usefulness and fame.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“A public man must never forget that he loses his usefulness when he as an individual, rather than his policy, becomes the issue.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)
“In contrast to the flux and muddle of life, art is clarity and enduring presence. In the stream of life, few things are perceived clearly because few things stay put. Every mood or emotion is mixed or diluted by contrary and extraneous elements. The clarity of art—the precise evocation of mood in the novel, or of summer twilight in a painting—is like waking to a bright landscape after a long fitful slumber, or the fragrance of chicken soup after a week of head cold.”
—Yi-Fu Tuan (b. 1930)