Monrovia, 14 September 2146 (Reuter). The Secretary General of the UN, Dr Bitos-Gilly Gilly, has announced the launch of the Nova-English project headed by Professor Emeritus Kool Tooter of Yule University. "This project", said Dr Bitos-Gilly Gilly, "aims at enhancing mutual comprehension between the peace-loving people of Earth and Nova Scotia on Deneb V." All five members of the UN have signed an international treaty pledging to introduce school children to Nova Scotian syntax from kindergarten on. Professor Emeritus Kool Tooter commented: "We have long known at Yule that language is recursive and that the reason why we seldom observe double centre-embedded sentences and never triple centre-embedded ones is to be found in Chumpski's theory of prurience and appetence. Nova Scotian syntax vindicates prurience and appetence. It is high time we humans raised our level of appetence to match our prurience. The Nova Scotians have, why don't we?".
Meanwhile in Oceania, Admiral Qanqargh commented to the press: "Never mind what the old farts in war-torn Monrovia say. We just can't afford to have yet another fleet thought into inexistence by those squids just because some pea-brained human translator stuffed up big time. The Galactic Trade Union rule that forbids the use of machine translators has got to go."
Back in Monrovia all two kindergarten schools of the five members of the UN, the suburbs of Peace, Love, Friendship, Prosperity and Fraternity, are preparing themselves to teach "Nova English", English with a Nova Scotian syntax. Nova English will be taught in three stages: deep-structuring, de-verbing, centre-embedding.
Deep-structuring: all determinants will be replaced by a corresponding deep structure. For instance "bright-green ideas sleep very deeply" will be rephrased: "ideas which are of a green which is bright sleep in a manner which is of a deep which is deep"
De-verbing: verbs will be replaced by nominal constructions. For instance "ideas sleep" will be rephrased "sleeping which is done by an agent which is ideas".
Centre-embedding: "This phase", said Professor Emeritus Tooter of Yule, "will be the easiest and surest to implement, as it is the mere application to English of the word order of German relative clauses". From Professor Tooter's explanations, it would appear that "a red apple" will be rephrased as "an apple which red is". Professor Tooter next consulted his notes and said that "very obviously and naturally, 'bright-green ideas sleep very deeply' will very obviously and naturally become in full Nova English 'sleeping which by an agent which ideas which of a green which bright is are is in a manner which of a deep which deep is is is done is'. Nevertheless, in order to ensure the success of the project, the children will be kept immersed in Nova English. The schools will be outfitted so that they are entirely self-contained, and no contact with the outside will be necessary nor encouraged". UN Secretary General Dr Bitos-Gilly Gilly commented: "If nothing else, the Nova English project will have kept four children off the streets and probably saved their lives. Stray laser beams and plasma grenades are not a healthy environment for children to grow up in". He was interrupted then by Professor Tooter who warmly congratulated him for a "lovely example of centre embedding".