🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan7.012915.18582@leland.Stanford.EDU> alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson) writes:


> However, languages change whether or not they encounter speakers of other
> languages.  Thus, there is no language in the Indo-European family that is any
> closer to the Ursprache than any other at the same time depth, for some notion
> of closeness.
> 
> That is, the phonology and/or the morphology and/or the syntax will be changed
> from that of the parent language.


I don't have any doubts that languages change for a variety of
reasons. Neither do I subscribe to the view that all changes
emanate from only one cause in every case.

However, if languages change as a result of some internal effort
at some kind of an optimizing principle, then it should be an
observable universal. It should be possible, then, to find this
univeral principle since there are so many languages that 
lingusists have studied.

On the other hand, if the changes are caused by external influence,
then although exhibiting some kind of regularity in the pattern of
the changes, it probably could be attributed more to the
characteristics of the external influence than to the universality
of the transition. Thus methods can be devised, in principle, to
distinguish between the two kinds of changes.


> Besides, given current thinking on the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European,
> somewhere at a midpoint between the Eastern Goths and the Western Armenians
> would be best under your proposed model.  There are problems with that location
> as well.

I did not and do not defend any of the views put forward by any of
the constructionists. I'm only attempting to point out inconsistencies
in some of the current thoughts.

My main concern, and one of my hobbies, is to derive methods of
obtaining numbers for various schemes. This is a very important
part of science since it enables researchers to create unambiguous
models on the basis of which discourse can take place.

Never have I denigrated the tremendous effort expended by linguists
at various times to produce some regularity/pattern that is
not plainly visible. This is the essence of science. However, none
of this should be taken to mean that 'Then End' as arrived and
that linguistics has reached the point where nothing else can
be added. It would be too arrogant of anyone to even hint at
such a conclusion. The wheel is still spinning, not only for
linguistics, but even for mathematics. There will probably be
no end to this process and the linguists should be well aware of
it. 
-- 

	mark	

   hubey@amiga.montclair.edu         hubey@apollo.montclair.edu
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