Re: Comparing languages

From: Douglas G. Kilday (fufluns_at_chorus.net)
Date: 07/17/04 

Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2004 03:15:07 -0000

"LEE Sau Dan" <danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote ...
> >>>>> "Nathan" == Nathan Sanders <nsanders.DIE.SPAM@wso.williams.edu>
writes:
>
> Nathan> (Interesting side note: our most irregular forms tend to
> Nathan> be high up on the frequency list, and our least frequent
> Nathan> irregular forms tend to be regularized over time. I don't
> Nathan> know if this is true for other lannguages, but a cursory
> Nathan> examination seems to show that it might be the case.
>
> I discussed this with someone in sci.lang a few years ago. Our
> conclusion was: that's not a mere coincidence. It's a result of
> evolution:
>
> If the irregular forms do not occur frequently, then even the native
> speakers will forget them. The language either [unlikely] dies
> because the native (and non-native) speakers cannot communicate with
> one another anymore, or [more likely] the language changes in a way so
> that those infrequent words are regularized.
>
> So, the only way for a language to survive through a prolonged period
> of time is to have regular forms for the infrequent words.

Yeah, right. A language will die because of the irregularity of its
_infrequent_ words, which by definition are seldom used? Would you die if
you forgot how to wiggle one of your little toes?

If your server has it, you should read it.cultura.linguistica.italiano over
several weeks, and tally how many _native_ Italian speakers ask questions
about the past participles of infrequent verbs. Italian is not in danger of
dying from speakers forgetting seldom-used participles.

> i.e. infrequent word ==> regularly inflected.
>
> The other direction "regularly inflected ==> infrequent word" is not
> necessarily true. (e.g. the isolating languages.) But a reason for a
> language to develop irregular forms for frequent words is economy!
> Instead of having to use a regular but long long word, one can use an
> irregular but very short word to save time and energy. In addition,
> some highly irregular forms (like "to be" in English) usually carry
> some redundancy to facilitate communication. That's another factor
> favouring the development of irregular forms.

Suppletion is the starkest form of irregularity, and suppletive forms are
seldom significantly shorter than the presumptive regular forms which they
replace. English <went> is not shorter than *<goed>. Spanish <vamos> is not
shorter than *<imos>. Greek <e:negka> is not shorter than *<pephe:ra>.

With ordinary morphological irregularity, one may find that irregular forms
are a syllable longer than corresponding regular ones, e.g. Latin
<itineris>, <jecinoris>, <supellectilis> vs. *<itinis>, *<jecinis>,
*<supellectis>. In English, <prove> is a regular weak verb resulting from
borrowing, except that some speakers irregularly use a strong participle
<proven>, especially in attributive position, and this form is a syllable
longer than <proved>.

Economy, therefore, should not blithely be invoked as the principal factor
in creating new irregularity. Nor is redundancy _per se_ likely to be
important, since regular forms can carry redundancy as well as irregular
ones. The history of irregularity in a given language is itself irregular
and not easily reducible to a set of catch-phrases.

>
> [...]
>

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