Re: where do so many tenses come from?

"Joachim" == Joachim Pense <spam-collector@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Joachim> ... But looking at the problem on the level it was
Joachim> stated, assuming that the phonemes are roughly evenly
Joachim> distributed,

>> I don't think this assumption is valid.

Joachim> You're right again. Then let me try it this way: If you
Joachim> don't know about the phoneme distribution of the two
Joachim> languages, but do know that one has more phonemes than
Joachim> the other, then it's the best bet to assume that phonemes
Joachim> in the language with less phonemes have lower average
Joachim> information content than the other.

No, I don't agree. I don't think that's the best bet. I think it's a
bad bet. Making *unjustified* claims or assumptions is always a bad
bet.

I have already illustrated that skewness plays an important role here.
And since you don't know how skewed the phoneme distribution of an
arbitrary language is, you cannot simply assume that they're as skewed
as one another.



Joachim> Don't forget that I just wanted to correct someone who
Joachim> claimed the opposite (which is as right or wrong as my
Joachim> claim for the same reasons given by you).

But your attempt is obviously a failure.


>> Just examine a few languages. Usually, you'll find a few
>> phonemes which are much rarer than the others, and a few that
>> are remarkably more frequent.

Joachim> The "if" isn't the point (even if what I wrote some hours
Joachim> ago looks like I believed it was). What I think is
Joachim> interested is how skewed the distributions can be, and
Joachim> what can/cannot occur.

And what usually occurs, when you pick a language arbitrarily.
Without doing any research on this, you abruptly jump into the
"conclusion" that the best bet is to assume something unjustified.
That's unacceptable.



--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}

E-mail: danlee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
.

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