Re: Do Eskimos count like New Guineans?

On Jan 17, 8:08 am, richard01 <richardparke...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Meanwhile, for my own purposes, I've had to make up some new personal
technical terms from the linguistical ones:

What "purposes" could these terms possibly serve?

Retention - means a word (or bit of grammar) that apparently descends
directly from the imaginary proto-language
Innovation - means a word (or bit of grammar) that apparently doesn't
descend from the imaginary proto-language
Reflex, reflected - means a word (or bit of grammar) that apparently
corresponds to something in the imaginary proto-language
Conservative - means a language that apparently still preserves words
(or bits of grammar) from the imaginary proto-language

for new terms:

Preservation - means a word (or bit of grammar) that still holds over
from an earlier language.

Howcome when _you_ talk about it, it's "an earlier language," but when
we talk about it, it's "the imaginary proto-language"?

Invention - means a word (or bit of grammar) that doesn't descend
directly from an earlier language - it's genuinely new.

A vanishingly rare phenomenon -- the best-known examples in English
are "gas" and "Kodak." As for "bits of grammar," what could you be
referring to? Grammaticalization?

Descends from - means a word (or bit of grammar) that does descend
directly from an earlier language.

Are you claiming that this term doesn't exist in historical
linguistics??

Preservative - means a language that apparently still preserves words
(or bits of grammar) from an earlier language

Pointless. There is no language anywhere (even pidgins and creoles!)
that doesn't "preserve words or bits of grammar from an earlier
language."
.

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