Re: Random Question on Indo-European Languages

Harlan Messinger pravi:
Nikolaj wrote:
Harlan Messinger pravi:

That isn't uniformly true and the processes in each direction come and go.

I would say that on the large scale it is true. On one side you have PIE, but I don't know anything about it, so I equate this side with Vedic Sanskrt, which is close to PIE. On the other side you have English. In all of the subgroups that I know a little about (germanic, romance, slavic, indic) there is a clear tendency for simplification. Some languages went further in that direction than others, and some might temporarily introduce some inflected form, but I don't think that negates the general tendency. It these any chance a language will introduce the dual, once it lost it?

Why not? Some dialects of US English have already repluralized "you" (as "y'all"), only to have that become used again indiscriminately for both singular and plural--resulting in the *new* distinguishing plural "all y'all".

(I'm sorry for my late response).

Because, as the saying goes: "Ena lastovka ne prinese pomladi." (One swallow doesn't make a spring). What would you need is such a process happening simultaneously with all possible morphological features. But that is hard to believe, especially given the registered 3000-4000 hunderd years for the history of languages (AFAIK).




And where did the dual--and, for that matter, the plural--inflections come from? The theory with which I'm familiar says that they were analytical constructs that became inflections way back when.

I don't know that. Where any linguistic feature comes from? Especially because most of them are not really necessary; the dual not a requisite for a meaningful conversation.

For thinking about such features, I think it is necessary for a discourse to go much back in time, or even further back to the times when language emerged - but then you have theories like Dušan's or Franz's.


It looks to me like something similar to entropy that can only increase, and can only decrease locally.

That's begging the question. Who says entropy is a valid model for language change? It's use as a metaphor doesn't make it a genuine model.

Of course. Notice the words "similar to". And it is also doubtful how to measure "entropy" of a language on a structural level. Just counting the number of different morphological features, or something else as well.



And it isn't one, because we know that as simplification gets to the point where comprehension suffers, other complexities are introduced to compensate ("inkpen"; Chinese "peng2you3" ["friend"] = "peng2" ["friend"] + "you3" ["friend"]).

And even if entropy would be defined it wouldn't necessarily be the only process operating, there might be other processes as well, just like in the living matter (languages being 'living' mental entities).





Well, here are a few of examples in French:

He's going there = /iliva/
He went there = /ijEtale/ (I think the /l/ can go out.)

I'm going = /Zve/
I went = /SHizale/

I drink = /Z b w a/
you drink /ty b w a/
he drink /i b w a/
we drink /nu b uv o~/
you drink /vu b uv e/
they drink /i b w av/

The forms of "boire" in the present tense sort of need to be broken into four components each to analyze what happens to them. In Latin, "bibere" in the present tense was vastly much simpler: bib- + -o, -is, -it, -imus, -itis, -unt.

You are comparing only one verb and tense, I am speaking about all of them at once.
.

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