Re: [tied] Estimated timeframe from albanian s->sh transformation

Hello Miguel,

You said:
" Within a single speech community, a sound change usually takes
place within a single generation. So that's how long it can take."

Putting twice the same afirmation without arguments, and saying
" So that's how long it can take."
don't mean that you have demonstrated it.

Sorry to say this but I don't see any arguments here.... Did you?

Next you passed to a more complicated scenario, but you said
nothing more about the basic one, only the afirmation above.

"So that's is the situation."

Best regards,
Marius Alexandru


P.S. "In the first place, you're comparing apples with oranges. "
-------------------------------------------------------------
I didn't compare apple with orange. I said ONLY that a global
shift like s->sh took at least twice the time when a loan spread,
because the speed of this second process is very very small at the
beginning:
Why?
If I hear you saying a word with 'sh' this doesn't mean that I
will say it too...I prefer to speak it, as I heard to my parents or
to my friends. If everybody speak around me, with /sh/ , I will make
the shift too, but this is the final point of this process and not
the initial one.
This is in contradiction with a loan situation: if I see
a 'mouse' in your hands , I will ask you which is its name, and I
will used that name immediately.
At least these are some basic arguments ...and I not said like you:
"So that's how long it can take."

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 10:16:09 +0000, alexandru_mg3
<alexandru_mg3@...>
> wrote:
>
> > >Now the question is : How long could take to a BASIC sound
like /s/
> > >to GLOBALLY spread along a whole language in ALL PHONETIC
CONTEXTS?
> >
> > >>The answer is: one generation.<<
> >
> > Really? so we need for a word like "mouse" or "television"
between
> >40 and 50 years IN OUR TIMES for their global spreading, but for a
> >global s->sh a single generation? ONLY about 30 years ? Sounds
like a
> >SF for me...but I will change my mind if will post valid
arguments...
> >
> > Please sustain you afirmation!
>
> In the first place, you're comparing apples with oranges. The
spread of a
> lexical item like "mouse" or "television", or rather the spread of
the
> technological devices they denote, has little to do with the way a
sound
> change comes about.
>
> Within a single speech community, a sound change usually takes
place within
> a single generation. So that's how long it can take.
>
> If the "language" consists of more than one dialect/sociolect, the
time it
> *can* take for a sound change to spread to every single speaker may
vary
> from "one generation" to "forever" (that is to say, not until the
death of
> the language in question). It depends on the number of speakers,
their
> distribution, and other geographical and social factors.
>
> Now if a sound change is eventually adopted by _all_ speakers of a
> language, it doesn't matter, for most purposes, how long it took.
The
> change has become global, so even if there were dialects/sociolects
that
> didn't adopt the change immediately, for the purposes of the change
in
> question, those dialects are now dead, and all that matters is how
long it
> took in the originating dialect (the prestige dialect, most
likely), and
> the answer to that question is: one generation, perhaps a few more.
>
> How long it took may matter only if isolated items containing the
unshifted
> sound are borrowed back into the prestige dialect, or if such items
are
> borrowed into other neighbouring languages that are not (yet) in
contact
> with the prestige dialect.
>
> =======================
> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
> mcv@...