Re: Negation

From: G&P
Message: 61860
Date: 2008-12-04

>> other things being equal words get shorter and shorter rather

> t>han longer
and longer

>If this principle were true, we'd be left with only short words like /u/
>after 200 000 years.  but as Latin shows,

You’ll find exceptions in French also  (e.g. Latin hodie > French aujourd’hui > modern “au jour d’aujourd’hui”), and I’m sure in almost any other language for which we have appropriate records.  Btu the basic point is still correct – in general words tend to get shorter. 

The mistake is to think that a strong tendency is a hard-and-fast invariable rule.  Piotr did rightly say “other things being equal”.

Peter