Re: Odp: Odp: -l > -w

----- Original Message -----

From: Marc Verhaegen

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2000 9:24 PM

Subject: [cybalist] Re: Odp: -l > -w

You need no statistics to see that words from any protolanguage get shorter and shorter in the daughter languages -- the ease of articulation leads to the "erosion" of the phonetic substance of words. Note how Latin Augustus > French août, pronounced [u], or English hla:f-weard > hlaford > loverd > lord. This is just enthropy at work. But you are absolutely right about the compensatory process which produces new, longer words by affixation and compounding, so that the overall length of an average word does not vary much over the centuries or millennia, and may increase as well as decrease within the bounds of reason.    Piotr.

 

I completely agree. Do you think that erosion is faster when more foreign influences are at work upon an language? The erosion, eg, seems to be much faster in French>Spanish>Italian. Is the erosion generally faster at the borders of a language (or group of mutually understandalbe languages)?    Marc

 

 

It stands to reason. The more factors of instability, the more variation is generated and the faster a language will evolve; erosion should accelerate as well. But even if you leave a language alone for centuries, enthropy will slowly nibble at it.

 

Piotr