Re: De Vulgari Regularitate (earlier: substratums)

> That's the true revolutionary spirit! They MUST be dood away with (see? "dood" is the regular past participle of "doo", which is the regular spelling of "do"). But if we stand against them, will other people follow us -- all the English-speaking mans, womans and childs?

Thanks Piotr.
Well, I was not at all talking about a complete grammatical regularization, just one minor modification in something that is tantalizingly close to being regular. But I see the point, it won't work this way.

> Only artificial languages can remain fully logical for ever, ...

so if you want regularity, learn Esperanto.

... and hence artificial and dead. I was talking about (one of the) living, growing, changing languages thow.

>>> This question probably needs a thesis to answer it.

>> Or even several thesises.

> Interestingly, I just can't accept 'thesises' as English! Did you

know that already?

The -sis ending, I'd agree, is the only real awkward situation that English possesses. But that's again how one subjectively assesses.



Ash


PS: Thanks Richard for that interesting analysis. Wonder if you have ever worked on the question of regularity of languages.