Re: [tied] Middle English Plurals

Hello Piotr,
Related to "old" or "neo" Darwinian models of evolution, I prefer
in place, Platon explanation that the 'idea of the wing' pre-exist
the "wing apparition". At least this is a simple and coherent
explanation, in place of "darwinian explanations" : we don't know
what we expect but "evrika" "a wing have appeared"

Now more concrete on the subject, your affirmation that :
"Genetic drift is an important factor in it, since most
mutations are now known to be selectively neutral"

could hardly be proved.

I doubt that with the current genetics models somebody can be sure
that the mutations are "neutral" in "most cases" related to
the "selection criteria".
Some simple questions here :
1) in this case what are the mutations for ? Not to generate
possible "better samples"?
2) can somebody tell us for sure with the current genetics models
what "the fittest" means in all cases, to can declare
the "neutrality"?
3) Who can say 'when' (after how many generations) and 'why' (on
which conditions) the kept changes will be use for?

Regards,
marius alexandru


--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

> 07-01-04 14:52, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > I offer something by way of explanation. You offer nothing of the
> > kind, except the intervention of an autonomous agent, The Rule,

like

> > a Deus ex machina.
>
> There may be no simple explanation when stochastic processes are
> involved. If you throw a dice and get a five in the first roll,

it's

> little use asking "why a five"? You can be reasonably sure that if

you

> throw the dice 120 times, you'll get about 20 fives, give or take a
> couple, and that there'll be no sevens or eights, but you can't

predict

> the result of the next roll with an expectation of success greater

than

> 0.166....
>
> > No. The South adopted the unpractical <-en> exactly _because_ the
> > North adopted the practical <-es>; cf the reaction of Caxton's

woman.

>
> Nonsense. By the time Caxton was telling the story, <-es> was the

only

> productive plural in the South as well as the North. <eyren> was an
> isolated Kentish dialecticism. What puzzled "the good wife" was A

SINGLE

> FORM (<eyren> as opposed to <egges>), not a systemic contrast (<-

en> as

> opposed to <-es>) -- it wasn't the plural suffix that was

unfamiliar to

> her, but the whole word <egges>. While we're at it, <-en> and <-es>

were

> both equally practical as plural markers; they were like two

alleles of

> a similar adaptive value, competing for survival. Such a situation

is

> inherently unstable and one of the alleles is bound to spread at

the

> expense of the other, sooner or later. <-en> might have won, but

the

> initially greater frequency of <-es> probably decided the otcome.

Even

> at the time when <-en> enjoyed its heyday in the South, the

original

> strong masculines (probably the largest declension) on the whole

kept

> their plural <-es>, and the ending was also spreading to original

neuter

> plurals, where the inherited ending was zero (or schwa). The

expansion

> of <-en> affected more typically OE minor declensions (hence the
> surviving forms <brethren> and <children>. In other words, they

BOTH

> expanded in the same dialect at the expense of the rarer types.
>
> > In that case your position is; Birds have wings, birds are not

bats,

> > therefore bats don't have wings.
>
> No. Think before you write. My position is that the development of

wings

> in birds and bats was an independent development in each case. Bats
> didn't get their wings from contact with birds.
>
> > Allright, partial creolisation, then.
>
> Creolisation of a single subsystem, leaving other, even more

complex

> subsystems unaffected? Why was it just the case system that was

simplified?

>
> > "Natural", in your terms, doesn't seem to mean much.
>
> > "Random evolutionary drift"? Perhaps you should run your

definition

> > of terms past Darwin first? Or else, if you persist in your

metaphor,

> > you should offer an explanation of how "survival of the fittest"
> > enters into your picture of linguistic change.
>
> It isn't just a metaphor. Whenever you have things that replicate

and

> compete for limited resources, similar principles will apply. But

the

> neo-Darwinian model of evolution is not all about the survival of

the

> fittest. Genetic drift is an important factor in it, since most
> mutations are now known to be selectively neutral.
>
> Piotr