Re: [tied] Re: *kap-

bmscotttg wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>
> wrote:
>
>> At 8:15:17 PM on Saturday, October 1, 2005, Grzegorz
>> Jagodzinski wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>>> All laws are descriptive, contrary to theories whose aim
>>> is to answer the question "why". However, laws also
>>> *require* things to happen so-and-so, in order to satisfy
>>> what the laws say. As Newton's law requires apples to fall
>>> onto the ground, so Zipf's law requires frequent words to
>>> be shortened (if they are too long). Both things *must*
>>> happen.
>
>> Don't be ridiculous. 'The length of a word tends to bear an
>> inverse relationship to its relative frequency' doesn't
>> require anything of any specific word; it's a vague,
>> qualitative description of a lexicon.
>
> Okay, now I have more time. Newton's law does not require
> apples to fall; it says that unless prevented, they do fall.

A law does not require to fall but says that they do fall... Really, it is
dividing a hair into four.

> This is a description of what is observed;

Like any other law. But I said the same, see above. I am under the
impression that our controversy is apparent. You seem to cling to
unimportant details. So, once again. Zipf stated that the more frequent
words the shorter they are. This statement is based on what is observed and
it is known as Zipf's law (even if some people have never heard about it and
think that Zipf's law is anything else). Zipf's law has nothing to do with
phonetic rules (known incorrectly as "laws" and correctly as "sound
changes") because it does not depend on phonetic environment but on
frequency. Ergo: Zipf's law says that words do shorten if they are too
frequent, and that they shorten irregularily (because independently on
phonetic factors). Ergo: to understand why some IE words look as they look,
phonetic rules are NOT enough. The last statement is all what is important.

> Finally, we know that there are also processes that work in the
> opposite direction, extending some common words when they get too
> short; consider, for instance, the history of French <aujourd'hui>.
>
> Brian

Thank Goodness, we can agree at last :-) At least in this point.

Grzegorz J.



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