From: Brian M. Scott
Message: 42701
Date: 2006-01-01
> From: "Miguel Carrasquer" <mcv@...>[...]
>> On Sun, 01 Jan 2006 13:42:59 -0600, Patrick Ryan
>> <proto-language@...> wrote:
>>> The very concept of nursery words is infantile.Parental interpretation and reinforcement combining with the
>>> An infant does _not_ assign meanings to words.
>>> An infant makes random sounds, and adults choose to
>>> reinforce some associations and discourage others in
>>> exactly the same way that _any_ vocabulary item is
>>> taught.
>> That's not the point.
>> The point is that nursery words are re-created with every
>> new generation, so they are meaningless in long-range (or
>> even medium-range) linguistical comparison. In other
>> words, the fact that most Germanic languages have a word
>> for "father" starting with p- (pops, pap, pappa, Pappi,
>> etc.) is not an argument against Grimm's law.
> Utter ridiculous!
> Who re-creates them?