From: tgpedersen
Message: 59498
Date: 2008-07-08
>No.
> At 4:25:49 AM on Monday, July 7, 2008, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> > <BMScott@> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >> It is an empirical fact that irregular changes occur,
>
> > That's wrong.
>
> Literally, yes, but it's an obvious shorthand for an
> obviously correct statement.
> > Irregularity is not a property of a set of changes, but ofI agree.
> > a set of changes with respect to a given set of rules.
>
> Indeed. And of course a rule with only finitely many
> exceptions can trivially be rewritten as a rule having no
> exceptions simply by incorporating the exceptions in the
> statement of the rule. But no one in his right mind would
> consider the result a satisfactory rule as the word is
> usually employed in this context. (I might add that
> postulating dialects/sociolects that are not otherwise in
> evidence is methodologically no sounder than devising
> unsupported chains of sound changes to account for possible
> isolated relationships.)