From: G&P
Message: 61860
Date: 2008-12-04
>> other things being
equal words get shorter and shorter rather
> t>han longerand longer
>If this principle were
true, we'd be left with only short words like /u/
>after 200 000
years. but as Latin
shows, …
You’ll find exceptions in French also (e.g. Latin hodie > French aujourd’hui > modern “au jour d’aujourd’hui”), and I’m sure in almost any other language for which we have appropriate records. Btu the basic point is still correct – in general words tend to get shorter.
The mistake is to think that a strong tendency is a hard-and-fast invariable rule. Piotr did rightly say “other things being equal”.
Peter