From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!duke!unc!dce
Newsgroups: net.nlang,net.followup
Title: Re: Re: Heighth
Article-I.D.: unc.4351
Posted: Wed Dec  1 17:50:46 1982
Received: Sun Dec  5 13:40:19 1982
References: alice.1222

Thank you, Dan. One thing I'd like to add to what you said (yes, here
goes that radical relativist ... again) is that many language changes
are actually neccessary. The English language had to undergo many
changes due to the Norman invasion, like voicing some of the stops.
I believe that the word 'wine' comes from French, and that there was
a word in English that was spelled like it but had an f instead of
v. The speakers had to add the v sound to the language. In addition,
language change makes it possible to simplify spellings and for
people to know more words (I think this comes from the theory that
storage for a word in the brain depends on the length of the word).

Also, I don't think what I said was indicative of being a radical
linguist. I only meant that it more useful to a linguist to know
what a speaker of a language actually says, and not what the speaker
is supposed to say. In this way, we can find out how the language
has changed and predict future changes.


			David