forwarded message from Bert Peeters

[funkadmn Departmental Account]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 09:36:45 +1100
From: Bert Peeters <Bert.Peeters at modlang.utas.edu.au>
To: FUNKNET-Request at ricevm1.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Rejected posting to FUNKNET at RICEVM1.RICE.EDU


At 09:09 2/12/95 -0500, Ellen L. Contini-Morava wrote:
>
>A change in progress is identified
>by comparing the speech of older and younger members of a speech
>community, so I don't know if this would count as a "prediction"
>exactly, if by that is meant predicting a change that hasn't started
>yet.  But in cases where chain-shifting of vowels is occurring, for
>example, one might be able to predict a "drift" in this direction even
>when a particular change hasn't occurred yet.

This procedure is at the heart of what Andr=3DE9 Martinet refers to as the
study of a "dynamic synchrony" ("une =E9tude de synchronie dynamique"). I
take the liberty to refer to what I said on this matter in the first chapte=
r
of my book *Diachronie, phonologie, et linguistique fonctionnelle* (Louvain=
-
la-Neuve, Peeters, 1992) - also, in an older version, in the journal *Langu=
es
et linguistique* 1991. Martinet points out that diachronical studies become
a whole lot easier to undertake if one adopts a perspective of dynamic
synchrony, simply because trends that are observable help explain differenc=
es
between consecutive states of a natural language.
See also Tsutomu Akamatsu, *Essentials of functional phonology* (Louvain-la=
-
Neuve, 1992), chapter 12 (has a good summary of work achieved).
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Dr Bert Peeters                  =20
Department of Modern Languages (French)         =20
University of Tasmania         =20
GPO Box 252C                          Tel.  (002) 202344   +61 02 202344
Hobart TAS 7001                       Fax.  (002) 207813   +61 02 207813
Australia                        Email: Bert.Peeters at modlang.utas.edu.au
http://info.utas.edu.au/docs/humsoc/modern_languages/peeters/peeters.htm
http://info.utas.edu.au/docs/humsoc/modern_languages/french/welcome.htm


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Dr Bert Peeters                   =20
Department of Modern Languages (French)          =20
University of Tasmania          =20
GPO Box 252C                          Tel.  (002) 202344   +61 02 202344
Hobart TAS 7001                       Fax.  (002) 207813   +61 02 207813
Australia                        Email: Bert.Peeters at modlang.utas.edu.au
http://info.utas.edu.au/docs/humsoc/modern_languages/peeters/peeters.htm
http://info.utas.edu.au/docs/humsoc/modern_languages/french/welcome.htm