studies on the acquisition of possessive pronouns/adjectives (fwd)

[Sergio Meira S.C.O.]

Dear Funknetters,


I was recently told that 'historical-comparative linguistics tends to
reconstruct past order from present disorder', so that we always get a
nicer, more orderly picture of grammar in the past than in the present.
Would anyone happen to know of any references on the topic of whether more
disordered states can be reconstructed (e.g. unpredictable alternations,
irregularities in form/distribution of morphemes, semantic unpreditability
etc.), especially when the present-date state is more orderly?

Sergio Meira
meira at ruf.rice.edu