Underestimating Language

[keith johnson]

This discussion of communication and diachronic detrius is interesting.

As I've been reading the posts I've been thinking about how
communication using the forms of language may convey quite a lot more
than simply logical form or propositional content. For instance,
language functions as a marker of group identity.

You know how some forms of music are filled with flourishes - grace
notes and the like - while other forms make striking use of silence (the
positions and durations of the rests)?  The style of the music (like
group identity) is conveyed by conforming to the conventions of that
style, and in a sense the silence is just as "communicative" as the
grace notes.

Keith Johnson