Postal quote

Bert Peeters Bert.Peeters at UTAS.EDU.AU
Wed Nov 20 01:53:49 UTC 2002


Daniel Everett wrote:

> it may be worth mentioning to readers of this list that Paul Postal said something years ago about language change that still seems about right to me (though I cannot for the life of me remember where he said it). He said that change actuation likely has the same kind of explanation as why cars have 'fins' some years and not others, based on social questions of style and taste (etc.) that fall outside of the study of grammar per se.

Postal made this claim in his 1968 book *Aspects of phonological theory* (New York: Harper & Row) - I do not have a copy handy to check on which page.

Bert Peeters

--

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