Postal quote/directionality

[Daniel Everett]

Martin,

I agree with you and with Bill. But I think that Postal does too. There
are two aspects of change, as you know.
        (i) Where is it likely to occur in language structures?  Here is where
directionality and functional & structural constraints are crucial.
        (ii) When is it likely to occur? This is what Weinrich called the
'actuation problem'. And this is social, as Postal, among many others
has said.

Postal was not intending, I do not believe, to summarize all of
linguistic change in that quote.

Dan


********************
Dan Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester, UK
M13 9PL
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Department Fax: 44-161-275-3187
http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/

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