Comprehensibility: sound vs grammar

[Larry Trask]

--On Sunday, July 22, 2001 3:06 pm +0000 X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

[LT]

> <<Similarity in sound systems is not a good metric for degree of
> divergence.>>

> And so is there any way of objectively measuring degree of divergence?

Not that I know of.  There are too many dimensions of change.  Who can say
whether a change in pronunciation should be weighted more or less heavily
than a change in grammar, or in lexicon?

[SL]

> <<If morphology, grammar and syntax are the least likely things to be
> borrowed (a la DLW's finite verbs), then perhaps they are the least
> likely to  change, and therefore are the features that least reflect
> accurately rates or  degrees of change.>>

[LT]

> <<Sorry; this makes no sense.  If the grammar of a language changes
> dramatically, then the language has changed greatly, and we cannot pretend
> otherwise merely because the pronunciation hasn't changed much. >>

> Typical disparaging and groundless overstatement.

Really?  So, Steve, you want to entertain the possibility that a language
can undergo large changes in grammar without changing very much overall?

Uh-huh.  Sure. ;-)

> First of all, you slip right into your usual conclusions - "changed
> greatly."

> Secondly, no one said a change in grammar doesn't change a language.  My
> point was that morphology and grammar may PERHAPS least accurately
> reflect  rates of degrees of change.

Incomprehensible.  If the grammar of a language changes, then the language
has changed.

You know what your position reminds me of?  Some years ago, inflation in
Britain had reached politically unacceptable levels.  The government,
worried about this, noticed that the price of housing was rising faster
than anything else.  So, what did they do?  They redefined the inflation
rate so as to exclude the cost of housing, thereby producing an agreeably
lower "inflation rate", which they then dubbed the "underlying inflation
rate".

In doing this, they conveniently overlooked the blunt fact that everybody
has to have housing and that everybody has to pay the market price for it,
whether the government is counting this expense or not.

It appears to me that you want to define "linguistic rate of change" so as
to exclude change in grammar.  Why?  This is simply perverse.

> What is the basis of your criticism here?  What's your measure of change
> here?  How do you measure change so that you can say a language changes
> "greatly" when a grammar changes "dramatically?"  How do you measure any
> of  that?

I can't quantify linguistic change at all.  I thought we'd settled that
some time ago.  Is it your impression that the difference between our
English and King Alfred's English resides almost entirely in pronunciation
and lexicon, while the grammatical differences are trifling?  Or that
Julius Caesar could learn to understand modern Italian without bothering
about the trifling differences in grammar?

> Absolute statements.  Conclusions with no objective basis.  Ill-defined
> terms.  The usual.

No.  Just a recognition of reality.

You ought to try reality, Steve.  It has many virtues. ;-)

> But does change in grammar have anywhere as much impact on
> comprehensibility  as phonology?  My statement was a PERHAPS.  You act as
> if you have some  special information that says otherwise and somehow
> clearly makes my  statement "not make any sense."

I'm an American in Britain.  The grammatical differences between British
and American English are few and small, but they exist, and they have at
times caused me difficulties.  I had to learn that, when an Englishman says
"I insist that this is not done", he usually means "I insist that this not
be done."  And I had to learn that, when he says "I've got a letter", he
usually means "I've gotten a letter."  And I also had to learn to accept
and understand such word salad as "A deal has been agreed" and "Immediately
she arrives, we'll eat" and "Your car needs the battery changing" and
"Which is my one?"

Multiply these differences by a hundred, and you get something I would have
failed to understand at all without a good deal of experience.

> Do you have any proof of this, one way or the other?  Or is this just
> another  overstated impression of yours?

See above.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: (01273)-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: (01273)-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)