Rate of Change: A Closer Look

[Stanley Friesen]

At 01:03 AM 6/12/01 -0400, X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

>If we are talking about sound changes that separate two daughter languages,
>we should be able to show that those specific sound changes took a certain
>number of years, days, hours and with historical evidence.  If we are
>claiming that that rate is somehow universal - justifying the application of
>a uniformity assumption - we should be prepared to show that the same rate
>per sound change can be observed in a large enough number of other languages.
>  Or explain why they vary.

This assumes a constant rate of change, something I doubt anybody
proposes.  What is suggested is a *statistical* median or mean rate, and a
variance in rate.  Given those one can determine a range of reasonable
values for when a *set* of changes took place.  One can certainly determine
a maximum amount of time that could reasonably correlate with a given
amount of change - that is how statistics works.

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May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at friesen.net