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<p>Dear all,<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 01/10/2018 17:05, Hartmut Haberland
wrote:<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"
lang="EN-US">I have been told that in Florutz German (spoken
in an Alpine valley) you have to put the potatoes that you
have peeled down or up into the dish depending on whether
the dish is between you and the stream in the middle of the
valley (‘down’) or you are between the stream and the dish
(‘up’). That might be a myth, but it is a nice story.
Hartmut</span></p>
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An analogous system is certainly no myth in many dialects of
Malay/Indonesian (as well as their respective substrate languages).<br>
<br>
But I would like to offer a complete different example of a
"temporal feature". Earlier in this thread there was mention of
work by Trudgill and others suggesting that small societies (of the
kind that were more widespread in past eras) are more conducive to
linguistic complexity. For the past several years I have been
engaging in an experimental project measuring the complexity of
thematic role assignment across the world's languages, and my
findings are that greater grammatical complexity in this domain
actually correlates positively with greater socio-political
complexity (and hence, by implication, with more recent languages).
So for example, larger contemporary languages are more likely to
distinguish agents from patients than smaller contemporary and hence
presumably also ancient ones. (These findings need not be construed
as contradictory to the Trudgill et al position, since both the
grammatical domains and the time frames are different in the two
studies.)<br>
<br>
(Unfortunately, I don't yet have a written reference to offer. I've
presented these results at several conferences, including ALT, and
have an unpublished extended abstract to offer anybody who's
interested. But I'm still working on writing up the complete study.)<br>
<br>
David<br>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
David Gil
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
Email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>
Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816
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