free variation in pronunciation

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:48 PM +0100 4/3/01, Lynne Murphy wrote:
>--On Tuesday, April 3, 2001 9:39 am +0800 Laurence Horn
><laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
>
>>At 8:54 AM -0400 4/3/01, Dennis R. Preston wrote:
>>>Lynne hits the nail on the head here. I take the two forms - two
>>>meanings (in the broad sense) to be a pretty good general account, so
>>>much so that I would want to examine claims to the contrary (and free
>>>variation is always such a claim) very carefully.
>>
>>Does anyone have an early cite on who said this first?
>
>
>Are you looking for the phrasing or the sentiment?  The sentiment goes back
>into the 19th c. at least--Breal has it, right?

Yes, he has his "loi de différenciation", but that's more of a
precursor to Kiparsky's "Avoid Synonymy" principle and doesn't
directly extend to the avoidance of phonological free variants of the
type you're looking for, or more generally to the idea that different
forms ==> different meanings.


larry