He's back! ("yes"/"no")

[Joel S. Berson]

My high school biology teacher used to say "Ontology recapitulates
phylogeny."  Do we deduce that Irish, and other Gaelic languages, are
the primitive precursors of more evolved languages, like
English?   (Another reason for the history of the latter peoples
deprecating the former?)

Joel

At 8/31/2006 02:11 PM, you wrote:
>For a few months, at age 3, my little grandson did that; he would
>answer yes/no questions with "It is," "I don't," and the like.  As
>far as I'm aware, nobody else in his family, peer group, or
>community has the mannerism, and now that he's turning 4, it's
>disappeared from his speech.  Could it be a common feature in
>(ontogenic) language development?
>
>--Charlie
>_______________________________________________
>
>---- Original message ----
> >Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 17:04:42 +0100
> >From: Lynne Murphy <m.l.murphy at SUSSEX.AC.UK>
> >Subject: Re: He's back!
> >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >
> >--On Thursday, August 31, 2006 11:46 am -0400 "Baker, John"
> ><JMB at STRADLEY.COM> wrote:
> >
> >> we see the claim that there are no words for "yes" or "no" in
> Irish.  Is this really true?
> >
> >
> >If it's like Scots Gaelic (which one presumes it is), then yes, it
> is true--and I don't think it's all that rare in the world's
> languages.  You answer a question by saying "it is" or "it isn't"
> or otherwise echoing the verb of the question.  Chinese does this
> as well, doesn't it?
> >
> >Lynne
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org