Andrew Carnie: Clarification of Synchronic vs.Historical Linguistics

[Elizabeth J. Pyatt]

>From: Andrew Carnie <carnie at linguistlist.org>
>Reply-To: carnie at linguistlist.org
>To: The Celtic Linguistics List <CELTLING at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
>Subject: Re: Marion Gunn: Clarification of Synchronic vs.Historical
>Linguistics

Hi All,

As the former moderator I'd like to offer an explanation for the previous
policy. In fact, the original point of the policy wasn't to exclude
diachronic linguistics (which we did post), but to exclude amateurish
etymological questions. Early on in the list I got a *lot* of messages of
the form "Hi, My family is from Ireland and my last name is O'Donnell,
can you tell me what this means". I got a lot of these, and I felt
they took away from the academic quality of the list, so I instituted
a "no-etymology" policy. I was probably *too* strict about it, since
as many have pointed out, the list wasn't over whelmed with messages
anyway.  But in fact I *did* post diachronic messages if they were
well informed and academically oriented. I myself am interested in
diachronic syntax and would like to see more discussions of the topic.

In point of fact, I'd encourage a relaxing of the policy and allow
diachronic messages.

Best (and thanks to Elizabeth who saved the list from oblivion!)

Andrew

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