Change and What Remains

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

I wrote:
<<Simply bringing up "ceaseless change" tells us nothing about whether enough
"remained" of ancestor so that it could co-exist with the daughter.)>>

In a message dated 9/26/99 5:00:40 PM, larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk replied:
<<Sure.  But your position appeared to be that absence of change in a
living language was a serious possibility, and that's what I was
objecting to.>>

Just to untangle the two issues:  the absence of change was always a pure
hypothetical.  The coexistence of ancestor with daughter language is
obviously a separate question.

I hypothesized a language that did not share any of the (300?) "innovations"
that went into the UPenn tree.  When you stated that an ancestor cannot
co-exist with a daughter, I did my best to conform to that 'rule' by
hypothesizing a string of "languages".   Others questioned the parent
/daughter statement before I did.

If you look back at the thread, you'll see that "ceaseless change" was used
to support your no-parent-with-daughter position.  And with regard to that,
let me write again that bringing up "ceaseless change" tells us nothing about
whether enough "remained" of the ancestor so that it could co-exist with the
daughter.

Regards,
Steve Long