misleading use of borrowed technical terms

[Gordon Selway]

Larry wrote:
>>Middle English did not "inherit" these words at all: it *borrowed* them
>>from Norman French. >This is >>just the way the terms are used in
>>linguistics.

And Lloyd responded:
>Trask seems unwilling to recognize that the degrees of language fusion can
>differ, and that there is no >sharp boundary for the appropriate use of
>the word "inherit".

Well, well, well.

Langauages (at least living ones) are acquired at the beginning of our
lives, mostly, and as a rule (unless we are deaf Nicaraguan kids) from
those around us.  We do not 'inherit' language (even if we are monoglot
Israelis, I suppose) in the same way as we inherit Aunt Emily's clock, ie
after she's shuffled off this mortal coil.

Languages continue to exist because as parents (&c) we pass on our speech
to our kids.  Not absolutely (unless we are consciously learning Sanskrit
under the bo tree, or 7th century Arabic), but substantially or in large
measure.  In some milieux, though, change is rapid - cf suppletion of
modern Indian languages in these islands by adult-learned English in the
case of non-speakers, or by school-learned English in the case of their
kids, and then fairly complete assimilation in later generations.  There
can be relicts, though: some Scottish Englishes, or rather their speakers,
can show inherited patterns traceable back to Gaelic.  There may be varied
mechanisms for this.

Modern English is spoken by people who acquired the language from earlier
speakers, and so on back to when the language in its then form was to found
presumably in the angle it gets its name from, at the mouth of the Elbe.
Not from people who spoke French.

And what on earth is 'partial fusion'?

But of course there is a terminological as well as an analytical and a
methodological dimension to this thread.  Hope I've not made it more futile.

Gordon Selway
<gordonselway at gn.apc.org>