Re: Reversible sound change applier
| From: | Alex Fink <a4pq1injbok_0@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, May 11, 2006, 3:03 |
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On Wed, 10 May 2006 17:29:19 -0500, Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...> wrote:
>How does that work with mergers? E.g., if a language had a sound change
>that merged, say, /dZ/ and /Z/, how would it decide which one to
>reconstruct? Without looking at related languages/dialects, or possibly
>inflectional forms within the language, there's no way of knowing which
>one is the case.
>=========================================================================
It takes the simple-minded way out and returns every possible reconstruction
(usually a great many of them are ridiculous, in fact).
It'd be quite cool to have a program which could do internal reconstruction
like that to decide on the most likely previous form. But that would
require a knowledge of plausible alternations and an understanding of
paradigmatic relationships of words and a capacity to analogize that are far
beyond the reach of any mere sound change applier I know of.
(eek, I'm being prodigal with my post quota.)
Alex
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