Re: Irregularity in human languages (was Re: irregular conlangs)

Quoth Carlos Thompson:
> Most irregularities are either sound changes (like {e} -> {ie}), phonetic
> changes (like  {c} -> {zc}) or some diferent paradigms (I will call a sound
> changes those which are not predictable in present language but obey a rule
> in old Spanish or Latin, while a phonetic change are those you can predict
> in present language).
It occurs to me that this is a really useful distinction; the former
("sound changes"; one could call them "non-productive transformation
rules") are useful to learn so that you can recognise unfamiliar forms
when reading/listening, while the latter ("phonetic changes" or
"productive transforms") can be learnt both for recognition and
production.  To bring this back around to the English verbs, the "-es
instead of -s" rule is a productive, phonetic transform, while the
various strong-verb paradigms are a good example of "sound changes" that
could be recognised but not necessarily guessed (some moreso than
others, of course).

--
-=-Don Blaheta-=-=-dpb@cs.brown.edu-=-=-<http://www.cs.brown.edu/~dpb/>-=-
When a man goes on a date he wonders if he is going to get lucky.
A woman already knows.                          --Frederick Ryder