>"Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...> wrote:
>And veering a tad OT, why is the word "simplification" instead of
>*"simplication"? Seems like we have at least one lazy morpheme
>tagging along for the ride and not doing anything useful...
>The obvious answer is that it's nominalized from "simplify" rather
>than *"simplicate", but that's just begging the question. Why did
>that verb get that form? Duplex, duplicate; triple, triplicate;
>complex, complicate; simple(x), simplify. nuqjay'?
Perhaps it's because 'simplify' was brought into English from the
French 'simplifier' (according to the AHD). The other words came to us
directly from the Latin participles.
Of course, I can't answer why the French used 'simplifier.' :-)
Charlie