Re: Accelerated language evolution : a proposed experiment

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Kari Kraus <karimkraus@G...> wrote:

> [snip]
> There is actually considerable overlap between scribal errors and
> speech errors: metathesis, epenthesis, deletion, etc. are known
> phenomenon in the transmission of texts.  Indeed, there is much
> cognitive evidence suggesting that the model a particular scribe holds
> in memory as he moves from his exemplar to his copy is phonological as
> well as visual.  The particular branch of literary studies that deals
> with these issues is known as textual criticism.  It has direct
> parallels in the comparative methods of historical linguistics and
> evolutionary biology.
> [snip]
My own most frequent errors on list are:
1) writing one of the suffixes "'s", "s'", "s" when I mean one of the
others instead (getting plurals and possessives mixed up);
2) writing one of the words "their", "there", "they're" when I mean one
of the others instead.

That, I would think, fits with "your" model.

Tom H.C. in MI