Re: inalienable possession
From: | Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> |
Date: | Wednesday, November 18, 1998, 20:46 |
Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> Yes, at present, they just don't exist. That doesn't mean that they
> can't exist, or that they never existed (maybe a language now extinct
> without any descendor had a split-nominative like Sally's one). Who knows?
> There are only 5000 languages all over the world, and certainly millions
> (perhaps an infinity) of systems that could be languages. So it's normal for
> me to think that everything is possible.
Okay, granted some unattested systems quite possibly existed somewhere,
but not all. I seriously doubt that a center-embedding system could
exist, the human brain simply can't handle it. I'm confident that there
*are* systems that simply can't exist in human languages. Perhaps some
that we think are impossible are actually possible, but I don't think
that every unattested system is possible. The human brain can only
process certain types of systems.
--
"It has occured to me more than once that holy boredom is good and
sufficient reason for the invention of free will." - "Lord Leto II"
(Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert)
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