Re: USAGE: Language revival

It is a great pleasure to find myself agreeing with Nik; we often seem
to be at odds over minor things.  BTW, Nik, the most famous use of
"Dwarfs" is after "Snow White and the Seven". :)

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                       edheil@postmark.net
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Nik Taylor wrote:

> John Cowan wrote:
> > Exactly so.  I was rejecting Ed's claim that we'd rather memorize
> > than compute in all cases.  Per contra, we memorize a modest number
> > of irregular forms, but we compute the regular ones, just as you say.
>
> That's where I disagree.  I agree with Ed that we probably store even
> regular forms of common verbs like "cook".  The brain does seem to be
> faster at retrieving a form like "cook" than computing "cook" + "s" -->
> "cooks".
>
> > But the popularity of the L.R. has imposed "dwarves" as an alternative
> > plural, specifically in "fairy-story" contexts.
>
> I don't think I've ever seen "dwarfs" anywhere.
>
> --
> "Old linguists never die - they just come to voiceless stops." -
> anonymous
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