Re: USAGE: Language revival

Quoth John Cowan:
> Don Blaheta wrote:
> > That's not true at all.  Once learned, we can remember these irregular
> > forms, but we still have to learn them in the first place.
>
> 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.
Not as I say (or at least, not as I meant); I believe that the regular
forms are an aid in learning, but once learnt, they are all the same to
the brain---looked up rather than computed.

> > [W]e'll be forced to generalise from one example (e.g. "dwarf") in
> > order to get that word's other forms (hmm, I guess the plural must
> > be "dwarves").
>
> Indeed, that seems to be what happened in Tolkien's head, creating
> "dwarves" by analogy with "elves", although "dwarfs" was and is the
> standard form: the plural of "achondroplastic dwarf" is still
> definitely "achondroplastic dwarfs".  But the popularity of the L.R.
> has imposed "dwarves" as an alternative plural, specifically in
> "fairy-story" contexts.
Not just "elves", but knives, wolves, and scarves, as well.  In fact, I
completely fail to understand why "dwarfs" would be correct; "dwerrows"
is the correct, original, irregular form, while "dwarves" would be and
is the correct, modern, regularised form.  (For the plural, at least;
the 3s verb form is a different story, and is "knifes", "wolfs",
"scarfs", and "dwarfs", respectively.)

> Patrick Dunn wrote:
> > After all, the rule for which dental to add is somewhat complicated
> > to the average joe: I suspect that most people wouldn't be able to tell
> > you why they add /t/ sometimes and /d/ other times, yet they do, and
> > flawlessly.  They've memorized the form, not the formula.
>
> But if you ask someone to finish this sentence:
>
>         Today the man will /stark/, because yesterday he also ___.
>
> they will automatically answer /starkt/.  Conscious knowledge of the rule,
> and the ability to apply it, are two different thigs.
This doesn't support your claim *at all*.  This just shows that there
are in fact rules, which people are able to apply when they see a new
form they haven't learnt before.  Nobody was disputing this.

--
-=-Don Blaheta-=-=-dpb@cs.brown.edu-=-=-<http://www.cs.brown.edu/~dpb/>-=-
Schizophrenia beats being alone.