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Re: THEORY: on the teleology of conlanging (was: RE: terminaldialect?)

From:Joshua Shinavier <ajshinav@...>
Date:Tuesday, March 30, 1999, 9:23
> I'll second this. For one thing, there are certain phonologies that > would probably be bound to change, for instance having /q/ without /k/.=
=20
> If such a lang existed (perhaps all /k/'s had evolved to /x/), I would > wager that within two generations, /q/ would become /k/. But definitely > a lot of if's exist. However, there does seem to be some underlying, > unknown, laws. Compare how separated, but related, languages often have > similar changes occur, such as consonant mutation in the Celtic langs.
Mm-hm; such a phonology would not be consistent with itself... not that I k= now exactly what this "consistency" actually is... that's what I'd like to get a clearer picture about. Did consonant mutations evolve in the individual Celtic languages or did the original ancestral tongue already have them?
> > So, getting the point: here too you see that you can't really foreorda=
in=20 what
> > your language will be like many centuries or millennia hence, because a=
ll=20 sorts
> > of social events will intervene which you could never have foreseen. >=20 > You could, I think, design a conlang that would be more likely to remain > stable. A simple phonology would be less likely to change. Irregular > inflections are quite likely to be regularized, so a regular conlang > would be more stable there. A simple pattern of inflections (that is, > no multiple conjugations like Latin's -are, -=EAre, -ere, -ire; where =EA=
=3D
> e-macron) would also be stable. But there's no way to prevent ALL > changes. And, of course, make the speakers a small, and socially > conservative, people, and you'll slow down changes. But, I think that > you're term "terminal dialect" is very appropriate, an unchanging > language is DEAD (just like a "terminal disease").
I was thinking more in terms of "terminal velocity" :) I don't think an entirely regular language is neccessarily more stable, tho= ugh; often irregular forms crop up which are more convenient (e.g. the slang "go= tta" as in "he's gotta go" is quicker than "has to" or "must"), and evidently convenience is what it's all about in language change... Josh _/_/ _/_/ _/_/_/_/ Joshua Shinavier =20 _/ _/ _/ Loorenstrasse 74, Zimmer B321=20 _/ _/ _/_/_/_/ CH-8053 Z=FCrich =20 _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ Switzerland =20 _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ http://www.delphi.com/aring