Re: To Matt Pearson

Matthew Pearson scripsit:

> Well, human language is rule-governed, pure and simple,
Except for the parts that aren't.  Being a Registered Old Fart (who didn't
know what the connotations of "It's the bomb" are), I use "stank" as the
preterite of "stink", where younger speakers tend to use "stunk".  But
I spent quite a long time scratching my head about whether the participle
is also "stank" or whether it is "stunk" in my idiolect.  I finally
settled on "stunk", without any too much confidence about it.

Some parts of language are just plain associative, like non-linguistic
memory.  Other examples: French or German or Swahili gender,
Chinese or Japanese classifiers, German noun plurals.

--
John Cowan           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
Please leave your values        |       Check your assumptions.  In fact,
   at the front desk.           |          check your assumptions at the door.
     --sign in Paris hotel      |            --Miles Vorkosigan