Re: THEORY: derivation question

   Date:         Thu, 25 Mar 1999 12:17:59 -0300
   From: FFlores <fflores@...>

   Of course there can be exceptions, for example: words that are almost
   never used tend to stay unchanged. Some words are reborrowed from the
   protolanguage to form technical words (like IE langs have borrowed
   from Latin and Greek). And some very used words change faster.

I'm not sure about the first part, at least not before the skill of
reading became common. If a word survives in the spoken language at
all, it will take part in any sound changes going on. What does happen
to rarely used words is analogical levelling, where unusual features
about their inflection is `forgotten'. One case is the strong verbs in
English (and other Germanic languages) --- they have steadily become
fewer, most of them being moved into the weak conjugation, but some of
the ones that remain are among the most frequent verbs used. Another
example, as noted by Tolkien: If people had had occasion to talk about
dwarfs every day, the plural would probably still have been dwarves.

Fast change in frequent words often happens when they take on
subordinate roles in the syntax and lose their word stress. E.g., the
article "a/an" from the same origin as "one".

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)