Re: THEORY: Vowel shift (was: THEORY: Storage Vs. Computation)

On Sun, 20 Jun 1999, Nik Taylor wrote:

> Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
> > I hope not! But it will be centuries, if not millenia before the world
> > is as interesting linguistically again as it was a century ago.
>
> I don't think the world will *ever* be as interesting, linguistically,
> unless civilization collapses.  Unless things change, there'll
You're right, of course - every graduated linguist should describe
at least one undescribed language, preferably after an extended fieldwork
period, with another period to check up. I would have gone to Nepal
hadn't money and grants and so on been a bit more plentiful...

<snip scenario>

Yes, that would mean an essentially fresh start - I wonder if your
time-depth is enough for that, though. By the way, I've ordered
Dixon from your website, and it's a very good read indeed, although
the typography is awful. I like the way he emphasizes that a single
explanatory idea is never enough to explain all the complexities.
Most of his sources I'd read already, and he's gone and built a whole
new structure on top of it. It really deserves a somewhat grander
packaging!

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt