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From: selvakum@valluvar.uwaterloo.ca (C.R. Selvakumar)
Subject: Re: Which family is Japanese in?
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Date: Fri, 22 Sep 1995 14:48:55 GMT
References: <DDxzLD.E5n@crash.cts.com> <43a192$r4s@netsrv2.spss.com> <DF7ssF.6H6@novice.uwaterloo.ca> <43skoc$ece@medici.trl.oz.au>
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In article <43skoc$ece@medici.trl.oz.au>,
Jacques Guy <jbm@newsserver.trl.oz.au> wrote:
>selvakum@valluvar.uwaterloo.ca (C.R. Selvakumar) writes:
>
>>    I did not mean to imply impossibility of syntacical change; 
>>    I had the feeling that the syntactic features are *more* resistant 
>>    to change than for 'replacing or acquiring words - borrowing words'. 
>>    For syntactic features to change it might take much longer 
>>    than for words to change. 
>
>
>Think of this: how many words are there in your language? and how
>many syntactic features? One word borrowed, or innovated, is
>what in relative terms? One very small part of the vocabulary of the
>language. One syntactic feature borrowed, or innovated, is a
>significant part of its syntax. Aren't starting to get a gut-feeling
>that borrowing 50% of the syntactic features is not so very much harder,
>or unlikely, than borrowing 50% of the vocabulary?
>

     I think you are referring to 'number/relative proportion' thingy instead
     my harder_to_measure_or_quantify 'ease of acquiring/changing' thingy.

     If syntactic features are as easy of acquiring/changing as words then 
     they will multinate between those few characteristics more often
     which can be shown by historical record. If you consider a certain area of
     borrowing ( say a language which is poor in music terminology
     is interacting with a language which has a highly developed musical
     terms, then borrowing even 90% is not inconceivable in that area without
     changing its syntactic features). I don't know
     whether it is comparable or not, but in science fundemental constants are few
     and quantities involving these are many. ( many more examples can be 
     given like electron-proton-neutron and various elements or
     subunits of DNA and so on but these analogies which can be 
     misleading although I've a feeling there is some merit in these
     analogies). Somehow it appears that changes in syntactic features are
     more like evolving/mutating into a different kind of species. Say a
     crow becoming a myna or vice versa ( both are birds) 
     ( I tried to avoid saying crow becoming peacock :-) ) 
     

     Regards, Selva

 P.S. I used 'multinate' in the sense of switching between the limited 
      set of states ( more than two). Somehow 'alternate' gives me the 
      sense that its reference is only between  _two_ states (??).
. 


