Re: Language

In article
<f32edd52-d7d9-473f-b9dc-5c3e76b6936a@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Occidental <Occidental@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 8 Mar, 22:37, Occidental <Occiden...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Not exactly; the OP was talking (by implication) about the slow
transformation of a word for a common thing into a different word for
the same thing. It would not be surprising if an occasional member of
a language group introduced an idiosyncratic pronunciation, but it is
surprising that such a new pronunciation would be generally adopted.
Such a new pronunciation would be analogous to a mildly deleterious
mutation, and we would expect it to suffer a similar fate, unless the
other members got a charge out of novel pronunciations. A new meaning
ascribed to a familiar word, in the example you give, resembles what
(IIRC) Gould called an "exaptation", and would survive because it is
useful. What use is a new word for "food"?

On Mar 13, 9:37 pm, Vend <ven...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Sometime the "mutations" arent' phonetical, but semantic.

For instance, the verb "to eat" its "mangiare" in Italian and "manger"
in French. Those terms come from the Latin "manducare" which means "to
chew", while the Latin verb for "to eat" was "edere".
Probably someone started using "to chew" as a metaphor for "to eat"
and for some reason the use catched in a population of speakers, while
many other speakers kept using the old terms (which, according to
Wikitionary, are from Indo-European origin).

["caught", not "catched"]
But why would a population that had a universally accepted word for
"eat" start using a new word?

In general they don't. Occasionally new uses do arise among adults, but
as a general rule, changes occur in children -- a child might hear its
mother say something like 'chew your food' and assign a broader meaning
to that word, and their usage will spread to other children. The adults
don't necessarily adopt the children's usage, but they do eventually die
off.

Among adults, new words or usages will generally be adopted only when
there are strong sociological forces encouraging it (for example, many
Norman words ultimately supplanted Saxon ones because they were
considered more prestigious).

When new words do enter the language due to language or dialect contact,
this will often have an effect on the meanings of existing words as well
since language users tend to avoid true synonymy -- when two words with
identical meanings enter the language there is a tendency for one or
both of the terms to shift in either denotation or connotation.

Absent some way to model the sort of random language change you are
talking about, it boils down to individual judgment. ISTM that such a
model must include a disposition on the part of the members of the
modeled population to accept and adopt the changes to pronunciation
and grammar introduced randomly by single individuals. Without that,
it wouldn't work.

Generally speaking, it isn't a matter of individuals adopting new forms,
but rather of individuals reanalysing existing forms in ways that affect
other aspects of the grammar. While this does occur in adults, it is
more prevalent among children learning the language.

André

.

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