Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel-eecis!gatech!csulb.edu!info.ucla.edu!agate!howland.erols.net!netcom.com!petrich
From: petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
Subject: Re: Halloran's Sumerian
Message-ID: <petrichDz5DA4.269@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <53k32b$no1@scream.auckland.ac.nz> <seagoat.630.00E81583@primenet.com>
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 1996 05:15:40 GMT
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Sender: petrich@netcom14.netcom.com

In article <seagoat.630.00E81583@primenet.com>,
John A. Halloran <seagoat@primenet.com> wrote:

>If you did not have your preconceived idea that languages all descend from an 
>original language invented 200,000 years ago, what would you conclude if the 
>words of simple structure describe earlier cultural inventions and the words 
>of complex structure describe later cultural inventions?

	That the earlier ones may have once also been compounds, but that
they got reduced over time.

	And Mr. Halloran's linguistic-structure argument is an incredibly
weak argument for the proposition that human language is only 10,000 years
old. 

-- 
Loren Petrich				Happiness is a fast Macintosh
petrich@netcom.com			And a fast train
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