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From: alderson@netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III)
Subject: Re: Language and genes
In-Reply-To: mcv@inter.NL.net's message of Sat, 3 Dec 1994 13:57:03 GMT
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Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 20:29:25 GMT
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In article <D08Mr4.DsI@inter.NL.net> mcv@inter.NL.net (Miguel Carrasquer)
writes:

>At the `microscopic' level of phonetics, a gradual and unspectacular change
>takes place.  At the `macroscopic' level of phonology, there's a sudden system
>change.

This is not necessarily true.  For example, I doubt that there were gradual
stages in the evolution of labial+j clusters in the Slavic languages to
labial+<palatalized l>.  The phonotactics of a language often do not allow
gradual change.
-- 
Rich Alderson   You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
                of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
                logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
                know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
                as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
                what not.
                                                --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alderson@netcom.com                               _The Notion Club Papers_
