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From: deb5@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: The whole language tree thing.
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References: <DEIxrB.8J0@crash.cts.com> <AC8903349668A80EB@158.152.71.11> <443uv5$b4q@news.cs.tu-berlin.de> <AC8DF97B96687706F@yarn.demon.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 21:23:45 GMT
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In article <AC8DF97B96687706F@yarn.demon.co.uk>,
Paul Talacko <taka@yarn.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <443uv5$b4q@news.cs.tu-berlin.de>,
>wolfi@cs.tu-berlin.de (Wolfgang Schwanke) wrote:
>
>>In your model, all "ancestors" of English are weighted equally,
>>whereas both properties of modern English and history of the language
>>tell us that the ways Germanic and Romance impacted on English are not
>>the same (and dare I say, not equally fundamental).
>>The example illustrates that.
>
>You are right and that is a weakness in the model.  There are several ways
>to deal with that.  One way would be to put percentage markings against
>each ancestor to indicate the degree of influence each had.  This is of
>course simplistic, a better method would be to include anotations about the
>style and type of influence each 'ancestor' had.
>
Kind of like the diagrams on p. 86 of the _dtv-Atlas zur deutschen
Sprache_ (Muenchen, c.1978)?



-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
