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"But language is a living thing." Simple, brilliant, true, and in the context you put it in, it's very reassuring to me. :-D "So I think there is nothing at all wrong with a GMP that involves non-determinism. On the contrary: it makes the design more naturalistic. Which degree is part of the design goals of your conlang." Hmmm, do you mean am I aiming more toward the end of rigidity or naturalism? If so, I definitely want this to be a naturalistic language-- full what I love about Indo-European languages, complex conjugations, abstract declensions, just enough irregularities to make learning the language a little thought-provoking, etc. etc. You guys are all such great help-- thanks, Henrik! Cheers! -Mark --- In romconlang@yahoogroups.com, Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> wrote: > > Hi! > > Mark G writes: > >... > > I know a lot about historical linguistics and phonological changes, > > and I even know a lot about the evolution of Classical Latin to > > Vulgar, but to be honest, my expertise is more deeply rooted in the > > modern Romance languages, especially Spanish. I know that phonological > > changes are sweeping, contextual, and consequently fairly easily > > traceable. But even in the instances in which they supposedly "always" > > occur, are there ever more-than-minute exceptions to those rules? For > > instance, might there be an instance in a Western Romance language > > where, though most voiceless stops became voiced, there are a cluster > > of words where, for some reason, "t" was expected to become "d" but > > somehow didn't? ... > > A language is usually a continuum of dialects that all have different > sound change tendencies: either only slightly different, or vastly. I > tried to find a coherent sound shift system from Proto Germanic to > Modern Icelandic for my romlang �rjótrunn, and it is basically > impossible. Some examples clearly showed contradicting shifts. For > very coherent languages like Modern Icelandic, you might reach 90% > prediction rate with a decent GMP for 2000 years of slow change (for > good ones, maybe more, dunno, but that's when I stopped for my GMP). > For other languages, maybe only 50% are possible, e.g. due to strong > dialectal mixing. > > So I think there is nothing at all wrong with a GMP that involves > non-determinism. On the contrary: it makes the design more > naturalistic. Which degree is part of the design goals of your > conlang. > > One example from German I read about recently on Conlang: _Strom_ > (cognate to English 'stream') should rather be *_Straum_ if the > regular sound changes had been applied. But language is a living > thing, and a more Dutch- and Low-German-like vowel has survived. > > This reminds me of my agenda for conlangs: Proto Germanic to Modern > German sound shifts applied to Vulgar Latin. It was done a few times, > and great conlangs have emerged, and I want to share the fun. :-) I > already know the lexicon entry for 'leg': _Krauer_ < CRU:S. It is > _krýr_ in �rjótrunn, and I like the word a lot. :-) > > **Henrik >