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vijayjohn wrote:Yes, absolutely. This is how lots of creoles work (IIRC, the majority of creoles): If a verb is not accompanied by any other morphology (or any indication that the tense is something other than past), then the default interpretation is that it is in past tense, so e.g. mi go in Atlantic English-based creoles would be interpreted as 'I went' by default.
In Modern Standard Arabic, forming the past tense form of a verb is about as straightforward as it is in Persian. Forming the present or future tense forms, on the other hand, must be a nightmare because there is apparently no way to predict which vowels to use in these forms.
Koko wrote:vijayjohn wrote:Yes, absolutely. This is how lots of creoles work (IIRC, the majority of creoles): If a verb is not accompanied by any other morphology (or any indication that the tense is something other than past), then the default interpretation is that it is in past tense, so e.g. mi go in Atlantic English-based creoles would be interpreted as 'I went' by default.
Huh that's interesting o.o I wonder how that occurs, since they're taking the present form of an English verb and giving a past meaning to it. (Well, i guess it's the infinitive they're using? Still interesting.)
razlem wrote:One thing I always found confusing is the claim that words that are used often are the ones most subject to change over time (so you wind up with irregular forms for verbs used a lot, for example). But at the same time you have words like numbers, which have appeared to change so little from PIE.
linguoboy wrote:razlem wrote:One thing I always found confusing is the claim that words that are used often are the ones most subject to change over time (so you wind up with irregular forms for verbs used a lot, for example). But at the same time you have words like numbers, which have appeared to change so little from PIE.
mi, erk’u, erekh, čorkh, hing, vech, evthn, uth, inn, t’asn
razlem wrote:linguoboy wrote:razlem wrote:One thing I always found confusing is the claim that words that are used often are the ones most subject to change over time (so you wind up with irregular forms for verbs used a lot, for example). But at the same time you have words like numbers, which have appeared to change so little from PIE.
mi, erk’u, erekh, čorkh, hing, vech, evthn, uth, inn, t’asn
Armenian is kinda of an extreme counterexample. But compared to other IE languages' words for 1,2,3, wouldn't you say that there's a great deal of stability?
Dormouse559 wrote:The way I understand it, all words are equally susceptible to sound changes, but common words are less likely to lose any irregularities introduced by sound change. Similar number words aren't a counterexample to that (unless perhaps you can show they experienced unexpectedly strong analogy). If they haven't diverged much to begin with, that's just the vagaries of sound change.
razlem wrote:Well the main frame of reference I'm using is the verb(s) for "to be" in IE languages. There seems to be so much variation in both the phonology and morphology, yet with things like numbers, while there is certainly sound variation, it doesn't seem to be nearly to the extent of this verb paradigm. The explanation previously given to me was that 'to be' is used so often that it is subject to a great deal of change. But then you have words like numbers which, even on the Indian subcontinent, still readily resemble European forms.
PfifltriggPi wrote:What is the prevailing thoughts about articles in PIE? I think it did not have any, but that is just my, rather ignorant, opinion.
PfifltriggPi wrote:Common words like that, however, tend to become "slang-ified" and thus change that way.
linguoboy wrote:PfifltriggPi wrote:Common words like that, however, tend to become "slang-ified" and thus change that way.
Could you elabourate? I have no idea what you mean by this statement.
vijayjohn wrote: I've noticed a lot of non-native speakers of English IRL using the term "slang" to refer to all sorts of things as long as it's not formal written language
vijayjohn wrote:linguoboy wrote:PfifltriggPi wrote:Common words like that, however, tend to become "slang-ified" and thus change that way.
Could you elabourate? I have no idea what you mean by this statement.
I think he might just mean word reduction (or even more generally just words being altered by sound changes). I've noticed a lot of non-native speakers of English IRL using the term "slang" to refer to all sorts of things as long as it's not formal written language. (For example, a Russian lady I used to know once told me молодец was a "slang" term).
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