Simple sample sumple somple
The question I'm pondering today is why do languages seem to become simpler. Or are they? Are grammars equally complex but simply less formal? Often people ask me why you write a sentence a particular way and it's really hard to answer. "You just do." But there could be a deeper rule involved that isn't articulated in formal grammars.
The reason I'm thinking about it is Indo-European ablaut. Indo-European in some respects had a consonant-first approach to morphology (which leads you to ask whether IE and Semitic derived from a proto-whatever). Vowel grade is not entirely dissimilar from the vowel melody of Semitic languages.
English still has some fossil ablaut btw and if I give you an example, you'll see straight away what I'm talking about:
sing sang sung song
is an almost undisturbed descendant of the IE verb *sengwh.
Which is itself interesting. That root meant "sing" in a restricted sense (ritual singing). The usual root was "kan-", which we see descended into Latin as "canere" (more usually used as its frequentative "cantare", which became the common word), and thence to French as "chanter". Note that French has *no* ablaut. The verb quality of "chan-" does not change in any related word. This is typically true fo French.
posted by Dr Zen @ 8:34 am
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