Languages and cultures self-repair the way ecosystems do, by selective replication of novel components that manage to find a job.
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Replying to @sarahdoingthing
"Perfectivity" (aspect) is a property in linguistics by which speakers indicate completeness or finished-ness.
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Replying to @sarahdoingthing
As Old English loses its perfective prefix ge-, use of demonstratives surge (that), eventually grammaticalizing into articles (the)
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Replying to @sarahdoingthing
Once you can't say "I [chopped-completely] wood," you have to say "I chopped the wood." Quantifiers like "all" also increase.
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Replying to @sarahdoingthing
You can see intelligent echoes of this in modern stigmatized vernacular forms: "I done chopped the wood" is more precise than the standard.
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Replying to @sarahdoingthing
Sometimes precision and prestige push in the same direction; sometimes they're at odds.
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Replying to @sarahdoingthing
@sarahdoingthing when they push opposite directions, they tend to compete longer than when they push the same way.1 reply 1 retweet 1 like -
Replying to @ctbeiser
@ctbeiser was talking to@Meaningness about this - he thinks among higher classes, vagueness is a feature1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
@ctbeiser @sarahdoingthing (because it puts the burden on the spoken-to to do more of the linguistic work.)
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Replying to @Meaningness
@Meaningness@ctbeiser@sarahdoingthing also being too explicit is a sign you think the other person is dumb1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @The_Lagrangian
@Meaningness@ctbeiser@sarahdoingthing on the plus side though, vagueness can allow for more interesting misundertandings1 reply 0 retweets 1 like - 6 more replies
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