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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Demonstratives got to be perfectivity-specifiers the same way fruit flies got to be beautiful in Hawaii: empty niche nobody else was using
8:18 PM - 30 Nov 2015
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