LINGUIST List 2.536

Fri 20 Sep 1991

Qs: Contact, Russian usage, Stieber's Law

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. Alexis Manaster Ramer, Stieber's Law
2. Geoffrey Russom, Re: 2.525 Queries
3. Alexis Manaster Ramer, Stieber's Law

Sometime during the spring or summer, a kind colleague responded
to a query of mine by sending a list of Welsh body part terms borrowed
from Latin. However, the header of his/her message had been messed
up and the editors of LINGUIST were unable to identify him/her.
Would this person please contact me again?

Message 2: Re: 2.525 Queries

I read somewhere that massive experiments designed to change usage were
made during the early postrevolutionary period in Russia under strong
centralized state control but that these had no effect on ordinary
speech whatsoever. Anybody know the details?
 -- Rick Russom

If I may repeat a query I posted over the summer (hoping that some of
you who were then on vacation will be able to help),
I am trying to find out who first proposed that analogical processes
may NOT affect the phonemic system of a language (create new phonemes,
redistribute allophones, etc.). The earliest formulation of this
I now know is by the Polish linguist Stieber (first name Zdzislaw, I
think) in the 1930's, but he does not sound as though he thought this
up. And I am SURE it was NOT Max Weinreich.