Pathways
How languages change — directionally and recurrently
How does negation rebuild itself over time?
A preverbal negator weakens and is reinforced by an extra element, often a minimizer like “step” or “thing”. The reinforcer is reanalysed as the negator itself, then weakens in turn, and the cycle starts again.
How does a word for “there is no” turn into plain “not”?
A dedicated negative existential (“there is no X”) arises beside the ordinary negator, then spreads from existential sentences into verbal negation until it becomes the standard negator itself. Croft distinguishes six synchronic types — A, A~B, B, B~C, C, C~A — and the languages below sit at different points along the drift.
How does “listen” come to mean “obey”?
Verbs of hearing and listening repeatedly grow a sense of obeying. The pattern recurs from Mandarin tīnghuà and Japanese iu koto o kiku to Latin oboedīre, built on audīre “to hear”, behind French obéir and English obey.
How does “see” come to mean “try”?
Verbs of seeing repeatedly become markers of attempting. Japanese 食べてみる “eat and see”, Korean 먹어 보다, Mandarin 試試看, and the Turkic converb + kör- constructions all say “do it and see” for “try doing it”; Voinov (2013) traces the co-lexification across Eurasia, New Guinea, India, and West Africa.
How does /p/ disappear?
记录辅音/p/在世界各语言中消失与演化的音变路径合集。