# Linguists: Why does a language's grammar simplify over time? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 12, 2006, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linguists-why-does-a-languages-grammar-simplify-over-time/339690 "2006-01-12T18:09:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linguists-why-does-a-languages-grammar-simplify-over-time/339690/41 "2006-01-14T22:46:30Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > Old English also had dual number for some pronouns. There’s no trace of this left in Modern English. But we do have “both” meaning “all two”, as German as _beide_. AFAIK there is no such word in the Romance languages, _both_ being translatable into French as _tous les deux_. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linguists-why-does-a-languages-grammar-simplify-over-time/339690/42 "2006-01-14T23:02:07Z")
> [@Northern Piper](#): > > bit of a hijack, but isn’t Welsh an example of a language that uses prefixes rather than suffixes to express the inflections? Maybe it isn’t so much of a hijack. With the loss of postfix inflection of English has come an increasing use of auxiliary verbs, which happen to be irregular–_to be_, _to do_, and so forth. So it isn’t quite true that all the meaning that used to be carried by the postfixes is now being handled by syntax; rather, some of the inflection has merely moved to the auxiliary. Perhaps after a few millenia, we will have in English words like “isgoing” and “aregoing”, which would be examples of prefix inflection. ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linguists-why-does-a-languages-grammar-simplify-over-time/339690/43 "2006-01-14T23:05:52Z")
> [@](#): > > bit of a hijack, but isn’t Welsh an example of a language that uses prefixes rather than suffixes to express the inflections? Not really – the modern Celtic languages inflect words by changing the initial consonant, adding suffixes, and (in the case of Gaelic) palatalizing the final consonant. A few words are also inflected by changing the vowel (e.g. in Manx, the genitive of “cass” “foot” is “coshey”). For a good example of a language that has inflections at the beginning rather than the end of words, look at the Bantu languages. As an example, the plural of the Swahili word “kitabu” “book” is “vitabu”. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linguists-why-does-a-languages-grammar-simplify-over-time/339690/44 "2006-01-15T00:08:29Z")
> [@yBeayf](#): > > Not really – the modern Celtic languages inflect words by changing the initial consonant, adding suffixes, and (in the case of Gaelic) palatalizing the final consonant. A few words are also inflected by changing the vowel (e.g. in Manx, the genitive of “cass” “foot” is “coshey”). > > For a good example of a language that has inflections at the beginning rather than the end of words, look at the Bantu languages. As an example, the plural of the Swahili word “kitabu” “book” is “vitabu”. I’m glad English doesn’t do anything complicated like that. “Listening to the wise advice of their mothers-in-law, the herdsmen moved the oxen and sheep to safety at the lee of the chateaux.” ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linguists-why-does-a-languages-grammar-simplify-over-time/339690/45 "2006-01-15T00:18:14Z")
> [@Spectre of Pithecanthropus](#): > > But we do have “both” meaning “all two”, as German as _beide_. AFAIK there is no such word in the Romance languages, _both_ being translatable into French as _tous les deux_. Wouldn’t Spanish _ambos_ have the same use? \*\*_Q: ¿Vas a comprar el Dalí, o el Picasso? A: Ambos, si puedo.[/B] [Q: Are you going to buy the Dali or the Picasso? A: Both, If I can.]_ ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linguists-why-does-a-languages-grammar-simplify-over-time/339690/46 "2006-01-15T02:48:48Z")
> [@Spectre of Pithecanthropus](#): > > But we do have “both” meaning “all two”, as German as _beide_. AFAIK there is no such word in the Romance languages, _both_ being translatable into French as _tous les deux_. Does it decline as a dual word? ---
**Author:** ![qubed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f07891/32.png) [@qubed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qubed)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2006, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linguists-why-does-a-languages-grammar-simplify-over-time/339690/47 "2006-01-18T13:30:26Z")
I’ll just chime in a bit late stating that John Hawkins has a [book](http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Linguistics/SyntaxMorphology/?ci=0199252696&view=usa) that basically spends 300 pages arguing that humans are lazy (I suppose similarly to the Deutscher book mentioned before). When we can convey the same information (without misinterpretation) with less words/morphemes, then we will do so. It’s all comes down to efficiency, which he explains with some odd mathematics. So, at least in the case of English, with had developed a fairly strict word order, inflections became inefficient, and hence gradually disappeared. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linguists-why-does-a-languages-grammar-simplify-over-time/339690.md?page=2)