Date:  Thu, 16 Dec 1993 18:34:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston" <22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



I am sorry to introduce the term 'polylithic.' I mean simply to refer to the

claim (explicitly made by Chomsky) that variation even in the individual is a

switching between grammars (and, hence, uninteresting to general theoretical

investigation.) Here is a representative quote: '...every human being speaks a

variety of languages. We sometimes call them different styles or dialects, but

they are really differnet languages, and somehow we know when to use them....

Now each of these languages invovles a different switch setting. IN the case

of [different lanaguges] it is a rather dramatically different switch setting,

more so than in the different styles of [one language] (Language and problmes

of knowledge: the Managua lectures,1988, MIT Press, p. 188.

Perhaps my 'polylithic' was confusable with C-J's 'panlectal,' but that is

rather obviously not at all what I had in mind.

I promise to stop term-mongering.

Dennis Preston