Creative analogy and language evolution

Abstract

The English "good and" intensifier is discussed as an example of a form that is acceptable even though ungrammatical, both synchronically and diachronically. The construction is analyzed as a case of creative analogy: the extension of a grammatically generated form to a new function, one for which it has no direct grammatical justification. From the perspective of a "dynamic" theory of language acquisition and evolution, it is argued that such forms constitute a new sort of evidence regarding the nature of language universals. © 1980 Plenum Publishing Corporation.