@2184a19c Oh, I'm happy to share it! Thinking of writing it up as a blog post, because I think it deserves more than to be buried in a discussion of propagation and Croft's lame extended "Lewis and Clark" joke.
@2184a19c That would be William Croft (2000). Explaining Language Change: An Evolutionary Approach.
I could have sworn there was a whole big discussion of it, but it seems to be buried in section 7.4 (pages 174-194) on propagation. Seemed like a huge deal to me when I read it!
(full disclosure: Bill Croft was on my dissertation committee, and my feelings about him are ... complicated)
https://books.google.com/books?id=5_Ka7zLl9HQC
@2184a19c Here's the relevant page; on the previous page and a half there is a discussion of "grammaticization" vs. "grammaticalization," which had no sense distinction anyone could find, and was therefore interpreted socially or geographically.
"there seems to be a natural human tendency to increase the conventionality of one variant of a lingueme in a community at the expense of another, albeit over a long period of time in many cases. We may call this the FIRST LAW OF PROPAGATION."
https://cdn.masto.host/lingolol/media_attachments/files/111/182/817/718/729/567/original/bfd1caeaa56181f6.jpg
@2184a19c Croft has a whole section in his 2000 book about language abhoring pure synonymy - if there's no semantic, pragmatic, situational or social distinction, people will invent one!
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