> Even if the exceptions outnumber the rules, each rule applies in a much larger number of cases, so each case is more likely to follow the rule rather than being an exception.
Perhaps, if you're looking at a language in its entirety, without regard to usage frequency of particular utterances.
However, most of the exceptions tend to be concentrated in the most frequently-used portions of the language. So, while the statement is technically correct, extensive focus on the rules is not really practical.
Take a random verb in English. It's reasonable to assume the third-person singular form can be constructed by appending an "-s" to it. Similarly, the past-tense forms can be constructed with an "-ed." Most verbs are like that.
Yet this rule isn't of much help with the two most common verbs: "to be" (am/are/is/was/were, not bes/beed), and "to have" (has/had, not haves/haved), as well as dozens of others that also happen to be among the most frequently-used.
Thus, from any practical point of view (such as a language learner's), it's best not to expect any rules to hold in principle, at least not until one's awareness of the exceptions is sufficiently advanced.
> And linguistics as a field is really about the regularity of languages. When exceptions are studied, it is to discover the underlying rules that e.g. cause exceptions to arise or to disappear.
I think this is a very good point. I'm not criticizing the questions as they are, as I said I found them interesting. All I'm saying is that it's good to be aware of the limitations of such an approach. It's best to look at some of the problems as logical puzzles, only wrapped in references to some (more or less) obscure languages, and natural languages should not be expected to follow the principles of logic.
I think that's the wrong take. The more frequent utterances can be fossilized precisely because of their repeated use. The reality is that any creative or less frequent use of language (thus carrying more information) is carefully constructed in regular ways whose rules can be discovered.
Perhaps, if you're looking at a language in its entirety, without regard to usage frequency of particular utterances.
However, most of the exceptions tend to be concentrated in the most frequently-used portions of the language. So, while the statement is technically correct, extensive focus on the rules is not really practical.
Take a random verb in English. It's reasonable to assume the third-person singular form can be constructed by appending an "-s" to it. Similarly, the past-tense forms can be constructed with an "-ed." Most verbs are like that.
Yet this rule isn't of much help with the two most common verbs: "to be" (am/are/is/was/were, not bes/beed), and "to have" (has/had, not haves/haved), as well as dozens of others that also happen to be among the most frequently-used.
Thus, from any practical point of view (such as a language learner's), it's best not to expect any rules to hold in principle, at least not until one's awareness of the exceptions is sufficiently advanced.
> And linguistics as a field is really about the regularity of languages. When exceptions are studied, it is to discover the underlying rules that e.g. cause exceptions to arise or to disappear.
I think this is a very good point. I'm not criticizing the questions as they are, as I said I found them interesting. All I'm saying is that it's good to be aware of the limitations of such an approach. It's best to look at some of the problems as logical puzzles, only wrapped in references to some (more or less) obscure languages, and natural languages should not be expected to follow the principles of logic.