I don't think you appreciate the different arguments being made here, and I'm not sure if you read the article past the title.
>If the output isn't coherent or fails to articulate such that the listener doesn't understand the message, then it's hardly adaptive.
Clipping, assimilation, etc. do not meet your criteria as they do not cause incomprehensibility. They may draw prescriptive criticism, but they do not deprive phrases of all conceivable meaning. Those are the types of phenomena that the article is discussing.
More to the point, when I say "adaptive" I am talking about the evolution of language. The winds of change. It isn't always "good" in an objective sense, but it never leads to a breakdown of meaning.
>incomprehensibility of mumbling.
Think of the definition used by the article as "failure to enunciate" and it should make more sense. Perhaps it wasn't the best word choice, but I'm guessing it's reflective of social use. I don't know what else a layman might call "not enunciating", especially since there are several factors involved such as the examples above.
The rest of your comment, as well as chasing's comment, seem to be hinged on the idea that there's only one definition of mumbling, which I just don't agree with, but I won't continue to argue against it either. If you have a better title for the article, I would direct it to the writer.
>If the output isn't coherent or fails to articulate such that the listener doesn't understand the message, then it's hardly adaptive.
Clipping, assimilation, etc. do not meet your criteria as they do not cause incomprehensibility. They may draw prescriptive criticism, but they do not deprive phrases of all conceivable meaning. Those are the types of phenomena that the article is discussing.
More to the point, when I say "adaptive" I am talking about the evolution of language. The winds of change. It isn't always "good" in an objective sense, but it never leads to a breakdown of meaning.
>incomprehensibility of mumbling.
Think of the definition used by the article as "failure to enunciate" and it should make more sense. Perhaps it wasn't the best word choice, but I'm guessing it's reflective of social use. I don't know what else a layman might call "not enunciating", especially since there are several factors involved such as the examples above.
The rest of your comment, as well as chasing's comment, seem to be hinged on the idea that there's only one definition of mumbling, which I just don't agree with, but I won't continue to argue against it either. If you have a better title for the article, I would direct it to the writer.