[bianca]

I think that English speakers have always been quick to "steal" a good word when they hear one. If there is no handy word to steal, they are also quick to come up with new ones or mangle old ones until they suit their purpose. This makes English a highly versatile language, perhaps a "lexical English" as you put it (unlike other languages that try to block foreign influences, such as French). But I am not sure how grammar will withstand the test of multiculturalism.

It seems to me that, when speaking of grammar, you refer to verbs and tenses alone. Isn't grammar also about semantic change, about the system of inflections, phonology, morphology and syntax, and word formation? If so, word formation as an approach to building the lexicon is an attribute of grammar. I see lexicon and grammar as two inseparable siblings, or a relationship of duality between them (rather than dichotomy). People do not just blurt out isolated words, they combine them into phrases and sentences, in which the meaning of the combination can be inferred from the meanings of the words and the way they are arranged. If grammar is going to become simplified as you mentioned, I doubt words alone through their increasing number will compensate for this simplification and still be able to create meaning in language. Words are the building blocks in a language, they are not themselves language.

bianca