Combinatorials should give it.
Go to your Spanish dictionary and ask how many one syllable root combinations are possible. I can go through the l list, alphabetically and pick off that set. There are a small finite set of vowels having distinct representation, and another small set of consonants having the same. They come in alphabetical order.
I know where to look every time as I scroll. I collect the one ending as standard Spansh verbs.
For evolved oral speech it is an optimal spread problem, use up as much vowel and consonant commutativity to make everyday life simple. Minimize the amount of effort to distinguish every day things. This would be literally encoding speech to minimize mouth transitions.
Poets were the linguists before writing. It was their job to make the fable memorable, easily paced. Metaphorical usages supply artistic license to the king's poets. They would intend to promote a new slang to make the poem memorable. The language migrates overtime the way a hit show or memorable song can induce a change in word definition.
How many roots for everyday speech?
I counted abut 100 roots in Old Man and the Sea, a rough count. If you just split the alphabet into consonants, vowels and unused, then their are 500-1000 one syllable roots available. But good speakers limit their poem to a subset by setting the context. The king's poets wold be given wide latitude with the metaphors, the king willing to sacrifice good grammar to establish some key roots that define his rule.
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