changing FUNKNET topics

[Tom Givon]

Apropo's Martin's question, perhaps it might be useful to review both the
parallels & differences between linguistic/diachronic change and
biological/evolutionary change. Broadly, we concede that they are both
adaptive ('functional'). But there is more to it than broad parallels.

First, there is no either-or dichotomy between random mutation and adaptive
selection.. In biological adaptation in general (evolution), there are
distinct roles in the mechanism for *both*  of these mechanisms. As it is
acknowledged since Darwin, selection is largely adapotive/functional process
But within the selection mechanism itself, there is a (large) role for the
purposive *behavior* of individual members of the population. True,
selection is most commonly discussed as a population-aggregate process, the
mere "consequences" of brute-force mutation. But such discussion is
over-simplified, in that it disregards what Ernst Mayr calls "behavior as
the pacemaker in evolutionary change" (Mayr 1982, p. 611)

Very broadly, I think, you can find analogues to all three components of
bio-evolution in diachronic change. *Innovations* are individual events that
occur spontaneously during individual speech acts. Most of them will never
spread to the population, just like most biochemical mutations have no
evoilutionary consequences. *Selection* is a social-transmission mechanism,
within which individual adaptive behavior is obviously the fine-grained
mechanism. But there is one obvious caveat here:  "Random mutation" in
biology is really a random biochemical event, not a behavioral event. The
vast majority of such events do not reach biochemical viability, let alone
behavioral viability (survival). In diachronic change, on the other hand, we
don't have the equivalent distinction between genome (biochemical events)
and phenome (behavioral events). A random event in diachrony is always
behavioral (i.e. phenome), and thus in principle functional-adaptive.

One may argue, tho, about how *conscious* functional-adaptive innovations
are in linguistic diachrony. And one suspects that some of them are rather
unconscious (phonetically-conditioned assimimations?), while others may be
perhaps (potentially) conscious (a well-turned metaphor? a striving for
better expressive power?).

Yes, this is certainly a more substantive cluster of issues. But I still see
nothing wrong in talking just a bit about poor Noam. Whether you like him or
not (and whether you know it or not), he still looms rather large over
y'all's collective horizon. From our perspective (as Wally says) one must
admit that maybe he casts more shadow than light. But it sure is a giant
shadow...

Y'all be good,  TG

=========================

Martin Haspelmath wrote:

> Could we please stop discussing Chomsky all the time on Funknet? It
> would be a sad sign for functionalism if we had no more burning issues
> to discuss than Chomsky's place in history.
>
> In case you cannot think of any other worthy topic at the moment, here
> is a question that I've been asking myself in recent months, without
> coming to a conclusive answer:
>
> What is the role of functionality in language change?
>
> Many functionalists have recently stressed that functionally adapted
> structures come to be functional through language change. That is, when
> we say that some synchronic structure is, say, economically motivated
> (e.g. the fact that singulars are mostly zero and plurals are mostly
> overt), this doesn't mean that language structure is the way it is
> because it's economical. My English plurals are overt not because this
> is economical, but because I learned to speak like other English
> speakers -- if they had overt singulars and zero plurals, I would have
> acquired such a perverse system as well (i.e. markedness universals such
> as this one are not due to innate restrictions on acquisition). So
> economical structures (and more generally, functional structures) must
> arise in language change, but how exactly?
>
> Bill Croft has argued ("Explaining language change", Longman/Pearson
> 2000) that functional motivation comes in exclusively through the
> actuation of language change, i.e. innovations of individual speakers,
> which are (or may be) functionally based. The spread of functionally
> adapted structures plays no role, acording to Croft, because the
> diffusion/propagation of new features is exclusively socially based.
> Using biological terminology, we can say that functionality resides in
> the mutations, not in the selection. On the other hand, Daniel Nettle
> ("Linguistic diversity", OUP 1999) and I ("Optimality and diachronic
> adaptation", Zs. f. Sprachwissenschaft 1999) have argued that functional
> adaptation also comes about through selection, i.e. speakers adopt new
> features from other speakers also because they seem structurally useful,
> not just because they are socially attractive.
>
> So in brief, the two positions are:
>
> (i) Functional adaptation comes about exclusively through functional
> innovation ("mutation") (and social selection is non-functional)
> (Croft),
>
> (ii) functional adaptation comes about through functional propagation
> ("functional selection"), in addition to functional innovation (Nettle,
> Haspelmath, and no doubt others).
>
> Although I have argued in print for the second position, I'm not very
> sure that Bill Croft is wrong. What do you all think?
>
> Martin
>
> --
> Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at eva.mpg.de)
> Max-Planck-Institut fuer evolutionaere Anthropologie, Inselstr. 22
> D-04103 Leipzig (Tel. (MPI) +49-341-9952 307, (priv.) +49-341-980 1616)