Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProOn
Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProFriday,
Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProNovember
22, 2002,
Hiragino Kaku Gothic Proat 04:38
Hiragino Kaku Gothic Propm,
Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProSteve
Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProLong
Hiragino Kaku Gothic Prowrote:
Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProIn a
message dated 11/22/02 8:26:51 AM, jlmendi@POSTA.UNIZAR.ES writes:
<<<< Although this could sound paradoxical, I agree with Everett, but
not with
Haspelmath or Croft. If 'actuation' (and diffusion) is (are) social
and not
functional, then the explanation of lg change is not really functional
>>
The problem here I think is in viewing "social" as somehow opposite to
functional.
Martin Haspelmath's original point was that linguistic change has
"directionality", something that apparently does not occur in
"fashion" - and
therefore that such change must be functional.
Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProHmm. This misses
the point. Functionality constrains where change will occur and, let
us say, in what direction. But lots of languages have the same
functional/structural points in their grammar which would, under some
views, favor change. Yet not all do. That is, two languages have the
same structure favoring change, yet one changes and the other doesn't.
Why not? The reason is likely to be social.
Or in other cases, there is no functional/structural pressure to
change, yet change nonetheless occurs. For example, Piraha (Amazonian)
seems to have had a perfectly good pronominal system, with tones and
clitics, yet it borrowed its current pronominal system from
Tupi-Guarani (probably Nheengatu, possibly Tenharim - see Thomason and
Everett 2001, in the penultimate (?) BLS proceedings and on Thomason's
website at U of Michigan).
Social and functional are not necessarily in competition, though they
seem to be much of the time. But they *are* different.
-- Dan Everett