<HTML dir=ltr><HEAD><TITLE>Re: [Histling-l] 'reversed change' and 'deliberate change'</TITLE>
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<DIV dir=ltr>A third necessary component (if it really is a "change") is for the previous feature with the same or similar function to drop out of use. This usually happens some time after the arrival of the new feature, and the period when both old and new features coincide can last for a long time, both being used and both being understood; and the variation doesn't need to be resolved necessarily at all. And even if it is, it can be the new feature that drops out, not the old. Maybe we should stop talking about changes at all, and concentrate on the arrival (linguistically explicable innovation and socially explicable spread) of new features; and study the loss of old features also if need be, but as a separate phenomenon - RW</DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Tahoma size=2><B>From:</B> histling-l-bounces@mailman.rice.edu on behalf of Sally Thomason<BR><B>Sent:</B> Mon 1/28/2008 3:45 PM<BR><B>To:</B> histling-l@mailman.rice.edu<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Histling-l] 'reversed change' and 'deliberate change' <BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
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<P><FONT size=2>Henning Andersen's distinction is appealing, but the problem<BR>I was talking about remains: how can we know, after the fact<BR>and without documentary evidence, whether a given change was<BR>"true sound change" or "socially driven" change? I am<BR>increasingly convinced that the answer to this question is, we<BR>*can't* know -- in part because every linguistic change has both<BR>linguistic and social components.<BR><BR>Part of the difference between me and Henning (and maybe between<BR>me and Brian as well) is that I don't think there is a<BR>"distinction between innovation and change" -- although Henning's<BR>view is certainly shared by at least some others, e.g. Lesley and<BR>Jim Milroy. I believe that any linguistic change, by which I<BR>mean change in a language (or dialect) has two necessary components:<BR>the innovation and the spread of the innovation through the speech<BR>community (including through the/an innovator's speech). I have seen<BR>assertions to the effect that the innovation is the change, and assertions<BR>to the effect that the spread is the change, but I've never seen any<BR>actual arguments to support the view that we have to decide which<BR>of these two processes should be given pride of place as "the change". <BR>To me it seems awfully obvious: no innovation, no spread; no spread, no<BR>completed change. You need both; neither, by itself, will get you a<BR>linguistic change. And the spread of any innovation has an irreducible<BR>social dimension (in some cases many social dimensions).<BR><BR>So I believe that any effort to separate out the social aspect(s) of a<BR>change, treating only the linguistic aspect(s) OR only the social aspect(s)<BR>as "the change", is doomed. Deliberate changes that one can establish because<BR>of explicit metalinguistic evidence are the most spectacular cases I know of,<BR>but I don't think they are all different in kind from subconscious changes<BR>(though a few of them, like the massive gender reversal reported for a<BR>non-Austronesian language spoken on Bougainville Island, may be different in<BR>kind). And if deliberate changes are sometimes, often, or usually similar or<BR>identical, in retrospect, to (presumably) subconscious changes, what exactly<BR>justifies our traditional belief that the vast majority of changes, including<BR>sound changes, is/are entirely subconscious?<BR><BR>Henning's image of all members of a speech community deliberately talking in<BR>lock-step is amusing, but -- sorry to complicate things further -- I see no<BR>reason why processes of change should be either all deliberate or all subconscious.<BR>I bet some of the people in F.K. Lehman's example reintroduced those consonants<BR>deliberately, while some of them just imitated others who were pronouncing<BR>them, without noticing what they were doing. But I don't buy the idea that<BR>the linguist has to have "positive evidence" of deliberate change before<BR>suggesting that it might have been a factor. (They used to say that about<BR>contact-induced change, as oppposed to internally-motivated change: internal<BR>sources of change were considered the default. You don't hear that so much<BR>any more.) Maybe the potential impact of social factors on "sound change<BR>proper" will eventually turn out to be supported by enough evidence to topple<BR>the comfortable assumption that it's awfully rare.<BR><BR> -- Sally<BR><BR> (Sally Thomason, Univ. of Michigan)<BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Histling-l mailing list<BR>Histling-l@mailman.rice.edu<BR><A href="https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l">https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l</A><BR></FONT></P></DIV></BODY></HTML>