the meaning of "genetic relationship"

[bwald]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
A few points in response to Dyen's last comments.
 
He begins with:
>The assumption that languages are unitary is a matter of definition.
 
I offered the notion "descend from a SINGLE *system*.  But D did not pick
up on this.  Later in his message he writes:
 
>If languages as hololects are assumed to be wholes, it follows that any
>part of a language has descended from a hololect which was its earlier
>stage. It is assumed that hololects do not mix. Under this assumption each
>observed hololect is the endpoint of an infinite (i.e.
>uninterrupted) sequence of stages originating in the first hololect (i.e.
>the first nad only language) in the world.
 
This does not seem to be a matter of definition, but a claim of
"monogenetic" descent of all the world's languages.  We once discussed this
on the list, with inevitable disagreement among discussants.  I don't see
the logical connection between the assumption that languages don't mix (a
false assumption in any case, in my understanding of what D is claiming)
and that they all descend from "Proto-World".
 
>It does not matter to me whether you find this
>interesting or not, ....Again it does not matter whether you consider this
>interesting.
>Such assertions of interest are personal and not subject to proof in any
>sense and are thus irrelevant.
 
This is a misunderstanding of my use of "uninteresting" in the context of
the discussion.  I did not mean "boring", which would indeed be subjective,
and even disrepectful.  I meant "uninsightful", "does not lead to further
discoveries about the nature of linguistic change and what it implies to
help provide an optimally clear, useful and further enlightening concept of
genetic relationship".  I hope that clears up the misunderstanding.  I
generally use the word "uninteresting" sparingly, to avoid such
misunderstanding.
 
>The fact that from a practical point of view the
>meaning of 'mutual intelligibility' is not refined enough to permit us to
>determine in every single case whether it is present or absent is a matter
>of a lack of scholarly interest, but its direct relation to the primary
>function of language recommends it as a criterion for classifying
>languages.
 
Mutual intelligibility is, in fact, a very interesting and complex topic.
The assumption that intelligibility between "pairs" of dialects is "mutual"
is one of its interesting features -- and is questionable to begin with.
Mutual exposure between neighbouring dialects can be assymetrical for
social reasons, limiting intelligibility in one direction more than the
other.  What is left when the variable of exposure is factored out, e.g.,
on first hearing a neighbouring dialect, is another part of the whole
story.  That involves to what extent knowledge of one dialect allows
"prediction" of possible (intelligible/decipherable) features of another
one, cf. extendability of the notion of "dialect" and "built-in" dynamics
of possible linguistic change.  The broadest question that can be asked in
this line of thought is what enables speakers to learn another lect
(dia-/holo-) once they have learned one (or several if all first and
simultaneously).
 
Then, as I was suggesting with my comments about "intelligbility" within a
single language (or hololect, if you want), it is a matter of degree.  It
is clear that in the "no mixing" dogma, D wants to shut the door to
convergence of dialects, which would make them more mutually intelligible,
but that is at least as problematic as his dogma against mixing of
languages/hololects.  Clearly convergence does occur, making dialects/lects
in contact more similar, and it happens through communication.  D seems a
little tunnel-vision in considering only divergence leading eventually to
loss of intelligibility and ultimately to separate hololects.  That is only
part of the story of possible outcomes of linguistic change, as any dialect
atlas will amply demonstrate (-- more on this below).
 
>Another assumption is that one hololect can become two by the
>disappearance of any connecting pair of mutually intelligible dialects.
 
That is the issue of "missing links", say, the ones that would definitively
demonstrate that Germanic and Slavic descend from a tree node that excludes
the other IE languages (whoops, I missed Baltic), or that Mongolian and
Turkic are related (and closer than Manchu) -- if any of this is true.  It
is indeed very interesting, but it is not the only possibility for loss of
mutual intelligibility or emergence of distinct hololects (even excluding
creoles and mixture for the moment).  But then D did not claim that this is
the only way hololects develop -- at least not in the passage above.
However, I'm not sure he allows himself any other way given his
"definition" of hololects as chains of mutually intelligible pairs of
dialects.  Is such a definition adequate for examining the facts of the
real world of linguistic diversity?   A serious question of historical fact
arises if all "transitional" dialects are seen as results of progressive
divergence (joined by "links") rather than recognizing the possibility that
some are convergent, due to "mixture" (or does D claim that only different
hololects that can't mix, but dialects of the same hololect can?  Anyway,
whatever he claims can't mix; WHY can't they? That can't be a matter of
defintion.)
 
>Creole hololects originate in situations in which a number of langages are
>in competition and a pidgin develops for the convenience of all, but is
>in the first place a second (non-native language) for all and not mutually
>intelligible with any of the contributing languages.
 
But mutual intelligibility is a matter of degree.  No doubt English
speakers understood, say, West African pidgin English in its early stages
better than Africans unfamiliar with either English or the developing
pidgin, if only because of (much of) the vocabulary.  D seems to
acknowledge the point about degree of mutual intelligibility in stating:
 
>The point is this: a creole hololect must be mutually
>unintellibligible at its start with those from which it draws its
>linguistic matter, for if not, then it is mutually intelligible with at
>least one and so a dialect of that one.
 
The logic is fine.  But is the implication that the "creole" is a
(non-native) "dialect" until it develops unintelligibility?  Or is it a
claim that a "creole" must start out unintelligible to speakers of its
base.  That does not seem to be the case for Hawaiian Creole.  It does not
seem to have been less intelligible to speakers of English than the
Hawaiian pidgin it developed from, and that was intelligible to a
functional extent.  Despite the logic, a missing fact is that the pidgin
and the creole, as is generally the case, were mutually intelligible. Does
that make the pidgin anhd the creole part of a hololect?  Then are pidgins
necessarily hololects?  Well, certainly not makeshift pidgins.  They're not
hololects because they're not "whole" (even as single entities -- if that
makes sense).  And yet they serve certain interests of communication and
presuppose, actually provide, a certain degree of "mutual" intelligiblity
among speakers.  No, this mutual intelligibility issues has to be taken
more seriously and its implications sorted out.  I still think D uses the
concept to no avail in circumscribing a "language" or "hololect".  I don't
see its relevance to linguistic evolution.
 
NB: one might be tempted to assume that only through mutual intelligibility
can dialects influence each other and changes spread from one dialect to
another -- and there is no doubt some truth to this.  But only "some",
since speakers can accomodate to any dialect or hololect (by becoming by
bilingual) given sufficient exposure, and thus mutual intelligibility is
not a "given" thing but an acquired thing (apart from what I suggested
earlier).  Such acquisition often plays a role in change, where it is
caused by contact between/among different communities, rather than where it
is simply an individual matter for some traveller or whatever.
 
With regard to bilingualism, D wrote in a different message:
 
>... there is no test by
which we attempt to find out whether a bilingual's control of his two
languages is equal or for example whether the complexity that the brain
is dealing with is double that for a monolingual or less or, for that
>matter, more.
 
In principle there is no difference between the problem involved in "equal
control of two languages" and the problem of deciding when a monolingual
speaker has "fully" acquired his(/her) first language.  In both cases,
there are various practical tests used to evaluate such "control".  Of
course, we still have much to learn about the problem, and all impressions
are approximative.  Some, perhaps most, linguists even go so far as to
claim that languages change because speakers don't fully acquire
(pre-existing versions of) their first language (I'm not among them).  In
bilingual communities such issues are even more problematic, because
bilinguals are generally judged by monolingual standards, and the
difference between "change" and "lack of complete acquisition" is even more
contentious.  A lot more is known than is suggested by D's first point
above, but a lot remains to be explored, and in many cases it is not clear
if "equal control" is an appropriate question to apply to the relevant
bilingual phenomena.