where is language located? (wrt: cladistic linguistics discu

[Ghiselin, Michael]

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          Dear Steven,
               Thank you for addressing my metaphysical question,
          which you recast in somewhat different terms, by asking
          where a language resides.
               The answer that you gave can be compared to asking
          where genes reside.  We say that each and every organism has
          genes in its chromosomes.  The chromosomes and the genes are
          parts of the individual organisms.  Each diploid organism
          has two sets of these genes, each set being a genome in the
          strict sense.  Each organism is a part of a species.  Each
          gene is a part of a gene-pool.  The gene pool, like the
          species, is a supra-organismal, or populational whole.
          Analogizing with language, each organism has a version of a
          language, which is its idiolect, but the language proper is
          a higher-level entity.
               I see nothing in principle incompatible or paradoxical
          about this complexity, but the situation is such that it is
          apt to be confusing.  To be metaphysically precise I would
          say that the possession of a language is the property of an
          organism and a society, rather than that it is a property
          of either.  It does not seem to me that a language, or a
          gene, is a property.  But what is it?
               Be this as it may, I also see nothing incompatible
          about the diachronic and the synchronic perspective upon an
          evolving supra-organismal whole, any more than I see
          anything incompatible about a diachronic and a synchronic
          perspective upon a person.  Perspectives can be misleading,
          but they are not false in the sense that a fallacious
          argument or a false premise is.  The problem arises when we
          take our perspective and use it as a basis for an erroneous
          conception of things.  If a language is treated as if it
          were a class rather than a whole, then the very ability for
          it to change becomes problematic in the extreme.  Languages
          as classes certainly are incompatible with languages as
          individuals (wholes) and I think that your comments help to
          clarify that.  Thank you very much.
          Best,
          Mike