Sociological Linguistics

[Patrick C. Ryan]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear Steve and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: Steve Gustafson <stevegus at aye.net>
Sent: Saturday, May 22, 1999 10:40 AM

<snip>

> Modern spoken English seems to be in the process of generating a complex,
> highly inflected verb system, with many new and different aspect markers, as
> former auxiliary verbs are reduced and lose their distinctness and
> independent status.  We have already seen simple verb phrase structures of
> Early Modern English (Knowest thou?  I go...) get replaced by more complex
> and highly nuanced and aspected ones that require more words.  (Do you know?
> I am going...)  In our time, sandhi and palatalization reduce the once
> independent auxiliaries in these phrases to enclitics, and also change the
> pronouns.  These may be new inflexions in the oven.

> This seems to me to pose difficulties for any attempt to get a firm handle on
> the level of "complexity" present in any given language.  In English, the
> (archaizing) formal register is noticeably less complex in both syntax and
> sounds than the vernacular; where do you insert your dip-stick to measure the
> complexity of "English?"  It also seems to suggest that there is no vector
> moving in favour of either simplicity or complexification, but that the
> process is one of a pendulum moving from one extreme to another; or rather, a
> process of punctuated equlibrium in which sound change and grammatical change
> play off on each other.

I essentially agree that this is a very real and hard to finally solve
problem.

But a pendulum has a first swing in time. My work has convinced me (and a
very few others) that it may be possible to glimpse a few important moments
of that first swing towards complexity and that even in the subsequent swing
towards simplification, the hypothetical analysis of the elements present in
the first swing illuminate the processes going on during simplification.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN (501) 227-9947; FAX/DATA (501)312-9947 9115 W. 34th St.
Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803 and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ek, at ek hekk, vindga meipi, nftr allar nmu, geiri undapr . . . a ~eim
meipi er mangi veit hvers hann af rstum renn." (Havamal 138)