Rate of Change

X99Lynx at aol.com X99Lynx at aol.com
Wed Jun 6 05:06:37 UTC 2001


I wrote:
<< If there were no close resemblances at all, no one would dare claim that
these languages were even related in anyway.  >>

In a message dated 6/4/2001 9:18:46 PM, larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk writes:
<<I'm sorry, but I can't agree.  Resemblances, close or otherwise, have
nothing at all to do with comparative linguistics.  The evidence for
genetic relationship consists wholly of systematic correspondences, and
resemblances are irrelevant.  Of course, the presence of resemblances aids
human beings in spotting possible genetic links.>>

But what you're saying - up until the last sentence - seems to make out that
"systematic correspondence" come out of thin air.

Where a comparative analysis has to begin - not where it ends up - is
similarities and resemblances between two or more languages.  It HAS to be
that way, because at the beginning of the process, NO GENETIC RELATIONSHIP
has yet been established.  No "systematic correspondence" has been done.

At that point, there can be NO difference between resemblances that turn out
to show systematic correspondence and those that turn out not to.  Everything
is either a resemblance or no resemblance at all -- and that's all there is.

This has been a problem in understanding between us all along.  A proper and
objective audit of the comparative method should begin at the beginning of
that process.  At that point, logically, NOTHING can be presumed to be
genetic.  Because the analysis that calls something genetic or non-genetic
has NOT yet occurred.  And it is precisely at that point that resemblances
and similarities have everything to do with the process.

The whole history of Indo-European studies and the comparative method was
motivated by nothing but the unexplained similarities and resemblances in
European and Asian languages.

To say that I can't back up to that starting point, where everything is at
best similarities and resemblances -- before any judgments about genetic
relationships would have been made -- is to queer the game.  It makes the
comparative method immune to critical analysis.

The problem I perceive and have been getting at does not arise after a
judgment is made about "genetic" relationships.  It happens before.  Romani
and Anglo-Romani obviously resemble one another in some way.  Upon analysis,
one discovers a "systematic correspondence" between Romani and the lexicon in
Anglo-Romani.  But does that yield a genetic relationship? No, because one
only gets one genetic relationship per customer?  Why?  Because a language
can only represent one "system"?  But Anglo-Romani represents two systematic
correspondences, and therefore presumably two different systems.  In
Anglo-Romani, the problem is clear, because the language is historic.  In IE
languages, the problem is hidden in prehistory.

I suspect part of the problem begins back when no analysis has yet been done
and there can be nothing but resemblances between two languages.  That's
where the presumption starts that there WILL be only one genetic relationship
and therefore there should be only one original systematic correspondence
between the languages.  If you start by presuming that all "genetic"
relationships can only relate to one parent, than all your results will tend
towards that presumption, whether true or not.

(The Australian example you give -- Blake and "the clear patterns underlying
the superficial absence of resemblances,..." could only happen in a
historical and geographical context where relationships were already
expected, for extrinsic reasons.  I don't imagine you would have much
patience with anyone establishing a close genetic relationship between
Mexican and Phoenician despite "the superficial absence of resemblances"
between the two languages.)

I wrote:
<<To my surprise, I was told the time of separation between some of those
related language subgroups were estimated as being as much as 3000 years or
more.>>

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk writes:
<<I am puzzled by this.  I can find no such statement in Koch's article.
Moreover, Evans and Jones, in an article in the same volume, conclude that
Proto-Pama-Nyungan cannot be assigned a time depth greater than 5000 BP,
and so a figure of 3000 years for the time depth of a rather low-level
branch of the family does not look plausible.>>

I'm pretty positive some of the languages listed by Koch were not
Pama-Nyundan.  I'm on the road and don't have my notes, but in one of the
actual studies themselves these dates are given.  It may have been Grady.
3000 years is not a long time at all for speakers in the Northern Territory
and northwestern Australia, where these languages have been spoken in situ
for a very long time.  Even if it was Pama-Nyundan and that particular
chronology is out of date now or not, any of the languages involved, even
low-level languages, could be old enough to make my larger point stand.  Of
course, if you anything that directly contradicts this,...

<<I think there may be a misunderstanding here, resulting from Koch's
unfortunate choice of words.  Koch is not, I'm pretty sure, claiming that
certain languages have changed dramatically while other and closely related
languages have not changed *at all*.  Rather, he is only reporting that
some related languages have failed to undergo the rather dramatic changes
observed in their relatives, and that certain *individual* words may remain
unchanged in one language while undergoing dramatic changes of form in a
close relative.>>

Certain *individual* words is all you need to make my point.  For all I know,
those were the very words that were used to establish relatedness.  How many
words do you need to establish relatedness?  Rate of change in this forum
always seems to be not how much entire languages change or don't change, but
how much cognates change.

I wrote:
<<Meanings can change radically.  Phonology seems to be a very different
story.>>

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk writes:
<<Er -- what?  Phonology can't change radically?  But Koch's very point,
cited above, is that certain Australian languages have undergone such
dramatic changes in phonology that their words no longer even appear to
resemble their cognates in closely related languages.>>

We've been through this.  What you call often call "change" is actually
continuity to me, because you still call what remains "cognate", which means
there must be something that stayed the same.  If you can still recognize a
relationship, how much it has changed logically has no relevance to its
"relatedness."  On the other hand, how much a word has "changed" is always
relevant to "meaning."

How about this, then:  "Meanings often change unsystematically and therefore
radically.  Phonology seems to be a different story."

Regards,
Steve Long



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