"Uniformitarian Principle"

[Larry Trask]

--On Friday, June 22, 2001 11:15 pm +0000 X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

[LT]

> << ["Uniformitarian Principle"] = languages and speakers in the remote
> past did not behave differently from the way languages and speakers have
> behaved in the historical period.>>

> Now, don't forget that you brought this "Uniformitarian Principle" up
> specifically and especially as the support for your "rate of change"
> statements about IE.

Not really.

It started like this.  Somebody asked whether it was possible that
languages spoken very long ago had systematically changed much more slowly
than languages have been observed to change in the last several thousand
years.

I replied as follows.  I said: if you can find good, hard, solid, shiny
evidence that such was the case, then fine.  But, in the absence of such
evidence -- and I don't know of any -- no such assumption can be defended,
because it flagrantly violates the Uniformitarian Principle -- as it
plainly does.

I don't recall ever going any further than that, and I have no idea what
"statements about IE" are being alluded to here.

> And whether it works or not for other aspects of historical linguistics
> (and I think it does), it just doesn't work for your pronouncements about
> rate of change.

Steve, I haven't made any pronouncements about rate of change.  What are
you talking about?

> You have no objective "rate of change" to offer for speakers in historical
> periods.  So you really have nothing to extend to prehistorical periods.

Steve, I have already pointed out that no accepted metric of rate of change
exists, and that I doubt whether such a metric can be constructed to
general satisfaction.  I have made no claims beyond this.  What on *earth*
are you talking about?

As for prehistoric periods, the only claim I have made is that prehistoric
languages and speakers cannot reasonably be assumed to be fundamentally
different from historical ones in any respect at all, unless there is good
evidence to the contrary.  Do you disagree with me here?  If not, what are
you so exercised about?  I haven't said anything else.

[LT]

> <<To reject this position is to make historical linguistics impossible.>>

> This is untrue. We can validly assume all kinds of uniformity and
> linguistic continuity between the historic and the prehistoric - without
> buying your subjective judgments about "rate of change" of IE languages.

Steve, this posting is becoming surreal.  I have made no "subjective
judgements" about rate of change, least of all in IE.  In fact, I haven't
made any statements about rate of change at all beyond what I've just
outlined.

Your lunch disagreeing with you? ;-)

> There is plenty of room for "Uniformitarianism" in historical linguistics,
> without claiming that it supplies you some kind of objective measure of
> language "change" per measure of time.

Steve, for heaven's sake.  I have made no such claim.  This is the sort of
thing glottochronologists do, and I am not a fan of glottochronology.

Have you confused me with someone else?  My name is 'Trask' -- nice, short,
distinctive, Norwegian, easy to remember.

[LT]

> <<Without the UP, historical linguistics would be no more orderly or
> principled than a Michael Moorcock fantasy novel.  We need it.>>

> But, unfortunately, as far as a scientific rate of change goes, you just
> don't meet the qualifications.

And what is this supposed to mean?

First, I am not a rate of change, and your statement is incomprehensible.
You might as well tell me that I don't meet the qualifications for being a
complex number.

Second, I have not proposed any rate of change.

Third, I have never even mentioned any rate of change, except to point out
that we cannot reasonably assume that the rate of linguistic change
increased greatly across the planet -- or decreased greatly, for that
matter -- some thousands of years ago.

I have said no more than this.  Why does it bother you so much?  And why do
you keep accusing me darkly of making sinister claims?

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: (01273)-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: (01273)-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)