evolutionary linguistics

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

The question of how language evolved in primates is one issue; parallels
between the processes of Darwinian evolution and change within languages and
dialects is another.

The complex natural phenomena of evolution and genetic change offer parallels
to the process of linguistic change. The seemingly random fluctuations in the
gene pool produce functionalist patterned change through weighting--i.e.,
those genetic changes that enhance survival are preserved. Moreover, there
are also patterned changes that appear to have no real survival value (in
humans, blue eye color, perhaps, or baldness). In a simple model, such
features would triumph if something caused them to be "weighted" (e.g, a
social or aesthetic preference for blue-eyed, bald mates). Genetic change,
however, is obviously complicated in ways that language change is not, given
such features as dominance and recessiveness, the multitudinous differences
between the sex act and the speaking process, and given that genetic mutation
has various causes and manifestations.

See (shameless plug):

Butters, Ronald R. 1999. "Chance as Cause of Language Variation and Change,"
Methods X, St John's, NF, August 2, 1999. ms.

Krock, Anthony. 1989. "Functional Grammar in the History of English
Periphrastic DO." In Ralph W. Fasold and Deborah Schiffrin. eds., _Language
Change and Variation_. Philadelphia: Benjamins.

Lightfoot, David. 1991. _How to Set Parameters: Arguments from Language
Change_. Cambridge, USA: MIT P.