GG and change

[Isidore Dyen]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
I have no doubt that you can supply us with the location of the
society with the stable language (extraterrestrial locations are
unacceptable). If all languages change, isn't that a universal attribute
of a language? Isn't instability a universal attribute? Does it really
help to say that the instability of language is due to its transmission as
a cultural object is a theory which is useful and makes the
instability, another theoretical proposition a corollary under a
general theory that transmitted cultural objects are unstable. One could
go on with the observation that transmitted non-cultural objects like DNA
are also unstable, being subject to mutation. If you prefer to say that
the property of instability is inherent in the system of a language rather
than in the language itself, that is your right, but there is the question
as to whether the distinction you are drawing is meanningful. Have we
ended up at hair-splitting?
 
On Fri, 31 Jul 1998, Jan Terje Faarlund wrote:
 
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> At 18:01 30.07.98 EDT, Isidore Dyan wrote:
> >----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> >
> >How about contemplating whether language change is inevitable. If it is
> >not, theren should be some stable languages somewhere, If it is, then it
> >must be inherent in all languages and thus a universal.
> >
> I think you can find a stable language if you look in the following type of
> society: A society where no member ever changes profession or personal
> relationships, where there is no outside contact, no immigration, no births
> and no deaths. For languages spoken in other types of societies, change is
> of course inevitable, not because change is a universal of language, but
> because language after all is ALSO a cultural object transmitted through
> the behavior of biological individuals.
>
> The idea that change should be a universal is meaningless since language
> universals are based on generalizations over properties of *systems*. When
> a language changes, a system changes, and this new system must again obey
> whatever constraints are imposed by UG. Change in itself cannot be part of
> the system. The only interesting connection between universals and change
> is the fact that no change can lead to a result which violates UG.
>
>
> ********************************************
> Professor Jan Terje Faarlund
> Universitetet i Oslo
> Institutt for nordistikk og litteraturvitskap
> Postboks 1013 Blindern
> N-0315 Oslo (Norway)
>
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>