Cladistic language concepts

Wed Aug 5 17:59:24 UTC 1998

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Wed, 5 Aug 1998, Johanna Nichols wrote:
 
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I am discussing Nichols's communication as a linguist. The only comment on
his questions that I am aware of is one I submitted in a festschrift
offered to Henry M. Hoenigswald. It discusse, but rather briefly the
analogy between genetic language classification and biological
classification.
I believe that you are on the right track. Stamos's objection, if I may
put it that way concerns the treatment of continuities and the application
of the term 'same'. One might ask whether a person at say twenty is the
same person he was at two. The answer is 'yes' if the identity takes the
continuity between the two stages into account and is 'no' if it is no
taken into account. One might then introduce the awkward term
'continuoperson' or 'chronoperson' (to adopt the chronospecies model) and
'stageoperson' to specify the person at a particular time.
For classification languages and species offer similar problems. One
problem is again how to deal with continuities and points within the
coninuities. Instead of using the term 'points', I usually speak of
members. The continuity appears a set of members linked pairwise by the
same relation which forms a chain as each member of a pair is
additionally linked to members of other pairs. A chain which includes
all possble members is exhaustive. The whole conglomerate can also be
regarded as a network I believe, but I don't know what the rquirements of
a network are.
I define a language, regarded as a continuity formed by linked members at
one stage or time (i.e. a 'stageolanguage', for which I
have suggested the term 'hololect') as an exhaustive chain of pairs of
mutually
intelligible dialects (or if your perefer, idolects'). The term 'mutually
intelligible' is a prime; its specification in prqactical terms offers
difficulties for precision, but its rough utility seems obvious since it
refers to function of language as a means of communication. I prefer to
believe that its specifcation can be achieved, but would require serious
and expensive investigative effort. A second point that concerns the
definition of a language in this sense is that there is no geographical
limitation on a pairing. Mutual intelligibility is thus viewed as
potential rather than actual, but nevertheless testable in each case
(regardless of necessary expenditures, as the case is with specifying the
necessary minimum or zero mutual intelligility).
I believe that you can carry out an analogical definition of a species on
the criterion of the ability to mate and produce viable offspring or
something of the sort. In any case I blieve that Stamos's objection to the
notion that what undergoes '"infinite evolution' without branching is
numerically the same language. It may help to know that linguists do
not regard and for a long never have regarded (if they ever did) Old,
Middle, and New English as disjoint, but rather as specified stages of
a 'chronolanguage' (for which I believe I once suggested the term
'perhololect). They are connected succesively by an uninterruped
sequence of native speakers.
Linguists commit worse sins since we regard a protolanguage (i,e, a prior
hololect) to be the same language (i.e. member of the same continuity)
as each of its branches in their respective infinite evolutions.
The definition of a hololect above does not require the mutually
intelligibilty of all pairs. Provided they are linked through a chain of
pairs of mutually intelligible idiolects, they are included in the same
language. The alternative of not doing so is the consequence of
attributing to different languages members of a mutually intellgible pair.
Perhaps it is worthwhile adding that I would limit candidates to
membership to native idiolects in what I think of as a first language
dialectology.
In dealing with cladistics it may clarify matters to draw a sharp
distinction between what I think of as theory and the results of
investigation or analysis. Theory deals with our formulations of how
change occurs and in general provides us with the way we analyze.
Cladistics in principle as a way of classifying is based on a way of
analyzing data and xcomparing different analyzed collections of data. Back
of it is to be sure evolutionary theory and the
corollary that a pair of species sharing by a significant difference the
most features of highest genetic value (or some such) have a greater
likelihood of continuing a same distinct protospecies than either
does with any other species. The problem in biology as I see it is how to
weight the similarities and the qualitative difference between different
similarities. I Imagine that many of these problems wil be eliminated with
DNA studies. The same problem has existed in linguistics, but I believe
that vocabulary studies will help change the nature of the problems
involved in classification.
 
 
> Dear fellow HISTLING readers,
>
> I am forwarding to the list this inquiry from biologist Michael Ghiselin.
> He is not on the list, so if you reply to the list please also copy him at
> the address(es) at the end.
>
> I too would like to know where historical linguists stand on the issue and
> what we can consider to be received view.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Johanna Nichols
>
> >Date: Tue, 28 Jul 98 08:45:03 PST
> >From: mghiselin at casmail.calacademy.org (Ghiselin, Michael)
> >To: johanna at uclink.berkeley.edu
> >Subject: language concepts
> >
> >          Dear Dr. Nichols:
> >               I would be most grateful if you would post the
> >          following message on HISTLING for me.
> >
> >               In my recent book METAPHYSICS AND THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES
> >          (State University of New York Press, 1997) I address a wide
> >          range of topics related to the philosophy of classification.
> >          Among these is the analogy between languages and species, a
> >          topic that has interested both linguists and biologists
> >          since the days of Schleicher and Darwin.  I remarked that
> >          Old English, Middle English, and Modern English are not
> >          different languages, but rather stages of a single
> >          historical entity.  They are analogous to what are called
> >          "chronospecies" in paleontology.
> >               One might wish to contest this claim, and there are all
> >          sorts of problems and perhaps I should have invoked Greek as
> >          an example.  I would welcome a discussion with linguists on
> >          any aspect of this and related questions.  For the moment,
> >          however, I need a somewhat different kind of information.  A
> >          philosopher named David Stamos has recently denounced this
> >          view (Biology and Philosophy 13:433-470).  He writes:
> >          "Indeed it seems to me that few outside the modern species
> >          problem would wish to defend a _cladistic language concept_,
> >          in other words the position that a language which undergoes
> >          'infinite evolution' without branching is numerically the
> >          same language...."  He thinks that unless two organisms can
> >          communicate their idiolects are not elements of the same
> >          language, though he does not put it in quite such terms.
> >          Those who know about ring species and the like will see some
> >          interesting connections here.
> >               Unfortunately I have only read a few dozen books on
> >          linguistics and that was some time ago.  But I got the
> >          impression that a cladistic, or evolutionary, language
> >          concept, such that the languages are in fact lineages, has
> >          been widely, if not generally, accepted.  The few books that
> >          I have consulted lately seem to have presupposed it, to the
> >          point of not bothering to consider the alternatives.  I am a
> >          natural scientist, and I do not wish to make an empirical
> >          claim unless it can be backed up by facts.  But it is not
> >          obvious where to get the information I need, so I thought I
> >          would ask a lot of linguists.  I need to know how widely
> >          something like a cladistic language concept is now, and
> >          historically has been, accepted by linguists.  Even if it is
> >          rejected, do they grant that such a position is reasonable?
> >           Also, is there a good discussion of the issues in the
> >          literature.  Any suggestions that linguists might want to
> >          pass on to me would be most appreciated.  And of course I
> >          would be interested in discussing some of the wider issues.
> >
> >          Sincerely,
> >          Michael T. Ghiselin
> >          Center for the History and Philosophy of Science
> >          California Academy of Sciences
> >          Golden Gate Park
> >          San Francisco, California 94118
> >          mghiselin at calacademy.org
> >          (If that fails try mghiselin at casmail.calacademy.org
> >
>
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
> Johanna Nichols
> Professor
> Department of Slavic Languages
> Mailcode 2979
> University of California, Berkeley
> Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
>
> Phone:  (1) (510) 642-1097 (direct)
>         (1) (510) 642-2979 (messages)
> Fax:    (1) (510) 642-6220 (departmental)
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>