Universals and change

[Jan Terje Faarlund]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
At 09:30 12.08.98 EDT, Roger Wright wrote:
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>
>
>the existence of "Universal Grammar" is a theory;
-------------
 
-- and what's more, the *form* of UG is no more than a (until now weakly
supported) hypothesis. The way I used the term UG in my last posting was as
a theory (or hypothesis) about possible grammars, and hence about
learnability. Children learn grammars, not changes, but in the process of
learning grammars they may execute changes. To be a bit more concrete: "VP
-> V NP", "VP -> NP V" and "VP -> V,NP" (unspecified order) are all
possible grammatical rules, licensed by UG, and learnable by children as
part of their grammar. Once any of these rules has been internalized by
members of a new generation, they can be used to predict the form of future
utterences produced by those children. However, "[NP V] changes to [V NP]"
is *not* a possible grammatical rule. It cannot be learned by children, it
cannot be used to predict anything, not even future historical changes,
since there are still plenty of OV languages around after at least 50 000
years of human language (or more, whatever you prefer). It is just a post
hoc description of something that has happened in many speech communities.
 
>        Nor is it necessarily true that, every time a detail of a
>language changes, the whole "system" changes; that too is a theory, one
>which I know most linguists subscribe to (but which seems rather an
>unhelpful perspective to others). New details in practice usually
>introduce variability into the exisitng system, rather than abolishing
>it. It would be different if new linguistic phenomena always ousted the
>old ones at once, but (empirical truth) they don't.
 
--- I guess I wasn't very clear on this point. I took "system" to include
every subsystem and every detail. So if there is a change, say in the
inflection of English strong verbs, there is a change in the system of
strong verbs, and by implication in the grammar of English, however minor
the change is. Of course also a system like the grammar of a natural
language allows for variation.
We seem to be back to the old synchrony/diachrony dispute. I do not claim
that the two always should be separated, and that one does not depend on
the other, but I think it is methodologically and theoretically sound
sometimes to keep certain concepts within one or the other of those
dimensions. Questions of possible grammars, universals of linguistic
structure and learnability are different from the question of whether all
languages necessarily change. The latter is not a very interesting
question, since we can all observe that they do as long as they have live
speakers. The question is *how* and perhaps *why*.
 
>        It's a real divide among linguists, this; whether we think facts
>or theory are more important. If in doubt, I'd plump for the facts.
>
-- I don't think so. We cannot do one without the other. Theory without
facts is not linguistics, and observing facts without an underlying theory
is not possible.
 
 
********************************************
Professor Jan Terje Faarlund
Universitetet i Oslo
Institutt for nordistikk og litteraturvitskap
Postboks 1013 Blindern
N-0315 Oslo (Norway)
 
Tel. (+47) 22 85 69 49 (office)
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