the meaning of "genetic relationship"

[Isidore Dyen]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Mon, 6 Jul 1998, bwald wrote:
 
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> We have been discussing the concept of "mutual intelligibility", an
> interesting topic that seems crucial to Isidore Dyen's concept of
> "language" (technically, hololect = chain of mutually intelligible pairs of
> *dialects* -- or, after his last clarification, perhaps *idiolects*, or,
> preferrably, in my view, *lects*, in the sense suggested in the 1970s by CJ
> Bailey) and ultimately, in his view, to the concept of genetic
> relationship.  About MI (mutual...), D writes:
>
> >What I
> >mean by mutual intelligibility for these purposes is being able
> >communicate with each other in their native dialect. This definition
> >produces a first (or native) language dialectology in which a language is
> >unitary.
>
> As I have been saying in previous messages on this topic, MI between
> dialects is a matter of degree.  It seems to me that a quantitative leap, a
> lowering of MI, will occur in moving from a bunch of lects within a single
> (socially-delimited) dialect to another.  That leap is similar but less
> than moving from one hololect to another.  Basically, it all seems to be
> about moving from one vocabulary to another.  It is true that some
> syntactic constructions can be misunderstood, or not understood across
> dialects, and some phonology can take getting used to even if vocabulary
> and syntax are familiar, but where there is shared vocabulary (recognised
> as shared vocabulary) there will be some degree of MI.  Thus, if a German
> says to a monolingual English speaker under most circumstances "komm hier",
> the English speaker will understand, and, in fact, not even realise that
> s/he was spoken to in German.  So there is some MI between German and
> English.  I don't suppose (maybe I'm wrong) that D expects there to be a
> chain including English and German in a single hololect.  I'm not sure this
> is important.  There is certainly the quantitative leap I spoke of above.
> Presumably, the extent of the hololect is an empirical matter, so maybe E
> and G do belong to a single hololect although MI is minimal.  I mention the
> above to indicate that I understand D's distinction between a "hololect"
> and what we usually call a "language" (socially defined).
 
As I use the term mutual intelligibility as a criterion for distinguishing
languages, it means in effect zero mutual intelligibility. There will
probably always be found some accidental instances in which what might
otherwise be taken to be different languages will provide a few sentences
that
are mutually intelligible. The example you cite is a good one and perhaps
with some diligence you can add a few more. Such instances can perhaps
lead to a refinement of the criterion. What is needed is a criterion that
allows for cleancut separations and is objective. The difficulty is that
the concept has not been studied after the fifties. Carping is obviously
useless. One refinement that I have considered is the requirement that the
intelligibiity depend on understanding through one's own structure.
Although superficially that seems to be satisfied by your example, the
structural requirement would soon show that it had really not been
satisfied after the testing of mutual intelligibility had gone farther.
 
 > > D continues: >
> The term dialect is difficult; the term itself is used in such a
> >variety of ways, that in effect the definition a language given above
> >really appeals to the intuition in the matter of dialects. However it is
> >assumed that no two individuals whose speech-types are in the same
> >language are the same. Of course the term dialect is also applied to
> >collections of speech-types
> >that share a particular feature or some collection of features. [Here
> >'feature' is used for some relevant speech phenomenon, not in the
> >meaning it has in phonology.] In any case I believe it doesn't matter much
> >which definition of duialect you use.
>
> That's why I mentioned various terms like "dialect", "idiolect" and "lect"
> at the beginning of this message.  Empirically there is a great difference
> between a (social) dialect and an (asocial) idiolect.  Speakers of the same
> dialect are much more mutually intelligible than speakers of different
> dialects.  Idiosyncratic speakers are no more intelligible within their
> dialects than outside of them on whatever points they're idiosyncratic on.
> The shared speech patterns of a single dialect even goes beyond what seems
> necessary for MI.
>
> Another rhetorical problem came up; by rhetoric I mean the way people
> express their points; it is a linguistically interesting thing about
> choices at the discourse level of linguistic analysis.  D objected to my
> use of the word 'dogma', as follows:
>
> >I should add that I find the term 'dogma' a pejorative term.
>
> Of course I am aware that 'dogma' is sometimes taken to be pejorative, but
> in a discussion of linguistic complexity a while ago I wrote on this list
> that 'dogma' is not always a bad thing.  In context I was saying that the
> dogma that all languages are of equal complexity is just that, since we do
> not know what we are talking about when we make that claim.  (Not that it's
> wrong, just that we don't know what "equal complexity" means, or how to
> measure or conceptualise *global* complexity with respect to human
> languages -- and the notion that if something changes in a language,
> something else MUST change in order to "restore" that "constant" complexity
> is vacuous.)  But I said the dogma is *good* because it alerts us to this
> problem when we hear somebody say or suggest that language A is more
> complex than language B.  And I went on to say the dogma allows us to
> recognise an issue, so that the least we can respond to a claim of
> "inequality" in complexity is: "what do you mean?"   And it invariably
> turns out that they mean something much more specific than "global
> complexity", e.g., "Chinese" is "complicated" because of its writing
> system, etc etc.
 
There is an essential difference between a dogma and an assumption. A
dogma is a teaching, an assumption is a proposition not subject to
proof that is used as the basis for some collection of hypotheses.
>
> Now, the "dogma" I was referring to in D's message is that languages don't
> mix -- and, I'm not sure because he didn't respond -- languages don't
> converge over an area (how could they without mutual intelligiblity -- and
> if they're separate hololects how can they be mutually...?), and maybe
> dialects don't either; they just either don't do anything or get more and
> more different from each other.  OK, it sounds like I'm being sarcastic,
> but he really didn't respond and I can't anticipate how he deals with this.
> Anyway, again I don't think the dogma is totally misguided, but there is a
> better point in D's message to pursue to this, where he suggests that I
> will destroy the comparative method with my assumptions (or maybe it's:
> without assumptions like his.)  Let's move on to that.
>
> >But if languages
> are permitted to mix, that is, if a language boundary between two
> languages is permitted to dissolve, then the kind of inferences that we make
> regarding the past hstory of a language must take the possibility of
> mixing into account.
>
> Yes.  Why not?  But NB, the language "boundary" between two languages never
> totally dissolves.  It only dissolves on certain points.  Note, for
> example, Gumperz's classic study of Marathi and Kannada in Kupwar.  More or
> less the same grammar (including phonology) but different lexicons.
 
If the language boundary between two languages never dissolves, different
languages do not mix.
>
 
> >The consequence is that the hypothesis of a
> protolanguage becomes unavailable unless the possibility of mixture can be
> ruled out.
>
> Why?  Mixture doesn't have to happen.  But basically we ignore
> mixture/convergence according to the comparative method and concentrate on
> what can be accounted for without it.  That's fine.  But to then say "case
> closed", nothing else can happen, or ever does, and languages can't mix,
> that's like saying "you can't cross the street against the light.  I mean,
> you CAN'T.  Try it, you'll see you can't!"  (But you can -- if you don't
> get run over.)
>
> In any case, there are two situations that test the limits of the
> comparative method (the one on which the genetic hypothesis is based), 1.
> two languages with the same grammar and different vocabularies; 2.  two
> languages with the same vocabulary and different grammars.  These are
> matters of degree, but at the extremes, 1. is reflected in the Kupwar
> Kannada-Marathi situation, among others (with few historical linguists
> exploring them instead of claiming they are "rare"), and 2. is reflected in
> such things as creolisation etc.  The issue is very meaningful for the
> comparative method and reconstruction.  Thus, for example, we have the case
> of Hittite, where some scholars, e.g., Lehmann, argue that it reflects a
> much more archaic grammar of IE than other surviving branches, while others
> argue that many of these features are due to convergence with non-IE
> languages of the area (which have similar features).  The "dogma" against
> mixing does not help resolve this issue on way or the other.
 
It is not intended to. As an assumption it is not subject to proof.
However if the assumption that languages do mix were to be more useful in
tracing the history of languages, it would be the one to adopt.
 >
> >That is the function of the assumption. In a first language
> dialectology applied through time, once a language has been
> formed, its being disjoint cannot be destroyed. If you are willing to give
> that up, I would say you are giving the power of the comparative method.
>
> A strange use of the word "assumption" to me.  I'd say the comparative
> method works for what it works for, and it doesn't deserve any more power
> than that.  Now, the idea that the disjoint(ed)ness of a language once it's
> formed can't be destroyed is another matter.  But I'm reading "language"
> here as individual's linguistic system formed before a critical age.  More
> on that later.
>
I believe my use of the term assumption is taken from logic. You are
probably familiar with the fact that many disagreements between people
(including scholars) are characterized by a lack of agreement on
assumptions. You might want to think of an assumption as an axiom or
postulate
 
> To get beyond the English-German hololect, D writes:
>
> >The view is available that zero mutual intelligibility occurs.
>
> It is almost nonsensical to deny this, though it is not as obviously true
> as it seems (e.g., unidentifiable languages heard on the radio convey even
> less than those witnessed performed in public, according to my personal
> experience).  The point remains that MI develops somehow under contact
> situations.  D wants to disregard this by insisting that there is a
> strictly circumscribed item, call it a native (monolingual?) dialect
> (sociolinguists often call it a "vernacular") and that is the only thing
> that counts for *genetic* relationship.  But note if you rule "mixing"
> (accomodation) out by definition, you simply choose to ignore the variety
> of ways in which languages change, both synchronically, and (relevantly)
> diachronically.  What about areas where people generally grow up
> multilingually?  What effect does that have on "genetic" relationship?
> (Interestingly, it varies, in Bantu East Africa genetic relationships can
> be demonstrated by conventional comparative methods, even for areas which
> are highly multilingual, but tree classification of Bantu languages in such
> areas and in general, is, for the most part, a hopeless mess.)
 
I believe there is a difference between what I call a first or native
dialect or language and what sociolinguists call a vernacular or ought to
be. I should guess that a vernacular is opposed to a standard dialect,
whereas what I am talking about is what a person first learns; it might be
something called a standard dialect. Generally what I have in mind is
what people learn by the time they are ten. Some people grow up with more
than one first languages. I heard a case reported in which it was claimed
that a particular individual had no first language. But some people are
also dumb or deaf or learning disabled and so on. Some individuals acquire
two or more languages simultaneously as first languages and thus become
part of the boundary between their languages. Co-linguistic dialects are
different because their interactions are different; non-mutually
intelligible dialects interact in the same way as different languages.
Mutually intelligible dialects attract each other so that they tend to
converge with persistent interaction, presumably to increase the rapidity
of the intelligibility. Although neighboring languages also show
structural convergence, the likelihood is that that is mediated by
bilinguals
 >
 
> I wrote:
> >>one might be tempted to assume that only through mutual intelligibility
> >> can dialects influence each other and changes spread from one dialect to
> >> another -- and there is no doubt some truth to this.  ....
>
> D responded:
> >Without being disrespectful, let me suggest that you have used the term
> >'assume' above in the sense of 'conclude' or 'infer', not in its ological
> >sense. I don't object to l/ay terminology; I am not a logician.
>
> 1. huh?
> 2.  what's "l/ay terminology"?  Is it the vernacular?
> 3.  I thought I meant "assume" (although a logical process leads to that
> assumption by ignoring
>       certain facts).   Elsewhere, D seems to use "assumption" to mean
> "postulate" (noun).  To me an
>      "assumption" can be like a "guess", and a guess is often based on a
> rational process, as
>      suggested in the word "guestimate".  In any case, assumptions, like
> guesses, can be wrong.
>
> Finally, D brings up a point which has long intrigued me, and we have some
> common ground:
>
> >I believe that you have begun to touch on the very important question that
> >deals with the time at which an individual can be said on the average to
> >be in control of his native language. If I suggest at the end of the first
> >decade of his life, I imagine I might attract some disbelief. For certain
> >purposes however, it strikes me as being not an unreasonable expectation.
>
> This is relevant to the "vernacular" which D insists is the object of
> genetic classification (to the exclusion of any other objects, it seems).
> As for disbelief, I think a "critical age" between 10-12 is widely accepted
> -- for PHONOLOGY (some put it even earlier, with some good evidence).  But
> not for much of syntax and vocabulary.  Since MI seems to depend crucially
> on vocabulary, there is some explaining to do here.  At the same time, it
> may reduce "genetic relationship" largely to phonological evolution,
> something which would not surprise me in view of traditional practice,
> though not traditional belief.  Structures that may be acquired well after
> the age of 10 are also subject to linguistic evolution, however, as is any
> non-universal feature of language (whatever the universal features of
> language turn out to be). Therefore, there is more to be said, esp about
> syntactic evolution.
>
> P.S.  I get the sinking feeling that in the end D will say everything he
> was saying was ONLY relevant to the point of the term GENETIC relationship,
> and that everything I said could be true but not to the point.  Whether or
> not genetic relationship is a big deal in the totality of ways in which
> languages can change might be considered a separate issue, the issue of
> *internal* change.  We note that even with respect to borrowing there have
> been linguists like Jakobson who have proposed that languages can only
> borrow what could also result (?spontaneously) from internal change (what
> is consistent with its structure before the borrowing, or some such
> notion).  That remains an interesting (!) idea, not always easy to
> distinguish from vacuity, and intended for borrowing beyond the
> arbitrariness of the lexicon.
>
Genetic relationship is a big deal if you are interested in the past
history of the human being. I am.