Cladistic language concepts

[H.M.Hubey]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> On Mon, 5 Oct 1998, bwald wrote:
>
> > Sorry I did not have time to reply to Isidore Dyen's message sooner.  He
>  writes:
> >
> > >one of the main factors in linguistic change and
> > >perhaps the main factor is the drive for efficiency in communication which
> > >is dialectically resisted by the need for clarity so that efficiency does
> > >not actually increase and the actual level of clarity does not change.
> >
> > I think there is good reason to keep these two traditional factors in mind
> > in any attempt to understand constraints on linguistic change *overall*.
> > There are, however, other factors involved in promoting change beside
> > efficiency of communication, if that is intended to refer specifically to
> > communication of *referential* information.  There is also the factor of
> > maintaining some kind of (local) social identity, viewable as a shorthand
> > for shared knowledge of the local society, and therefore contributing to
> > communication (esp what can be understood within the social group *without
> > having to be said*).  An important issue is the extent to which the
 
If the factors all do not operate on the same time scales, the effects
will
not necessarily cancel out or mutually re-enforce each other.
 
A good example of a similar problem is in the Brownian motion problem
solve in the early part of this century. Atoms of a liquid are in
continual motion but we cannot see them. The time scale in which they
act/react/move is also very short compared to motion at slightly larger
scales. The motion we can observe (with a microscope) is the motion of
larger objects (like dust particles). The motion of these particles is
due to correlated motion of atoms. The basic idea is that like throwing
up 1 million pennies. Almost all the time, about half will be heads, and
half tails. Similarly of all the atoms banging into these particles,
about half will be in one direction and half in the other so that their
combined effects will cancel out and there will be no observable motion
of the particles. However, just as there will be cases in which about
900,000 coins can be Heads or Tails, there will instants in time in
which most of the atoms will be moving in one direction (which is the
"correlated motion" of the huge ensemble of atoms) and that effect will
be seen in the motion of the particles suspended in the liquid. That
motion is Brownian motion. IT is still random just like the underlying
random motion of the atoms. But the fluctuations of the atoms cancel out
almost all the time at their own time scales.
 
The forces which have a propensity to create linguistic change also
occur at various temporal and spatial scales. The rapid and local
fluctuations in speech do not normally have permanent global effects.
Every once in a while, there will a larger scale changes correlated in
space and time, and it is those changes that we track in historical
linguistics. IT would probably be a good idea to categorize the changes
mentioned into different classes based on time and space scales.
 
--
Best Regards,
Mark
-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
hubeyh at montclair.edu =-=-=-= http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity
to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged
material.  Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of,
or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons
or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you
received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the
material  from any computer.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=