The Neolithic Hypothesis

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

Robert Whiting <whiting at cc.helsinki.fi> wrote:

>It is my impression that almost all linguistic change is brought
>about by sociological factors.

I would rather say that linguistic change, brought about by
articulatory, combinatory, contact-related etc. "mutations", is
selected for by sociological factors.

This is not unlike biological change, where the mutations are
brought about by various factors (both "internal" quirks in the
way DNA is structured and is copied, and "external" factors like
cosmic rays), and the mutations are then selected for by their
effect on the "fitness" or sex-appeal of the phenotype.

>4) Linguistic change is not unidirectional.  A change (including
>   phonetic changes) that goes in one direction in one language
>   may go in the opposite direction in another language.  One can
>   count up the number of instances for the change in each
>   direction and say which direction is statistically more likely
>   for the change, but in essence, there is no change that is
>   impossible (although some are extremely unlikely).  Whether
>   linguistic change is reversible is a different issue from the
>   question on non-unidirectionality. Most linguists tend to
>   avoid discussions of reversibility (although there are clear
>   examples, mostly learned restorations), but I suspect that
>   this is mostly because if changes are reversed, it plays merry
>   hell with historical linguistics. :>

Personally, I found it rather difficult to swallow the reversal
of Semitic */g/ > Arabic /j/ > Eg. Arabic /g/.  But apparently,
that's exactly what happened.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam