Sociological Linguistics

[Patrick C. Ryan]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear Eduard and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Eduard Selleslagh <edsel at glo.be>
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 1999 5:14 AM

> I believe that complexity of a language, whatever its definition, is roughly
> constant (except maybe at the beginning of language development, 120.000
> years or so ago)

Pat comments:

This is, of course, the time period during which I believe that ambiguity
was most prevalent.

Eduard coninued:

> [Totally apart from that, and just as a side remark, my favorite theory is
> that language(s) started as isolating (normally monosyllabic), then
> developed words for abstract ideas and words for linking them, and then
> became agglutinatng by attaching 'link words' and other words (e.g. personal
> pronouns) to 'noun/verb/... words', until the affixes fused with them and
> thus resulted in inflection. In the next stage (apart from phonetic changes)
> inflection became increasingly complex and finally desintegrated to be
> replaced by syntax, effectively resulting in an isolating language again
> (cf. Chinese; English is well on its way). After that, the cycle can start
> all over again, but I don't think it already happened anywhere.]

Pat comments:

This is a very eloquent statement of what I believe to have been the process
involved from the "first" language to modern day circumstances.

What I do think is an interesting question is why some speakers seem to be
moving from an inflecting to an isolating language while others are not (or
very slowly).

Pat

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