When a Parent Becomes a Daughter

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

[ Moderator's note:
  This is a revised version of an message originally sent privately to me by
  Steve Long.  I encouraged him to submit it to the list, where it was caught
  in the backlog.  I'd like to thank him for his patience.
  --rma ]

This is about Larry Trask's statement: "An ancestral LANGUAGE cannot co-exist
with its own descendant."

In a message dated 10/20/99 5:02:33 PM, Larry Trask wrote:

<<First, you are confusing two things: the relation between a daughter and
its ancestor, and the relation between two or more daughters.>>

Unfortunately, I believe that is ALSO what you are confusing.  I believe in
good faith that if you consider the above TWO statements objectively you will
see you have has just committed "reification."

Now whatever definition you are using for "ancestors" or "daughters" above,
let's try to just stick with those for a moment and see them through.

You use the term "daughter" above.  Whatever vague boundaries you used to
decide when a language BECOMES a "daughter" - think of why the other
remaining part of the parent also must at the same time become "a daughter?"
Whatever caused you to call the two languages "daughters", consider what
makes them both BECOME "daughters" and makes the parent disappear?  So you
can say that a parent doesn't coexist with its daughter?

Take the language that you describe an "ancestor" by whatever definition you
use above.  Why are you assuming it also has to change status and become one
of the "daughters" just when another daughter emerges?  And at the very same
time (so that you can say there's no period of co-existence between parent
and daughter?)

"An ancestral LANGUAGE cannot co-exist with" a daughter.

Isn't this a reification?   The only reason a parent can't co-exist with a
daughter is because you automatically change it into a daughter when there's
another daughter branching off.  Aren't you creating another "daughter"
unnecessarily?

If you would have been satisfied with a single "ancestor" (by whatever your
definition is above) as a single language - if the branch off had not
happened - why are you turning that "ancestor" into a new language just
because a daughter branches off?

Isn't that reification?  Aren't you unnecessarily creating a new "daughter
language" (however you mean it above) when nothing more than a part of it has
broken off?

Now maybe this is all just a matter of terminology.  And I'd be happy with
that.  Because it would mean that your original statement is just terminology:

<<<<No.  An ancestral LANGUAGE cannot co-exist with its own descendant.>>
[Caps mine]

You can certainly co-exist with your own ancestor. In common sense everday
understanding, an "ancestor" doesn't automatically disappear or turn into a
"daughter" just because a descendent emerges.

You've written that, if regional varieties of a language "would eventually
become so different from one another that they would CEASE TO BE MUTUALLY
COMPREHENSIBLE at all, and we would be FORCED to speak, not of different
dialects, but of DIFFERENT LANGUAGES."  (CAPS ARE MINE.) (The context of this
quote alludes to multiple dialects - ie, not limited to just two.)

If there are many dialects and they don't become "mutually incomprehensible"
at the same time - why MUST they also all become different languages at the
same time?  Why would we be "forced" to call all those different parent
dialects "different languages" just because one became mutually
incomprehensible, branched off and became a daughter?

Now you have said that this explanation was only meant for students, not for
professionals.  Well, then on that basic level at least it seems "an
ancestral language CAN co-exist with its own descendant."

Regards,
Steve Long