language and biology

[Larry Trask]

Stanley Friesen writes:

>  Cognition is a biological process.  Ergo, so is language.

Sure.  But the biological aspects of language, important though they
may be, are not the subject matter of historical linguistics.

Historical linguistics, by definition, deals with language change.
And language change does not result from biological change: it results
from social factors.

I speak differently from my parents, and my young nieces speak differently
from me.  That's not for any biological reason at all: it's only the result
of growing up in different social circumstances.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk