Descent vs. Influence

[Leo A. Connolly]

"David L. White" wrote:

>         It has recently been claimed that influence is or may be taken as a
> kind of descent.  Let us look at an example of what that would mean.
>         Rumanian has some resemblances to Latin and some resemblances to
> Albanian.  Yet the resemblances are of fundamentally different kind.  Its
> resemblances to Latin have to do with the descent over time of the set of
> arbitrary correspondences between sounds and meanings that any language must
> have.  Its resemblances to Albanian on the other hand relate not to
> sound-meaning correspondences but rather to things like the distinctions
> made, ordering of elements, and so on.  Though these are both kinds of
> resemblance, they are not the same kind of resemblance.  Why one is called
> descent and the other is called influence should be fairly obvious.  If
> influence is descent, then Rumanian is _by descent_  both a Romance and a
> Balkan (for lack of a better term) language.  But this is nonsense.  To say
> that influence is really a kind of descent because the two are both kinds of
> resemblance is like saying that apples are really oranges because the two
> are both kinds of fruit.  No.  There is simply no point in obliterating the
> meanings of our terms and concepts.   Where there is a difference of meaning
> we are clearly justified in using different terms.

I am reminded of the debate over the relative importance of nature and
nurture in human development.  Surely both are important, but everyone
would agree that are utterly different processes.  My biological child
is by nature always my child, even if I leave all the nurturing to other
people.  While a nanny or day-care person may nurture him, that is
influence, not descent.  So too with language, and I'm as amazed as
David White that anyone should confuse the two.

Leo Connolly