introduction.pdf

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On Language, Change, and Language Change – Or, Of History,

Or, Of History,

RICHARD D. JANDA AND

AND BRIAN D. JOSEPH

BRIAN D. JOSEPH

Subject

Linguistics » Historical Linguistics

KeyTopics

Topics

history

DOI:

10.1111/b.9781405127479.2004.00002.x

Fellowcitizens, we can not escape history.

Abraham Lincoln, “[2nd] Annual Message of the President of the U.S. to the Two Houses

of Congress; December 1, 1862” original emphasis, reprinted in Richardson (1897: 142)

History is more or less bunk. 1

Henry Ford as interviewed by Charles N. Wheeler; Chicago Daily Tribune 75.125 (May 25,

1916: 10) (repeated under oath during Ford's libel suit against the Tribune before a

court in Mount Clemens, Michigan (July, 1919))

In this introduction to the entire present volume – a collection of chapters by scholars with expertise

in subareas of historical linguistics that together serve to define the field – we seek to accomplish

three goals. First, we present and explicate what we believe to be a particularly revealing and useful

perspective on the nature of language, the nature of change, and the nature of language change; in so

doing, we necessarily cover some key issues in a rather abbreviated fashion, mainly identifying them

so that they may together serve as a frame encompassing the various subsequent chapters. Second,

we introduce the book itself, since we feel that in many respects this volume is unique in the field of

linguistic diachrony. Third and finally, we seize the opportunity provided by the still relatively recent

turn of both the century and the millennium to step back for a moment, as it were, and use the image

of historical linguistics that emerges from the representative set of papers in this handbook for the

purpose of reflecting on what the present and future trajectory of work in our field may – and can –

be.

Thus, in the first part of this introduction, we do not hesitate to address extremely general, even

philosophical, issues concerning language, change, and language change – whereas, in its second

part, we focus on more concrete matters pertaining to the volume at hand, and, in its third part, we

present a modest, minimal synthesis that aims to assess what are likely to be the most promising

avenues and strategies for investigation as research on linguistic change continues to move forward

to (the study of) the past. As we pursue these three goals, we intentionally do not at any point give

chapterbychapter summaries. Rather, we weave in references to chapters as we discuss major

issues in the field, with references to the authors here represented given in SMALL CAPITALS when they

occur.

The particular thematic organization of our discussion, however, does not alter the fact that the major

sections into which this book is divided follow fairly traditional – and thus for the most part familiar –

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On Language, Change, and Language Change

Linguistics, and Historical Linguistics

RICHARD D. JANDA

AND

Key

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lines of division: the twentyfive chapters that follow are grouped into sections in such a way as to fall

into three main parts. First, in part II, the major methodologies employed in studying language

change are presented, with emphasis on the triedandtrue triad of the comparative method, internal

reconstruction, and (the determination of) genetic relatedness. Second, in parts III through VI,

discussions of change in different domains and subdomains of grammar are to be found: these

respectively cover phonology, morphology/lexicon, syntax, and pragmatics/semantics, in that order.

In each case, the topics are approached from two or more different and sometimes even opposing –

perspectives. Third, in part VII, various causes of change, both internal and external – and cognitive as

well as physiological – share the spotlight. In all of these sections, the long tradition of scholarship in

historical linguistics in general is amply represented, but a final indication of the dimensions of the

scholarly tradition in these areas can be found in this volume's composite bibliography, which collects

all the references from all the chapters and this introduction into a single – and massive – whole.

1 Part the First: Intersections of Language and History in this Handbook

this Handbook

1.1 On language – viewed synchronically as well as diachronically

viewed synchronically as well as diachronically

1.1.1 The nature of an entity largely determines how it can change

change

[A] language … is a grammatical system existing … in the brains of a group of

individuals … [;] it exists perfectly only in the collectivity …, external to the individual.

MonginFerdinand de Saussure (1916: 30–1), trans. Roy Harris (1983: 13–14)

[A] LANGUAGE … is … a set of sentences … [−] all constructed from a finite alphabet of

phonemes … [ which] may not be meaningful, in any independent sense of the word, …

or … ever have been used by speakers of the language.

Avram Noam Chomsky, “Logical structures in language,”

American Documentation 8.4 (1957: 284)

Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speakerhearer, in a completely

homogeneous speechcommunity, who knows its language perfectly.

Avram Noam Chomsky, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965: 3)

The range of possible changes in an entity is inextricably linked with the nature of that entity. This is

a truism, but that status does not make such an observation any less significant – or any less true. On

a more abstract level, it is directly supported by the differential predictions concerning linguistic

diachrony that follow from the abovecited characterizations of language (in general) associated with

de Saussure (1916) versus Chomsky (1957, 1965). On the Saussurean view that langue is essentially

the union of different speakers' linguistic systems, an innovation such as one speaker's addition of an

item to some lexical field (e.g., color terminology) may count as (an instance of) significant language

change, since any alteration in the number of oppositions within some domain necessarily modifies

the latter's overall structure. But no such conclusion follows from the Chomskyan focus on a language

as a set of sentences generated by an idealized competence essentially representing an intersection

defined over the individual grammars within a community of speakers.

As a more concrete example, consider the diachronic consequences of Lieber's (1992) synchronic

attempt at Deconstructing Morphology, where it is argued that, in an approach to grammar with a

sufficiently generalized conception of syntax (and the lexicon), there is in essence no need

whatsoever for a distinct domain of morphology. On such a view, it clearly is difficult – if not

impossible – to treat diachronic morphology as an independent area of linguistic change. 2 An idea of

how drastic the implications of this approach would be for studies of change in particular languages

can be quickly gained by picking out one or two written grammars and comparing the relative size of

the sections devoted to morphology versus syntax (and phonology). For example, nearly twothirds

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1 Part the First: Intersections of Language and History in

1.1 On language

1.1.1 The nature of an entity largely determines how it can

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(138 pp.) of the main text in Press's (1986) Grammar of Modern Breton is devoted to morphology, as

opposed to only 14 percent (30 pp.) for syntax and 21 percent for phonology (44 pp.). Nor is such

“morphocentricity” (cf. also Joseph and Janda 1988) limited to “Standard Average European” languages

or to what might be thought of as more descriptive works. Thus, for example, in Rice's (1989) highly

theoretically informed Grammar of Slave (an Athabaskan language of Canada), the relative proportions

are roughly the same: 63 percent (781 pp.) for morphology versus only 27 percent (338 pp.) for

syntax and 10 percent (128 pp.) for phonology. 3

While Lieber's morphological nihilism is admittedly an extreme position, it is by no means an isolated

one. After all, morphology is so recurrently partitioned out of existence by syntacticians and

phonologists alike that it has even been called “the Poland of grammar” (cf. 4 Janda and Kathman

1992: 153, echoed by Spencer and Zwicky 1998: 1). On the other hand, while phonology and syntax

themselves – along with phonetics, semantics, and the lexicon seem to be in no danger of

disappearing from accounts of linguistic structure, there is constant variation and mutation (not to

mention internecine competition) within and among the major approaches to these domains. Hence,

even if there were unanimity among historical linguists concerning the mechanisms and causes of

language change, most (if not all) diachronic descriptions of particular phenomena would still remain

in a state of continuous linguistic change, as it were, due to the neverending revisions of synchronic

theories and hypotheses. 5

The present volume attempts to make a virtue of necessity by promoting such manifestations of

diversity and (friendly) competition. Subject only to practical limitations of space, time, and authorial

independence, we have – for selected individual aspects of language change – tried to match each

chapter that depends on a particular synchronic perspective with one or more opposing chapters

whose approach is informed by a specific alternative take on linguistic theory and analysis. For

example, chapter 14, which is imbued with DAVID LIGHTFOOT'S commitment to approaching syntactic

change from a formal startingpoint, can be juxtaposed with chapter 17, which reflects MARIANNE

MITHUN'S exploration of functional explanation in both synchronic and diachronic syntax. This

handbook thus follows an inclusive strategy that omits no traditional subfield of historical linguistics

(as opposed, say, to the exclusions which would result from accepting the diachronic consequences of

Lieber's whittleddown approach to synchronic grammar).

1.1.2 Pruning back the view that languages change like living organisms

organisms

However, in contrast to works like Pedersen's (1924) booklength account of what was achieved

mainly by IndoEuropeanists during the nineteenth century, or like much of James Anderson's (1991)

encyclopediaarticle overview of linguistic diachrony, the present volume is most assuredly not a

history of historical linguistics – and it is especially not a history of general linguistics. 6 As a result,

the various contributors to this book (apart from this introduction) make virtually no mention of

certain positions concerning the nature of language and language change which were once quite

common but have now been largely discredited, though not completely abandoned. Perhaps the most

prominent such position involves approaches which find it productive to treat languages as

organisms.

In the view of Bopp (1827, here quoted from 1836: 1), for example, languages must be seen “as

organic natural bodies that form themselves according to definite laws, develop, carrying in

themselves an internal lifeprinciple, and gradually die off” (translation after Morpurgo Davies 1987:

84; see also the discussion and references there – plus, more generally, Morpurgo Davies 1998: 83–

97 et passim). 7 In this, Bopp followed the treatment of Sanskrit and other things Indic by Friedrich

von Schlegel (1808/1977), whose own positive use of “organic” (German organisch) roughly meaning

“innately integrated but able to develop” (as opposed to “adventitious and merely

‘mechanical’ [mechanisch; cf. pp. 51–52]”) – was due less to his admiration (from afar) for

comparative anatomy than it was to his familiarity with German Romantics (see Timpanaro 1972) like

Herder (cf., e.g., 1877–1913: vol. 1, 150–2) and the natural philosopher von Schelling (1798, 1800).

Going even further, August Schleicher (1873: 6–7) advocated treating linguistics as literally a branch

of biology parallel to botany and zoology (for discussion, see Koerner 1978a, 1989; Tort 1980; Wells

1987; Collinge 1994a; Desmet 1996: 48–81 et passim; Morpurgo Davies 1998: 196–201 et passim;

and their references on Schleicher):

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1.1.2 Pruning back the view that languages change like living

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Languages are natural organisms which, without being determinable by human will,

came into being, grew and developed according to definite laws, and now, in turn, age

and die off; they, too, characteristically possess that series of manifestations which

tends to be understood under the rubric “life”. Glottics, the science of language, is

therefore a natural science; in total and in general, its method is the same as that of the

other natural sciences.

Yet one immediately wonders how such pioneering figures of historical linguistics could overlook the

ineluctable fact that, as already pointed out by Gaston Paris (1868) in an early critique (p. 242):

[a]ll of these words (organism, be born, grow …, age, and die) are applicable only to

individual animal life … [. E]ven if it is legitimate to employ metaphors of this sort in

linguistics, it is necessary to guard against being duped by them. The development of

language does not have its causes in language itself, but rather in the physiological and

psychological generalizations of human nature. … Anyone who fails to keep in mind this

fundamental distinction falls into obvious confusions.

De Saussure (1916: 17, here quoted from 1983: 3–4) reacted to the organicism of Bopp and

Schleicher in a rather similar vein: “[T]he right conclusion was all the more likely to elude the[se] …

comparativists because they looked upon the development of languages much as a naturalist might

look upon the growth of two plants.” But Bonfante (1946: 295) expressed matters even more

trenchantly: “Languages are historical creations, not vegetables.”

While we are here constrained to extreme brevity (but see the above references), presentday

diachronicians can draw from the organicism of many nineteenthcentury linguists an important

moral regarding crossdisciplinary analogies (and envy). It is certainly the case that, during K. W. F.

von Schlegel's and Bopp's studies in Paris (starting respectively in 1802 and 1812) and during the

period of their early writings on language (respectivelyc.1808ff and 1816ff), such natural sciences as

biology, paleontology, and geology were quite well established and abounded with lawlike

generalizations, whereas such social sciences as psychology and sociology either had not yet been

founded or were still in their infancy. Von Schlegel's and Bopp's formative experiences at this time

were thus set against a general backdrop which included the wide renown and respect accorded to,

for example, Cuvier's principe de corrélation des formes (formulated in 1800 and usually translated as

“principle of the correlation of parts”; cf., e.g., Rudwick 1972: 104, and 1997: passim), which stressed

the interdependence of all parts of an organism and thus functioned so as both to guide and to

constrain reconstructions of prehistoric creatures. Hence it is not surprising that, lacking recourse to

any comparably scientific theory of brain, mind, personality, community, or the like, such linguists as

von Schlegel, Bopp, and later Schleicher were irresistibly tempted to adopt an organismal (or

organismic) approach when they found lawlike correspondences across languages (or across stages of

one language) and began to engage in historical reconstruction. 8

This trend can be seen as following from a variation on a corollary of Stent's (1978: 96–7) assertion

that a scientific discovery will be premature in effect unless it is “appreciated in its day.” In this

context, for something to lack appreciation does not mean that it was “unnoticed … or even … not

considered important,” but instead that scientists “did not seem to be able to do much with it or build

on it,” so that the discovery “had virtually no effect on the general discourse” of its discipline, since its

implications could not “be connected by a series of simple logical steps to canonical … knowledge.” (It

was in this sense, e.g., that Collingwood (1946/1993: 71) described Vico's 1725 Nuova scienza (“New

Science”) as being “too far ahead of his time to have very much immediate influence.”) In the case at

hand, the relevant corollary is that scholars tend to interpret and publicize their discoveries in ways

which allow connections with the general discourse and canonical knowledge of their discipline. More

particularly, however, scholars in a very new field – one where canons of discourse and knowledge still

have not solidified or perhaps even arisen yet – are tempted to adopt the discourse and canons of

more established disciplines, and it is this step that nineteenthcentury organicist diachronicians of

language like von Schlegel, Bopp, and Schleicher seem to have taken. Seen in this light, their actions

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appear understandable and even reasonable.

What remains rather astonishing, though, is the fact that, even after the (more) scientific grounding of

psychology and sociology later in the nineteenth century, a surprising number of linguists maintained

an organicist approach to language. As documented in painstaking detail by Desmet (1996), a

“naturalist linguistics” was pursued in France during the period from approximately 1867 to 1922 by a

substantial body of scholars associated with the École d'anthropologie and the Société

d'anthropologie de Paris, publishing especially in the Bulletins and Mémoires of the latter, in the

Revue d'anthropologie or L'homme, and in the Revue de linguistique et de philologie comparée

(RdLPC), a journal which they founded and dominated. Thus, at the same time as the Société de

linguistique de Paris continued to enforce its ban on discussions concerning the origin(s) of language

(s), a cornucopia of lectures, articles, and even books on issues connected with the birth and death of

language(s) as viewed from an organicist perspective (along with issues related to language visàvis

race) flowed from the pens of such now littleknown scholars as Chavée, Hovelacque, de la Calle,

Zaborowski, Girard de Rialle, Lefèvre, Regnaud, Adam, and Vinson (the last of whom had 237

publications in the RdLPC alone; cf. Desmet 1996).

Still, while this movement itself died out in Francec.1922 (aging and weakening along with its major

proponents), 9 one can still document occasional instances of explicitly organicist attitudes toward

language and language change within the scholarly literature of the last decade of the twentieth

century and on into the first decade of the twentyfirst. Yet this is an era when the increasing solidity

and number of accepted cognitive and socialpsychological principles leave no room for a Bopplike

appeal to biology as the only available locus for formulating lawlike generalizations concerning

linguistic structure, variation, and change. Still, for example, Mufwene (1996) has suggested that, in

pidgin and creole studies, there are advantages to viewing the biological equivalent of a language as

being not an individual organism, but an entire species – which, expanding on Bonfante's (1946)

abovementioned aphorism, we may interpret as implying that, rather than being a vegetable, each

language is an agglomeration of vegetable patches!

More provocative have been various organicistsounding works by Lass, beginning especially with his

earlier (1987:155) abandonment of the “psychologistic/ individualist position … that change is

explicable … in terms of … individual grammars.” Instead, Lass (1987: 156–7) claims that “languages

… are objects whose primary mode of existence is in time … [ h]istorical products … which ought to

be viewed as potentially having extended (transindividual, transgenerational) ‘lives of their own’.”

More recently, Lass (1997: 376–7) has reiterated and expanded this glottozoic claim, suggesting that

we “construe language as … a kind of object … which exists (for the historian's purposes) neither in

any individual (as such) … nor in the collectivity, but rather as an area in an abstract, vastly complex,

multidimensional phasespace … [a]nd having (in all modules and at all structural levels) something

like the three kinds of viral nucleotide sequences.”

This sort of approach has already been compellingly and eloquently countered by Milroy's (1999:188)

response to Lass's (1997: 309 et passim) characterization of languages as making use of the detritus

from older systems via “bricolage,” whereby bits and pieces left lying around get recycled into new

things. After first asking how we can “make sense of all this without … an appeal to speakers,” Milroy

further queries: “If there is bricolage, who is the bricoleur? Does the language do the bricolage

independently of those who use it? If so, how?” Our own answer to Milroy's rhetorical questions

echoes former Confederate General George Pickett's latenineteenthcentury riposte – “I think the

Union Army had something to do with it” (cf. Reardon 1997a: 122, 237n.2, 1997b; Pickett 1908: 569)

– to incessant inquiries concerning who or what had been responsible for the negative outcome of

“Pickett's Charge” at the battle of Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863) during the American Civil War. 10 That is,

unlike Lass (1980: 64ff, 1981: 268ff, 1997: passim), who comes perilously close (cf. especially p.

xviii) to suggesting that – as Dressler (1985b: 271) critically puts it – “[i]t is not … individual speakers

who change grammar, but grammar changes itself,” our view on the identity of the parties most

reponsible for linguistic change is, rather: we think speakers have something to do with it (see Joseph

1992; Janda 1994a).

And this conclusion leads us to the abovementioned moral for students of language change which,

to repeat, is provided by the history of linguistics, even though considerations of space dictate the

virtually total further exclusion from this volume of that topic. Namely, given that human speakers

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