Re: Are Linguistic Changes Accelerated by...


"Darkstar" <darkstar100@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1131093493.822949.173710@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> Darkstar wrote:

>> Nathan Sanders wrote:

>> > "Darkstar" <darkstar100@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >
>> > > ...I can 'oversimplify' it even more a little bit. The real question
>> > > here is: why does language even change? What is the main process
>> > > underlying linguistic changes?
>> >
>> > What makes you think there is only one main process?
>>
>> I started from stating that there are many more than just one reason.
>>
>> > Two reasons that languages might change are to increase the perceptual
>> > distinctiveness of acoustically similar sounds and to decrease the
>> > articulatory difficulty of particular sounds or sequences of sounds.
>> >
>> > Of course, these are only reasons for phonetic/phonological change.
>> > There are completely different factors that can trigger morphological,
>> > syntactic, and semantic changes.
>> >
>> > Nathan

>> Okay, but this model predicts that all languages would finally come to
>> rest after achieving 'perfection'?... Or do you suppose they are too
>> far from equilibrium to ever get there?...
>
> This is very interesting, because in this case we'd have an oscillatory
> model of language development and arrive to an idea of natural
> phonological clocks with a constant period of change.

Not necessarily periodic. Very unlikely in fact. Probably strange
attractor. Chaotic.

> Moreover, because
> of language interraction, we'd have a very complex interference of
> these oscillatory processes from different languages -- more or less
> like ripples on the water.

Again, you're wildly oversimplifying. The system model's going to be
neither linear nor low-dimensional, even if there's no interaction with
other languages at all. And input from outside the system, linguistic or
otherwise, would have to be treated as stochastic, so any predictions from
such a model could only be statistical.

John.


.

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