Re: Glottochronology.

Dennis asked:

>In a language you have thousands, if not
>millions, of bodies interacting, each body with its own history of
>experience, its own sense of aesthetics and rhythm, its own creativity and
>inventiveness. How can you produce a mathematical model of that complexity?

Andrew Smith here.

The fact that something involves many bodies does not mean that mathematics
cannot treat it, at least in the large. For example, the movement of air
involves very many millions of molecules. In some cases (eg design of
aeroplanes) we have good mathematical models, in others (eg weather
forecasting) our models are less successful.

Dennis also commented:

>Chaos Theory claims to describe systems with integral feedback (the output
>of one state is the input of the next), where stability is dependent on
>highly complex and sensitive factors, a slight change in any one of which
>may (or may not) lead to states of wild unpredictability until a new
>stability is arrived at. Doesn't this perfectly describe language change?

There is a risk that chaos theory is seen an a panacea. The chaos label is
an easy dustbin class into which we can throw any unsolved puzzle. When I
have failed to solve a problem, calling it "chaotic" implies that nobody
else could solve it either. I can then feel better inside because my failure
to solve a problem becomes the problem's fault and not my own.

But technical work on chaos is much more precise than this vague feeling
that a problem is intractable. The nub of chaotic systems is extreme
sensitivity to starting conditions - with particles which start very close
ending up far away, and vice versa. If language evolution was like this,
then we should not be able to disentangle (for example) Uralic languages
from Indo-European languages. In fact, we can and do separate languages in
this way. This is prima facie evidence that we are not dealing with chaotic
systems here.

Current glottochronology models may seem unreliable, but they are also very
simple. There is a trade-off. Given painstaking empirical studies, we may
find more sophisticated metrics of language similarity, which better allow
us to corroborate archaeological data on language divergence. We can guess
what these measures might involve - for example, as well as common
vocabulary, we might give some weight to common grammatical or phonological
features. We might also expect to trace language divergence more accurately
if we take account of several languages at once, rather than just a series
of comparisons of language pairs.

I'm not trying to pick an argument with you Dennis, but I wouldn't like us
prematurely to write off what looks to me like a promising idea.


Andrew


-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis Poulter <dpoulter@...>
To: cybalist@egroups.com <cybalist@egroups.com>
Date: 25 April 2000 05:08
Subject: Re: [cybalist] Glottochronology.

>----- Original Message -----
>From: Mark Odegard <markodegard@...>
>To: <cybalist@egroups.com>
>Sent: Sunday, 23 April, 2000 12:47 PM
>Subject: [cybalist] Glottochronology.
>
>
>> Glottochronology is beguiling, but ultimately, it's dangerous.
>> Everything I've read says the methodology is unsound. At best,
>> some broad educated guesses are being made in assembling the
>> figures. At worst, it's based on unsupportablely wild guesses.
>> It's like trying to externally calculate the velocity of a
>> moving object without calculus; until we get a Leibnitz/Newton
>> to give us such a calculus, any claims made by
>> glottochronology have to be taken with several
>> salt-mines-worth of salt.
>>
>> Mark.
>>
>
>I couldn't agree more. In fact, building on your analogy of the calculus, I
>would go further.
>The calculus may be useful in calculating the mechanical movement of

massive

>bodies, but even here it gets into major difficulties once you have more
>than two bodies interacting. In a language you have thousands, if not
>millions, of bodies interacting, each body with its own history of
>experience, its own sense of aesthetics and rhythm, its own creativity and
>inventiveness. How can you produce a mathematical model of that complexity.
>The only one that even comes near, is, in my opinion, the Theory of Chaos.
>Chaos Theory claims to describe systems with integral feedback (the output
>of one state is the input of the next), where stability is dependent on
>highly complex and sensitive factors, a slight change in any one of which
>may (or may not) lead to states of wild unpredictability until a new
>stability is arrived at. Doesn't this perfectly describe language change?
>Of course the problem is that, according to this theory, from one observed
>state one cannot extrapolate with any certainty to a previous state, nor
>predict any future states, or when, how or at what speed changes will take
>place or what those changes will be. All you can do is sit back and observe
>the beauty and intricacy of it all.
>
>By the way, I agree totally with your posting on Zarathustra.
>
>Cheers
>Dennis
>
>
>
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