--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "P&G" <G&P@...> wrote:
>
> > Must sound change be linguistically motivated?
>
> Of course not! We know that some sound changes are socially
motivated, for
> example, social climbing, or group identity. So when young people
today say
> /?/ instead of their parents' /t/, it is about street cred, not
phonetics.
I agree, that the motivations are not linguistic (it's not "art for
art sake" here :)). If 'we apply' a 'Darwinist theory' (in fact this
is the only part where Darwin is right) in any population there are
random (small) changes/adaptation of the pronounced sounds. This
random changes 'usually' kept finally the current trend or value if
the selective process is 'not obliged' to 'select' another value in
place of the current one....When this process selects another value
the trend will go in that direction and a sound change is trigerred.
Now when 'the selection' can choose a new sound value?
The ideas that asserts that the sound changes happens 'for nothing'
like 'a genetic drift' etc...should be rejected in my opinion as
opposed to the natural selection process: the possible choices are
randomly generated (even the situations are more complicated even
here, so we can say that 'the generation' is 'for nothing') , but 'the
selection' of the 'final value' is trigerred for sure 'by an
external/environmental situation'
Remain 'only' to can establish what are the main types
of 'environmental situations' that can trigerr a new selection.
My opinion is that the main cause are the 'social ones' : 'to
can "better placed" a group and next the whole population in the
society' (see the role of the bird songs for a similar process)
Example:
The Romanian l-rothacism (that ended around sec V-VI CE) (Ex: Romanian
soare < Latin solis) is a unique phenomenon inside the IE (today)
European languages.
The single branch that trigerred a similar process is the Indo-Iranian
branch where l > r happens in all positions not only in the
intervocalic ones...
Knowing from history, the Scythian invasions in Dacia and Balkans,
(first one around sec VII-V BCE , last one sec III-V CE) I think that
this transformation was trigerred when the local population has tried
to adapt his own pronunciation to the Scythian ocuppiers that
pronounced an r for any l. The difference ('the bad l-pronunciation'
where more visible in the intervocalic positions) so the adaptation
where 'selected' mainly in these positions....the next historical
events 'has changed the situation' -> either 'the occupier has been
changed' or 'the assimilation already took placed' , so the 'selection
has had no reason to continue' in order to become a general one....
For a social conclusion here, the social-differences between Scythians
Rulers and Dacian population where not so big, so it remain 'to
recuperate 'some linguistic differences (that could be 'easy
recuperated') and 'native Dacians' 'easy' arrived to take part to the
Scythian Ruler class and 'not to be distinguished at all, as Dacians',
a very different situation if we compare with the situation of the
Roman Occupation....Finally these 'social-small-differences' (together
with the fact that the native population was more numerous) has lead
to the assimilation of Scythian invaders despite the fact (or better
to say 'also due to this') that an initial linguistic assimilation
process took place in an 'invers' direction: The Scythian r to Dacian
intervocalic l->r...
Marius
P.S. Of cause other 'social events' that triggers sound chnages can be
also 'internal' ones, but the invasions of any type has the biggest
impact on any language.