On 2008-10-06 21:22, Arnaud Fournet wrote:
> That's part of the issue,
> but there are stabilizing factors, like the fact anatomy does not change so
> fast,
The tempo of language change is MUCH faster than that of biological
evolution. Human anatomy is roughly the same now as it was tens of
millennia ago. So what?
> and some sounds can be easily produced with maximum contrast.
> These sounds are likely not to change so much.
They _do_ change nevertheless. For example, /u/ is quite commonly
fronted to /y/, often eventually merging with /i/, articulatory gestures
producing tense vowels often have the side-effect of making them
diphthongised, etc. Some sounds are stabler than others, especially in
certain contexts (e.g. word-initial /m/ is obviously more likely to
survive for a long time than intervocalic /h/ or final /w/), but
anything may change, and it probably will, sooner or late.
> Copying may be imperfect but there are "natural" emending factors.
Like what (barring the possibility of the imitative value of words being
occasionally selected for)? If you mean that humans are naturally
conservative in matters of language, and that there is stabilising
selection against change (making communication between grandparents and
their grandchildren possible), I agree; however, language evolution
never stops despite our best efforts.
> And you have not proved that Copying imperfections exceed the
> variability of the idiolects of a language.
The very universality of the phenomenon of language change is proof
enough. Variability is the synchronic aspect of linguistic evolution,
just as change is its diachronic manifestation. There would be no change
without variation. In the course of time, the differential survival of
variants leads to variation round a different mean. What imaginable
factors could possibly maintain the same relative frequency of competing
variants in successive generations? I've never seen a living language
capable of resisting change.
> I'm not sure a change is a replication problem.
All evolution, natural or cultural, is an emergent consequence of
imperfect replication. What else could it be? If it were the result of
some kind of deliberate linguistic engineering or "intelligent design"
(by humans), natural languages would resemble Esperanto.
> What does significant mean ?
>
> This is a bit vague, M. Gasiorowski.
Never mind the vagueness. I'm sure you know what I mean. In any
linguistic lineage whose history can be traced back one or two thousand
years, many (possibly most) words will change beyond recognition; many
are bound to suffer extinction and replacement, many will change their
meaning, etc.
Piotr