Linguistic Selection: An Utterance-based Evolutionary Theory of Language Change

1996 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Croft
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Conceptual Change ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Selection Processes ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Theory Of Language ◽  
Evolutionary Taxonomy

Hull (1988) uses recent developments in the theory of biological evolution, in particular rigorous application of the population theory of species, a consistently phylogenetic approach to evolutionary taxonomy and a proposed resolution of the dispute over which levels natural selection operates, to propose a general analysis of selection processes which he then applies to conceptual change in science. Hull's model of selection is applied to language change. It is argued that the utterance plays the central role in linguistic selection, and causal mechanisms by which linguistic selection – language change – occurs are proposed. The final sections consider the possibility that selection occurs also at higher levels of linguistic organization, and suggest how language contact may be accounted for in terms of phylogenetic reticulation.

scholarly journals What Motivates Morphological Copying?

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 392-407
Author(s):  
Zygmunt Frajzyngier
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Relative Paucity ◽  
Theory Of Language

Based on the papers included in the reviewed volume, this article puts forward a number of questions that are important for the theory of language change under contact. While there exist reliable methodologies to determine whether a given form represents the effect of language contact or not, and a slightly less reliable methodologies to establish whether a given function is a product of language contact, there is a relative paucity of studies discussing the motivation for language change under contact with respect to the functions encoded in the language.

LANGUAGE CHANGE AND LANGUAGE CONTACT IN PIDGINS AND CREOLES.John McWhorter (Ed.). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1999. Pp. vi + 503. $145.00 cloth.

2003 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 590-590
Author(s):  
Chris Corcoran
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistic ◽  
Chaos Theory ◽  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
San Diego ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
European Development ◽  
Question Formation ◽  
Selection Of

This volume is a selection of 15 papers from approximately 125 papers presented at three consecutive meetings of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics (San Diego in January 1996, Chicago in January 1997, and London in June 1997). The collection represents a good variety of contributions in terms of theoretical concerns and languages discussed. Two of the chapters present a survey of particular phenomena in a number of pidgins and creoles: stativity and time reference (Holm) and wh-words and question formation (Clements & Mahboob). Another chapter revisits the prototypical creole tense-mood-aspect system with an examination of a larger database of Sranan speech than has been previously seen in the literature (Winford). The remainder of the chapters address historical linguistic concerns, discussing issues of Indo-European development (Goyette) as well as creole genesis. The articles on genesis represent an integration of recent developments from outside the creolist world—for example, using insights from Chaos Theory (Lang) and Optimality Theory (Singler) and expanding on previous discussions of nativization (Roberts). Two chapters represent more quantitative approaches from sociolinguistics applied to creole settings (Naro & Scherre; Tagliamonte). There are four articles that address diachronic issues that would potentially address issues of SLA; however, they do not explicitly address their orientation as to how processes of creole genesis are separate from those of SLA.

Relatedness as a Factor in Language Contact

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 411-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Bowern
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Geographical Proximity ◽  
Dialect Contact ◽  
Speech Communities ◽  
Contact Models ◽  
Theory Of Language

Contact-induced change among related languages has been considered problematic for language reconstruction. In this article, I consider several aspects of the theory of language change and ways in which contact might interact with language relatedness. I show that models of language change which extrapolate dialect-contact models to languages and subgroups are problematic, and fail to take into account the unevenness of degrees of difference between languages across families. That is, diffusability clines that apply to speech communities and dialects do not appear to be in evidence for languages and subgroups. I further show that many claims about relatedness as a factor in language contact are confounded by other factors that are distinct from language relatedness, such as geographical proximity. Claims about effects of language contact appear to reduce to the type of interaction that speakers participate in, rather than structural facts about their languages. I argue that our current toolkit for reconstruction is adequate to identify contact features. Finally, I provide a typology of cases where contact might be expected to be problematic for subgrouping.

Evolution, theory of

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth A. Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Genetic Mutation ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Selection Processes ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
The Public Sphere

The biological theory of evolution advances the view that the variety and forms of life on earth are the result of descent with modification from the earliest forms of life. Evolutionary theory does not attempt to explain the origin of life itself, that is, how the earliest forms of life came to exist, nor does it apply to the history of changes of the non-biological parts of the universe, which are also often described as ’evolutionary’. The mechanisms of natural selection, mutation and speciation are used in evolutionary theory to explain the relations and characteristics of all life forms. Modern evolutionary theory explains a wide range of natural phenomena, including the deep resemblances among organisms, the diversity of life forms, organisms’ possession of vestigial organs and the good fit or ’adaptedness’ between organisms and their environment. Often summarized as ’survival of the fittest’, the mechanism of natural selection actually includes several distinct processes. There must be variation in traits among the members of a population; these traits must be passed on from parents to offspring; and the different traits must confer differential advantage for reproducing successfully in that environment. Because evidence for each of these processes can be gathered independently of the evolutionary claim, natural selection scenarios are robustly testable. When a trait in a population has arisen because it was directly selected in this fashion, it is called an adaptation. Genetic mutation is the originating source of variation, and selection processes shape that variation into adaptive forms; random genetic drift and various levels and forms of selection dynamic developed by geneticists have been integrated into a general theory of evolutionary change that encompasses natural selection and genetic mutation as complementary processes. Detailed ecological studies are used to provide evidence for selection scenarios involving the evolution of species in the wild. Evolutionary theory is supported by an unusually wide range of scientific evidence, gaining its support from fields as diverse as geology, embryology, molecular genetics, palaeontology, climatology and functional morphology. Because of tensions between an evolutionary view of homo sapiens and some religious beliefs, evolutionary theory has remained controversial in the public sphere far longer than no less well-supported scientific theories from other sciences.

Code-Switching as a Reflection of Contact-Induced Change

2020 ◽  
pp. 192-214
Author(s):  
Ad Backus
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
The Other ◽  
Code Mixing ◽  
Language Mixing ◽  
Lexical Change ◽  
Theory Of Language

Code-switching is often studied in purely synchronic terms, as recorded speech is analyzed for patterns of language mixing. Though this has yielded numerous useful theoretical advances, it has also shielded the code-switching literature from serious engagement with the phenomenon of language change, even from the subtype of change caused by language contact. There is also the additional practice of limiting the study of code-mixing and code-switching to lexical mixing. On the other side of the fence, meanwhile, discussions of contact-induced language change tend to be limited to morphological and syntactic phenomena. This chapter breaks through this stalemate, and argues that a usage-based approach to language change actually demands integration of these perspectives. Code-switching should be seen as a reflection of lexical change. It is for this reason that a synchronic distinction between loanwords and code-switching makes no sense, since the terms refer to the diachronic and synchronic planes, respectively, of the same phenomenon. In the chapter, the author interprets the code-switching literature from this theoretical viewpoint, and explores what both the literature on code-switching and that on contact-induced change stand to gain from linking their empirical findings to a usage-based theory of language change that allocates proper attention to synchrony and diachrony, and unites lexical and structural change in the same framework.

scholarly journals The Driving Force and Progressive Mechanisms of Evolution Deduced from Thermodynamics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji-Ming Chen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Organic Synthesis ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Structural Complexity ◽  
Biological Traits ◽  
Human Society ◽  
The One

Studies on evolution have made significant progress in multiple disciplines, but evolutionary theories remain scattered, complicated, elusive, and controversial. To address this issue, a novel evolutionary theory is deduced from thermodynamics in this article. As per the formula of Gibbs free energy, carbon-based entities (CBEs) on Earth tend to absorb more energy. This is the evolutionary driving force leading to organic synthesis of higher-hierarchy CBEs (HHCBEs). The organic synthesis raises the amount of HHCBEs and increases the structural complexity and hierarchy of CBEs. Increased structural complexity and hierarchy spontaneously offer complicated functions to HHCBEs. Genetic mutations, epigenetic changes, and uninheritable variations provide diversified HHCBEs for natural selection which is redefined as survival of the fit and elimination of the unfit, leading to increase of diversity and fitness of HHCBEs. Order in biology resulting from permanent natural selection is largely contrary to order in physics. Natural selection acts on the overall fitness involving all traits through the co-action of positive selection and negative selection. Natural selection can establish biological traits in short geological periods. Different combinations of traits can lead to sympatric speciation targeting the same niche. Altruism, collaboration, and obeying rules with balanced freedom are all important throughout the CBE evolution which harbors three overlapping phases including chemical evolution (abiogenesis), biological evolution, and group evolution. Altogether, this theory termed the CBE evolutionary theory (CBEET) suggests that evolution which favors fitness and diversity is driven hierarchy-wise by energy. It reveals the driving force of evolution and reestablishes the key role of natural selection. It integrates with advances from multiple disciplines and provides simple and rational answers to some evolutionary conundrums. It removes several elusive or erroneous views including the one regarding negative entropy. It bridges natural sciences and social sciences and sheds novel insights into harmonious development of human society.

scholarly journals The Driving Force and Progressive Mechanisms of Evolution Deduced from Thermodynamics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji-Ming Chen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Organic Synthesis ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Structural Complexity ◽  
Biological Traits ◽  
Human Society ◽  
The One

Studies on evolution have made significant progress in multiple disciplines, but evolutionary theories remain scattered, complicated, elusive, and controversial. To address this issue, a novel evolutionary theory is deduced from thermodynamics in this article. As per the formula of Gibbs free energy, carbon-based entities (CBEs) on Earth tend to absorb more energy. This is the evolutionary driving force leading to organic synthesis of higher-hierarchy CBEs (HHCBEs). The organic synthesis raises the amount of HHCBEs and increases the structural complexity and hierarchy of CBEs. Increased structural complexity and hierarchy spontaneously offer complicated functions to HHCBEs. Genetic mutations, epigenetic changes, and uninheritable variations provide diversified HHCBEs for natural selection which is redefined as survival of the fit and elimination of the unfit, leading to increase of diversity and fitness of HHCBEs. Order in biology resulting from permanent natural selection is largely contrary to order in physics. Natural selection acts on the overall fitness involving all traits through the co-action of positive selection and negative selection. Natural selection can establish biological traits in short geological periods. Different combinations of traits can lead to sympatric speciation targeting the same niche. Altruism, collaboration, and obeying rules with balanced freedom are all important throughout the CBE evolution, which harbors three overlapping phases including chemical evolution (abiogenesis), biological evolution, and group evolution. Altogether, this theory termed the CBE evolutionary theory (CBEET) suggests that evolution which favors fitness and diversity is driven hierarchy-wise by energy. It reveals the driving force of evolution and reestablishes the key role of natural selection. It integrates with advances from multiple disciplines and provides simple and rational answers to some evolutionary conundrums. It removes several elusive or erroneous views including the one regarding negative entropy. It bridges natural sciences and social sciences and sheds novel insights into harmonious development of human society.

scholarly journals A proposal about the origin of the indo-european locative plural

Linguistica ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-58
Author(s):  
Kenneth Shields
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Linguistic Change ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Explanatory Account ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Reasonable Possibility ◽  
Theory Of Language ◽  
Methods Of Reconstruction ◽  
The Way

One of the most significant recent developments in the field of historical lin­ guistics has been the identification of what Fox (1995: 194) calls '"laws' oflanguage development"-a methodology "for determining which changes are more likely than others, and ... criteria for determining the overall direction of linguistic change." This methodology is largely an aspect of what has come to be known as "grammati­ calization theory," which, according to Heine (2003: 575), is really "neither a theory of language nor of language change; its goal is to describe grammaticalization, that is, the way grammatical forms arise and develop through space and time, and to explain why they are structured the way they are." The process of grammaticalization "is hypothesized to be essentially unidirectional" (Heine 2003: 575) and therefore potentially "offers an explanatory account of how and why grammatical categories arise and develop" (Heine 2003: 578). Such explanation serves as "a potentially powerful adjunct to the methods of reconstruction, especially on an internal basis" (Fox 1995: 206), since it leads the historical linguist to principled conclusions about the structural sources of both attested and comparatively reconstructed morpho­ syntactic patterns. In this brief paper I wish to apply one such '"law' of language development" to account for the origin of the traditionally reconstructed Inda-European locative plural suffixes *-si (Gk. -si) and *-su (Skt. -su, OCS -Xb) (cf. Szemerényi 1996: 165). Like Fox (1995: 206), I acknowledge that the application of this methodology can be "speculative and controversial"; however, I offer my proposal as a reasonable possibility for developments within Indo-European

Evolutionary theory and social science

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elliott Sober
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Psychological Traits ◽  
Research Programmes ◽  
Survival And Reproduction

Ideas from evolutionary theory impinge on the social sciences in two ways. First, there is the research programme of sociobiology, which attempts to demonstrate the impact of biological evolution on important features of human mind and culture. Second, there is the idea that biological evolution provides a suggestive analogy for the processes that drive cultural change. Both research programmes have tended to focus on the idea of natural selection, even though the theory of biological evolution considers processes besides selection. Sociobiology attempts to show that the following conditional helps explain psychological traits just as it applies to traits of morphology and physiology: if a trait varies in a population, makes a difference for the survival and reproduction of individuals, and is influenced by genetic factors, then natural selection will lead the trait to change its frequency in the population. Models of cultural evolution are built on an analogous conditional: if a set of alternative ideas are found in a culture, and people tend to find some of these ideas more attractive than others, then the mix of ideas in the culture will change. Sociobiology and the understanding of cultural change as an evolutionary process are approaches that have a history and both will continue to be explored in the future. Each is a flexible instrument, which may be better suited to some tasks than to others, and may be handled well by some practitioners and poorly by others. As a consequence, neither can be said to be ‘verified’ and ‘falsified’ by their track records to date.

scholarly journals The Carbon-Based Evolutionary Theory (CBET)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji-Ming Chen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Evolutionary Theories ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Carbon Based

Evolution is fundamental to natural sciences and social sciences. Existing evolutionary theories are incomplete and unable to explain multiple evolutionary issues. To establish a comprehensive and comprehensible evolutionary theory, we employ the concept carbon-based entities (CBEs), which include methane, glucose, proteins, organisms, and other entities chemically containing carbon atoms. We deduce the steps, driving forces, and mechanisms of evolution of CBEs, through integration of geology, physics (particularly the second law of thermodynamics), chemistry (particularly chemical reactions of CBEs), and biology (particularly the essence of reproduction, genomes, and natural selection). We hence establish the Carbon-Based Evolutionary Theory (CBET), which suggests that evolution is the increase in the amount, diversity, and fitness of higher-hierarchy CBEs under natural selection and driven by the organic synthesis tendency on the Earth from the thermodynamic features of the Earth. It provides better explanations for various evolutionary issues (e.g. life origin, neutral mutation, speciation, and evolutionary tempos) than existing evolutionary theories. It reveals the physiochemical roots of biological evolution and the evolutionary roots of multiple social notions important to harmonious development of human society. It refutes from a novel respect some incorrect thermodynamic notions regarding evolution (e.g. negative entropy). It hence removes contradictions between physiochemistry, biology, and social sciences, and bridges them through evolution. The CBET is reliable as per its deduction and applications. Therefore, the CBET is more scientific and comprehensive than existing evolutionary theories, and could have great significance in natural sciences and social sciences. Meanwhile, the CBET is open to optimization and extension.

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