Some Theoretical Aspects of Language History

It has long been recognised that a living language can never be absolutely static; it develops to­gether with the speech community, that is, with the people who speak it.

The great upsurge of interest in historical linguistics and its actual rise from the state of amateur speculation to a serious science date from the early 19th c. Accumulation of facts about the early stages of living languages called for theoretical interpretation of linguistic evolution. It was soon realised that the relationship of language to time involved many difficult and contradictory problems. Here are some of the questions which may naturally arise in connection with language history: What does the evolution of language consist of? Is the concept "evolution" equivalent to that of "linguistic change"? How does a linguistic change operate? What are the conditions or factors that determine and direct the development of language? What are the relationships between the facts of internal linguistic history and the history of the people?

In order to answer such questions with regard to English, and to understand not only what events occurred in the course of time but also how and why they occurred we must first consider a few theoretical questions and principles pertaining to language history.

Evolution of Language and Scope of Language History

The evolution or historical development of language is made up of diverse facts and processes. In the first place it includes the internal or structural development of the language system, its various subsystems 14 and component parts. The description of internal linguistic history is usually presented in accordance with the division of language into linguistic levels. The main, commonly accepted levels are: the phonetic and phonological levels, the morphological level, the syntactic level, and the lexical level. Accordingly, the history of the language can be subdivided into historical phonetics (phonology), historical morphology, historical syntax and historical lexicology.

The evolution of language includes also many facts which pertain to the functioning of language in the speech community. These functional aspects constitute what is known as the "external" history of the language and embrace a large number of diverse matters: the spread of the language in geographical and social space, the differentiation of language into functional varieties (geographical variants, dialects, standard and sub­standard forms, etc.), contacts with other languages. In discussing these aspects of history we shall deal with the concept of language space, that is the geographical and social space occupied by the language (known as its horizontal and vertical dimensions); and also with the concept of linguistic situation, which embraces the functional differentiation of language and the relationships between the functional varieties. Most of these features are connected with the history of the speech community, e.g. with the structure of society, the migration of tribes, economic and political events, the growth of culture and literature.

Statics and Dynamics in Language History

Although certain changes constantly occur at one or another linguistic level, the historical development of language cannot be regarded as permanent instability. Many features of the language remain static in diachrony: these constant features do not alter through time or may be subject to very slight alteration.

In the first place there exist certain permanent, universal properties to be found in all languages at any period of time, such as e.g. the division of sounds into vowels and consonants, the distinction between the main parts of speech and the parts of the sentence. In addition to these universal properties, English, like other languages, has many stable characteristics which have proved almost immune to the impact of time. For instance, some parts of the English vocabulary have been preserved through ages; to this stable part belong most of the pronouns, many form-words and words indicating the basic concepts of life. Many ways of word-formation have remained historically stable. Some grammatical categories, e.g. number in nouns, degrees of comparison in adjectives, have suffered little alteration while other categories, such as case or gender, have undergone profound changes. The proportion of stable and changeable features varies at different historical periods and at different linguistic levels but there is no doubt that we can find statics and dynamics both in synchrony and in diachrony. Dynamics in diachrony, that is linguistic change, requires special consideration.