Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-ndmmz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-02T15:07:30.614Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How to do things with junk: exaptation in language evolution1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Roger Lass
Roger Lass
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of Cape Town
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

One of the less rewarding of our common interdisciplinary pursuits is lifting theoretical concepts from subjects not our own, and using them in contexts very distant from those they were intended for. Such borrowings often turn from theoretical claims into sloppy metaphors, leading to varieties of ‘vulgar X-ism’, the resuit of overenthusiastic appropriation with insufficient sense of the subtlety or precise applicability of the originals. Spencer's ‘Social Darwinism’, vulgar-Freudian or vulgar-Marxist literary analysis and sociology are nice examples. Linguistics, being less unique than linguists often think, is no exception: Praguian and neo-Praguian functionalism may be a kind of vulgar Darwinism, extending notions of ‘adaptation’ or ‘selective pressure’ to the inappropriate domain of language Systems (see Lass, 1980a). But every once in a while such transfers seem to work, like Darwin's borrowings from late eighteenth-century Scottish economie theory; if not always through direct applicability, then by focusing on new ways of interpreting old data, or providing a basis for linking disparate phenomena as instances of a new (putative) natural kind.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , March 1990 , pp. 79 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, J. M. & Ewen, C. J. (1987). Principles of dependency phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Antonsen, E. A. (1975). A concise grammar of the older runic inscriptions. Tübingen: Niemeyer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bakker, R. T. (1975). Dinosaur renaissance. Scientific American 12. 58–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bendall, D. S. (ed.) (1982). Evolution from molecules to men. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bichakjian, B. (1984). L'évolution linguistique et la leçon de Lamarck. In Bots, H. & Kerkhof, M.Miscelánea de estudios literarios, lingüísticos e históricos oferecida a J. J. van den Besselaar. Amsterdam: Holland University Press. 245–249.Google Scholar
Bichakjian, B. (1987). The evolution of word order: a paedomorphic explanation. In Ramat et al., 1987; pp. 87–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bichakjian, B. (1989). Evolution in language. Ann Arbor: Karoma Press.Google Scholar
Buck, C. D. (1933). Comparative grammar of Greek and Latin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cheshire, J. (1982). Variation in an English dialect. A sociolinguistic study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Collinder, B. (1960). Comparative grammar of the Uralic languages. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. (1982). Universal Darwinism. In Bendall, 1982; pp. 403–428.Google Scholar
Dekeyser, X. (1980). The diachrony of gender Systems in English and Dutch. In Fisiak, 1980; pp. 97–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dimmendaal, G. (1987). Drift and selective mechanisms in morphological change: the Eastern Nilotic case. In Ramat et al. 1987; pp. 193–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisiak, J. (1980). Historical morphology. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, S. J. (1977). Ever since Darwin. Reflections in natural history. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. (1983). Hen's teeth and horse's toes. Further reflections in natural history. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. & Vrba, E. S. (1982). Exaptation–a missing term in the science of form. Paleobiology 8. 1. 4–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hesse, M. (1966). Models and analogies in science. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press.Google Scholar
Hoenigswald, H. & Wiener, L. F. (eds) (1987). Biological metaphor and cladistic classification: an interdisciplinary approach. London: Frances Pinter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacob, F. (1982). Molecular tinkering in evolution. In Bendall, 1982; pp. 131–144.Google Scholar
Krahe, H. (1965). Germanische Sprachwissenschaft. II. Formenlehre. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Lass, R. (1980a). On explaining language change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lass, R. (1980b). Paradigm coherence and the conditioning of change: Yiddish ‘schwa-deletion’ again. In Fisiak 1980; pp. 251–272.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lass, R. (1984). Phonology. An introduction to basic concepts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lass, R. (1986). Words without etyma: Germanie ‘tooth’. In Kastovsky, D. & Szwedek, A. (eds), Linguistics across historical and geographical boundaries. In honour of Jacek Fisiak on the occasion of hisfiftieth birthday. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1, 473–482.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lass, R. (1987). The shape of English: structure and history. London: Dent.Google Scholar
Lass, R. (Forthcoming). Of data and ‘datives’: Ruthwell Cross rodi again. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen.Google Scholar
Lass, R. & Anderson, J. M. (1975). Old English phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lorenz, K. (1978). Vergleichende Verhaltensforschung. Grundlagen der Ethologie. Wien: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markey, T. L. (1976). A North Sea Germanie reader. München: Fink.Google Scholar
Martinet, A. (1955). Economie des changements phonétiques. Berne: Francke.Google Scholar
Morpurgo Davies, A. (1987). ‘Organic’ and ‘Organism’ in Franz Bopp. In Hoenigswald & Wiener, 1987; pp. 81–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mustanoja, T. F. (1960). A Middle English syntax. I, Parts of speech. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique.Google Scholar
Ostrom, J. H. (1979). Bird flight: how did it begin? American Scieniist 67. 46–56.Google ScholarPubMed
Prokosch, F. (1938). A comparative Germanie grammar. Baltimore: Linguistic Society of America.Google Scholar
Raidt, E. H. (1980). Afrikaans en sy europese verlede. Van Tacitus tot van Wyk Louw. 2nd ed.Goodwood: NASOU Beperk.Google Scholar
Raidt, E. H. (1983). Einführung in Geschichte und Struktur des Afrikaans. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.Google Scholar
Ramat, A. G., Carruba, O., Bernini, G. (eds) (1987). Papers from the 7th International Conference on Historical Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rijpma, E. & Scheuringa, F. G. (1969). Nederlands spraakkunst. 24th ed., rev. J. v. Bakel. Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff.Google Scholar
Sanders, W. (1972). Oudnederlands. Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal en Letterkunde 88. 161–177.Google Scholar
Scholtz, J. du P. (1981). Taalhistoriese opstelle. Voorstudies tot 'n geskiednis van Afrikaans. Kaapstad: Tafelberg.Google Scholar
Schönfeld, M. (1932). Een oudnederlands zin uit de elfde eeuw. Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal en Letterkunde 52. 1–8.Google Scholar
Stevick, R. D. (1963). The biological model and historical linguistics. Lg 39. 159–69.Google Scholar
van Loey, A. (1970a). Schönfelds historische grammatika van het Nederlands. 8th ed.Zutphen: Thieme.Google Scholar
van Loey, A. (1970b). Altniederländisch und Mittelniederländisch. In Schmitt, L. E. (ed.), Kurzer Grundriss der germanischen Philologie bis 1500. I, Sprachgeschichte. Berlin: de Gruyter. 253–287.Google Scholar
Wells, R. S. (1987). The life and growth of language: metaphors in biology and linguistics. In Hoenigswald & Wiener, 1987; pp. 39–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar