Читать книгу Introduction to the study of the history of language - Benjamin Ide Wheeler - Страница 4

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It is the province of the Science of Language to explain, as far as possible, the processes of the development of Language from its earliest to its latest stage. The observations made on these processes would naturally be registered in different historical grammars of different definite languages; these grammars would follow the different steps in the development of each single language from its earliest traditional origin to its most recent phase. Wider and more general observations on the processes of this development would naturally be expressed in a comparative grammar, whose task would be to examine and compare the relations between cognate families of speech, the common origin of which is lost: but it would in this case be necessary to insist that the comparisons instituted should only be between languages in the same stage of development; or that the same stage of development, in each of the languages selected for comparison, should be taken for the purpose.

It is the task of Descriptive Grammar to ascertain and record the grammatical forms and the conditions generally of a given linguistic community at a given time; to register, in fact, all the utterances of any individual belonging to such community which might fall from him without exposing him to the suspicion of being a foreigner. It will naturally register its observations in abstractions, such as paradigms and rules. Now, if we compare the abstractions made at any given period of a language with those made at another time, we find that the results are different, and we say that the language has changed in certain respects: nay, we may even be able to detect a certain regularity in these changes; as, for instance, if we note that in English every th in the third person singular present indicative of a verb is now replaced by s: but we gather by such comparisons no information as to the true nature and origin of these changes. Cause and effect do not and cannot exist between mere abstractions: they exist only between real objects and facts. It is only when we begin to take account of the psychical and bodily organisms on which language depends, and to seek for relations of cause and effect in connection with these, that we are on safe ground.

The true object of the Science of Language, as distinguished from Descriptive and Comparative Grammar, is the entirety of the utterances of all individuals that speak; and the relations of these utterances to each other. A full history of the development of language would demand an exact knowledge of all the groups of sound ever uttered or heard, and of all the ideas awakened by such sound-groups and symbolised by them. The impossibility of attaining to any such knowledge is obvious; it is, however, possible for us to get a general idea of the play of the forces at work in the vast and complex series of processes involved in the development of language. A part only of these operating forces is cognisable by our senses. Speaking and hearing are two of the processes which can be apprehended; and, again, the ideas, or pictures, called up by language, and those which, though unspoken, pass through our consciousness, are to some extent capable of cognition. But one of the greatest triumphs of modern psychology is the proof, due to its agency, of the unconscious activity of the human mind. All that has once been present to our consciousness remains as a working factor in unconsciousness. Power consciously acquired by exercise in consciousness may be translated into power operating and manifesting itself unconsciously. The mind forms from the groups of ideas with which it is stored, psychological groups, such as sound-groups, sequences of sounds, sequences of ideas, and syntactical combinations. Strong and weak verbs, derivatives from the same root, words fulfilling identical functions, such as the different parts of speech, associate themselves into groups; and again the plurals of nouns, their different cases, their different inflections, and even entire clauses of similar construction or similar cadence, group themselves in the same way. These groups arise naturally, automatically, and unconsciously, and must not be confused with the categories consciously drawn up by grammarians; though the two, of course, must frequently coincide.

These groups must obviously be in a constant state of change, some growing weaker from the fact that they are strengthened by no fresh impulse, and some being strengthened and, it may be, changed by the accession of new ideas which ally themselves therewith. It must not be overlooked also that, as each person’s mind is differently constituted, the groups of his linguistic ideas will take a development peculiar to himself; even though the sources whence the groups take their rise should be identical, yet the elements which go to form the groups will be introduced differently and with different intensity in the case of each individual.

The action of our physical organs, unaided, would be unable to bring about the development of language. The word, when once spoken, disappears and leaves no traces; psychological activity, and this alone, connects the pictures of the past with the present. It must, therefore, be the task of the historian of language to give as complete an account as possible of the psychical organisms on which the production of language depends; and the psychical organism of language in each individual is the aggregate of more or less conscious recollections of words, nay, even of entire phrases, and of their connections with certain ideas, which is lodged in his mind. It is the business of the historian of language to watch and examine these organisms as closely as possible: to describe the elements of which they are composed, and their connection with each other. A state or condition of a language at a particular period could only be described by one possessed of a full knowledge of the psychical conditions at a particular time of all the members of any linguistic community. The more fully such observations as those referred to above are carried out, and the greater the number of individuals thus examined, the more nearly shall we be in a condition to give an accurate description of a state of language. Without a rigidly scrupulous examination such as we have described, it would be impossible to say how much in the language of any individual is common to all or most individuals speaking the same language, and how much is to be set down to individual peculiarity. In every case it will be found that the standard of the language governs to some extent the language of every individual; but in the case of each individual there are likewise elements which do not conform to the standard or normal language, and which are, in fact, individual peculiarities.

In any case, the observation of a psychical organism of language is difficult. It cannot, like the physical side of language, i.e. the sounds actually produced and even the mode of their production, be directly observed; for it lies unseen in the mind, and is only known by its effects.

Of the physical phenomena of linguistic activity, the acoustic are those which lend themselves most readily to our observation. We can make the same individual repeat sounds practically identical as often as we please; and we can note these with more or less accuracy in proportion as our own sense of hearing is exact and developed. But as the transitions between the different sounds are so infinitely small, it follows that it must be a matter of extreme difficulty for the listener to decide whether the sounds are indeed precisely the same in colour, pitch, etc.; while, again, if it be desired to reproduce any sound, the process has to be carried out by orally repeating it and striving to reproduce it by an appeal to another’s sense of hearing.

We register the sounds of a language by mastering and registering the movements of the organs of speech that produce them. Alphabetical symbols are at best but very imperfect pictures of sound-groups: they are used inconsistently in most cases: and in any case even the most perfect phonetic alphabet cannot give a true and exact picture of the countless sounds in speech—sounds which require to be constantly denoted anew in every language. We can only succeed at all in registering such sounds, when we are able to closely observe the sounds uttered by living individuals. But when we cannot do this, we must always think of the sounds which the writing is intended to represent; and the power so to do demands some acquaintance with phonetics, and with the relation between writing and language. Thus a certain special training is necessary before we can hope to be able to gain any real knowledge of even the physical manifestations of linguistic activity.

The psychical factors in linguistic activity lie, like everything else psychical, unseen in the mind, and can therefore only be scrutinised by means of examinations made upon our own minds. In the process of watching other individuals we can never perceive any other than physical results, and thus it happens that in order to acquaint ourselves with the psychical organisms of language in others, we have to watch as closely as possible the processes in our own minds, and then to classify the phenomena which we observe in the case of others by the analogy of what we observe in our own. As we both think and speak in the mother-tongue, our classifications by analogy will be easier when we have to deal with fellow-countrymen; so too, for obvious reasons, with the living subject rather than with what has been committed to writing in the past.

It will, then, be plain that the observation of any given state of language is no easy matter, owing to the manifold and complex way in which groups of ideas associate themselves in the human mind, and owing to the incessant progress of hardly perceptible sound-change. It may easily be gathered that even the most full and perfect of ordinary grammars are quite unable to portray the manner in which different ideas and groups of ideas range and classify themselves. Our grammatical system can give but the most imperfect picture of the relationships existing between different ideas. Certain categories, for instance, are drawn up, and under one or other of these are ranged words under the name of certain parts of speech. As a matter of fact, a large proportion of words is capable of being used to fulfil the function of several parts of speech, and in no language is this more obvious than in English. Again, we are accustomed in grammar to meet—even in the case of the Indo-European group of languages—with the same grammatical term employed to express quite different functions, as when we speak of the Latin future, and call the English future in “I shall” or “I will” do by the same name. Again, we are accustomed, in the case of a language which has passed from the synthetic to the analytic stage, to employ the same categories, regardless of the fact that, in the analytical form of the language, new shades of meaning have found expression as they have also come into being. Again, we often define the meaning of words by their etymology, even though the ordinary speaker may have no knowledge whatever of that etymology, and a new and very different meaning may have attached itself to the word.

The comparison of different epochs in the life of any language will enable us to draw some inferences as to its condition in the past. Of course, in proportion as the foreign factors that have made their influence felt in the regular course of the language are fewer, the simpler and more satisfactory will be the comparison. It would be impossible to reconstruct the sounds of Anglo-Saxon, for instance, from Middle English only; as it would be necessary to remember that Norman, Danish, Celtic, and other influences had been busy with the language between its earlier and later stages.

We now proceed to ask what are the causes of change in language? And how do these causes operate? In the first place, they operate in most instances without the consciousness of the individual. There are, indeed, a few cases in which we may say that conscious intention on the part of the individual is operative, as where a botanist coins a name for some new variety, and forces it upon all the scientific men of his circle. But it must be repeated that changes are for the most part involuntary and unconscious. It is of the essence of the life of language to unconsciously select the forms and sounds which may best serve for conveying the meaning present in the speaker’s mind. The material existing and forming the actual stock in trade of any language may very aptly be looked upon as the survival of the fittest; in this case, of the material fittest to survive. If we now proceed to consider the causes of change in language, we must remember that there is always in language a certain amount of freedom left to the individual, which is quite independent of ordinary linguistic development. As each speaker must have certain psychical peculiarities, so must he express himself differently from every other speaker; and if the sound-producing organs of any given speaker have any peculiarities, he will exhibit corresponding peculiarities in the sounds which he utters by their agency. Again, there are circumstances which must not be overlooked, like the natural tendency to imitation; and the further circumstance that all attempts at imitation must necessarily be imperfect. Again, each individual is prone to modify the sounds which he utters, through carelessness and economy of effort or laziness. Besides all this, we must reckon the effects produced by such factors as climate, which, however gradual in their operation, must still ultimately leave some effects if only time enough is allowed. The result of these displacements, if only the tendency to displacement lasts long enough and operates in one direction, is a displacement of usage. The new usage starts from the individual, and, under favourable circumstances, succeeds in becoming permanent. There are, however, numerous other tendencies to displacement likewise constantly occurring which do not become permanent, because they are not consistent, and because they do not all run in the same direction.

It must, then, be the task of the historian of language to endeavour to settle the relationship between linguistic usage on the one hand, and individual linguistic activity on the other; and in order to arrive at any satisfactory conclusions on this point, it is necessary to classify, as far as we can, the different changes of usage which occur in the growth and development of language. It is, then, his business to trace the relationship between the different classes which he has formed, and to remember that his province is to trace connections where ordinary grammar draws lines of demarcation, bearing in mind that the steps which lead from class to class are very gradual, and that the processes leading up to the smallest variation of usage are in very few cases due to a single cause, but are generally very complicated. The gradual development in the life of language in general may be best studied in individual languages, as when we compare the English of Chaucer’s day with that of our own; and, again, in the relations of individual languages to each other, as when we compare Spanish, for instance, with Italian, and note the different paths taken by these sister-tongues in their development from Latin.

Sound-changes come about in the individual partly from the tendencies of his own organs of speech, as when [ii] becomes [ai2] and when one sound is habitually substituted for another, as in the case of the Russian Feodor for Theodore, or the similar substitution, frequent among children, fing for thing. They partly, too, depend upon the influences which each individual receives from others, as when an endeavour is made to substitute a significant for an unmeaning whole, in cases of popular etymology and the like. To this must be added the possibility of imperfect audition, and consequently of imperfect reproduction of sounds. These influences are mostly operative and easiest of observation at the time that language is being learnt, i.e. most commonly during the time of infancy. To watch such processes as a particular language is being learnt must always be very instructive for the explanation of variations in the usages of language in general.

These changes in usage may of course be classified in various ways, but there is one important point which should be noted: the processes may either consist in the creation of what is new or in the disappearance of what is old; or, lastly, in the replacement of the old by the new in a single act, which is the process seen in sound-change. In the case of word-significations, the processes of change consist either in the disappearance of the old or in the appearance of the new. But these processes are in truth very gradual. A word may be perfectly intelligible with a certain meaning in one generation, and in another generation may be obsolete and not understood: but there will none the less have been an intervening generation, some members of which understood the meaning attached to the word or phrase by the former generation, while some only imperfectly understood it.

Again, we may classify changes in usage according to whether sounds or significations are affected. The sounds change without the signification being altered, as in the numerous words in Chaucer which as yet clearly retained their French pronunciation. Again, the signification is affected without any change affecting the sound, as in the case of metaphorical uses of a word, such as a crane, used alike for the bird and the lifting machine; etc. Thus it is that we arrive at the two classes of change: sound-change and change in signification; not that the two kinds are mutually exclusive—they may both occur together, as in our owe, from A.S. âgan, to possess. But the two kinds of change are independent in their origin and their development; neither is caused by the other.

There is, however, an important class of cases in which Sound and Meaning develop simultaneously; these are the original creations of language; and we must suppose the entire development of language to rest upon this primitive combination. We must conceive the original utterances in language to have been the imitation of various natural cries and sounds, aided and interpreted by gesticulation. Then comes a stage in which the sound-groups already existing in language develop on the basis of this original creation. They develop in this way mainly by the influence of analogy, which is itself an imitative faculty and plays a larger part where sound and signification are united than in the department of pure sound. The principles of which we have spoken must be held applicable to all languages at all stages of their development. When once language had originated, it must have developed solely in the way we have indicated. The differences between early and later stages of language are merely differences of degree and not of kind.

It must also be noticed that we must not sharply separate the grammatical and the logical relations of language, as if they were in no way connected. Grammatical rules are simply convenient descriptions of the most ordinary and striking ways in which a language expresses itself at a particular time. But the groups of ideas in the mind of a speaker are constantly forming themselves anew, and finding expression in forms which do not tally with actual and received linguistic expression, and, as they change, give rise to so-called irregularities of grammar. The philologist must therefore discard neither the linguistic processes which are described and registered by grammar, nor the psychical ones which manifest themselves in speaking and hearing, but are not represented in linguistic expression, and yet are always operative in the direction of change in Language.