Language evolution. External causes of language development
We have characterized here some features of the development of the language, due to its belonging to the class of complex dynamic systems. Description of the properties of the language associated with its systemic nature, not in diachrony, but in synchrony, is the subject of a separate study.
The role of internal and external factors of language development
and the question of their classification
A serious shortcoming of many works on historical linguistics, - writes K. Togeby, - was an attempt to explain the evolution of language as a result of the action of any one factor. Against the urge to bind various changes with a single universal reason, other linguists also objected - E. Koseriu, M. I. Steblin-Kamensky. But not all linguists agree with this point of view. If<217>leaving aside those scientists who believe that the problem of causality has no right to be considered within our science at all, or those who believe that "the question of the causes of language changes is not essential for the science of language", it can be noted that opinions There are three different points of view on this issue.
The first of these is that all changes in the language are due to extralinguistic reasons, primarily the conditions for the existence of the society in which the language exists. Criticizing neogrammarists for trying to discover the causes of transformations in the individual psychology of the speaker, A. Sommerfelt directly points out that all the various factors of change are ultimately social in nature. Sometimes such a straightforward concept is modified in the sense that its supporters, while recognizing the possibility of identifying a number of internal causes of evolution, believe at the same time that even behind these internal causes there are exgralinguistic factors. Often, a decisive role in the emergence and spread of language transformations is also attributed to such a factor as communicative needs.
THEME PLAN
Topic 18 Development and interaction of languages
The evolution of the language. External causes of language development.
· Interaction of languages.
· Types of language contacts.
Jacob Grimm once correctly remarked: there is more living evidence of the peoples than bones, weapons and graves - these are their language.
The development of the language reflects changes in the life of society. Let's remember how many new words came into the Russian language only for recent decades: exclusive, electorate, thriller, provider, bank transfer, etc. How many words have changed their meaning? Perestroika, action movie, shuttle, brother, scoop, trudge, spin(examples of B.Yu. Norman).
The pace of language development determined by the pace of development of society. American communication theorist F. Williams compared the history of mankind with the movement of clocks: he presented 36 thousand years as one day - 24 hours. Development of information needs people looks something like this (quoted from: N.B. Mechkovskaya, 1996, p. 153).
It is easy to see how the history of mankind is accelerating sharply with the acquisition of language second form of manifestation – written.
Linguists distinguish internal And external conditions for language development. Some scientists recognize only internal, in the very structure of the language, inherent reasons ( A. Martinet, E. Kurilovich), others tend to take into account only external, extralinguistic reasons ( A. Meie, A. Sommerfelt). To the number external conditions include:
· social structure of society. Changing it during periods of social exacerbations affects, first of all, the vocabulary;
· ethnic composition of the country. The more homogeneous the composition, the less borrowing and changes in language structures;
· production, technology- they affect the vocabulary of the language;
· the science. Developing, it has an impact on terminology, powerfully affects the semantics of words;
· fiction . It is no coincidence that in different countries called the founders of literary languages prominent writers;
· state;
· ideology especially the religious one. In the languages of the East, for example, Japanese, Hindustani, lexical semantics and phraseology developed under the influence of religious worldviews; cf. also numerous bibleisms of the peoples of Europe;
· contacts, in particular trade, with other peoples entail significant changes in the language.
There are also internal causes of language changes (General Linguistics, 1970, p. 132):
· adaptation of the language mechanism to physiological characteristics the human body;
· necessity language engine improvements;
· necessity language preservation in a state of communicative fitness;
· internal contradictions of language;
cases useful interaction of language processes.
A.S. Pushkin highly valued useful borrowings in the language. Discussing with G. Lemonti, he wrote: “G. Lemonty thinks in vain that the rule of the Tatars has left rust on the Russian language. An alien language is not spread by sabers or fires, but by its own abundance and superiority” (A.S. Pushkin, 1937, p. 345).
B.N. Golovin identifies the following trends internal laws of language development.
1. In all languages there is tendency to abstract elements of the language structure.
2. Over time specific elements develop into more abstract. more
As a result of the tendency to abstract elements of the linguistic structure, a single word of a modern developed language turns out to be a carrier of linguistic meanings of four levels of abstraction - lexical, word-forming, morphological, syntactic.
3. Valid in all languages tendency to differentiate language structure and language functions, due to which the most ancient sounds-utterances were divided into sounds and morphemes-utterances. Then the word began to differ from the morpheme and the sentence, and so on.
4.The trend towards differentiation structural elements language operates simultaneously with integration trend. Morphemes, when combined, form a word, words are combined into phrases, etc. The processes of integration capture tribal and territorial dialects, on the basis of the combination of which languages are formed. All languages tend to change by analogy.
In general, it is not in vain that languages are compared with a living organism: they are not only develop, but also die. The memory of human civilization stores information about many dead languages. B.Yu. Norman names three possible reasons language death.
1. Language can be reborn. This means that as a result of the changes accumulated in it (grammatical, lexical, phonetic), it becomes a qualitatively different language. For example, the ancient Greek language from the 4th-3rd centuries. BC. turns into koine(a mixture of dialects), and then through an intermediate form of the "Middle Greek" period gives rise to the modern Greek(since the 15th century).
2. A language can disintegrate, split into several descendant languages. For example, ancient Latin, having gone through centuries of development from “archaic” (III-II centuries BC) through “classical” (I century BC) to “vulgar”, or folk (III-IV centuries . AD), marked the beginning of modern Romance languages: Italian, French, Spanish, Romanian, Catalan, etc.
3. The language may be supplanted, replaced by another language. An example is the Polish language. Polabans are the descendants of the ancient Slavs who lived on the western bank of the Elbe (the Slavic name is Laba, hence the name: Polabians). Their neighbors were Germans; Gradually, the Polabians switched to German and "dissolved" in the surrounding ethnic environment (B.Yu. Norman, 2004, p. 167).
Laws of language development
The language is constantly changing for an adequate and modern communication. The intensity of this development can be different: the language changes dramatically during the period of breaking the economic, political and social sphere, in the process of docking with other languages, etc.
A kind of stimulator (or, conversely, "extinguisher") of these changes is an external factor - processes in the life of society. Language and society, as a user of the language, are inextricably linked, but at the same time they have their own, separate laws of life support.
Thus, the life of the language, its history are connected with the history of society, but are not completely subordinated to it because of their own systemic organization. Thus, in the language movement, processes of self-development collide with processes stimulated from outside.
Internal laws of language development - manifest inside language system, their actions are based on their own linguistic material, they act, as it were, independently of the influence of society.
General internal laws began to be called laws and principles that apply to all known languages and all tiers of the linguistic structure. General internal laws recognized such features of languages as the presence of successive historical forms language, the discrepancy between external and internal linguistic forms and, in connection with this, the difference in patterns and rates of change in individual tiers of the structure of the language. In recent years, the problem of general laws of language has been superseded by the problem of universals.
Private internal laws began to be called such formulas and principles that are applicable only to certain languages or groups of languages and individual tiers of the language structure. So, the phonetic law in the Slavic languages is the first and second palatalization of back-lingual ones.
External laws of language development- such laws that reveal the connections of language with various aspects human activity and the history of society.
Are common external laws establish a relationship characteristic of all languages. The general external law is the relationship common history language with the history of society, the relationship of the forms of existence of the language with the historical communities of people. Of course, the specific forms of communication are different, this general regularity manifests itself in a peculiar way in certain periods of the life of a language and in different peoples in concrete historical conditions.
Private The external law of language development, according to two cultural centers (Moscow and St. Petersburg), is a different degree of connection with extralinguistic patterns of different structural units of the language. So, the vocabulary of a language is associated with socio-political and cultural changes in society, with the cognitive activity of people, the sounds of the language - with physiological and psychological patterns, the syntax reveals a connection with logical forms thoughts and logical operations.
Why the decisive factor in language development (decisive, but not the only one) is the action of internal laws lies in the fact that language is a systemic formation. Language is not just a set, the sum of linguistic signs (morphemes, words, phrases, etc.), but also the relationship between them, so a failure in one link of signs can set in motion not only adjacent links, but the entire chain in the whole (or some part of it).
The law of consistency(the internal law of language development) is found at different language levels (morphological, lexical, syntactic) and manifests itself both within each level and in their interaction with each other. For example, the reduction in the number of cases in Russian (six out of nine) led to an increase in analytical features in the syntactic structure of the language - the function of the case form began to be determined by the position of the word in the sentence, the relationship with other forms. A change in the semantics of a word can affect its syntactic links and even its form. And, conversely, a new syntactic compatibility can lead to a change in the meaning of the word (its expansion or narrowing).
Law of language tradition(int), The intelligibility of the law is explained by the objective desire of the language for stability, the “protection” of what has already been achieved, acquired, but the potential of the language just as objectively acts in the direction of loosening this stability, and a breakthrough in the weak link of the system turns out to be quite natural. But here forces come into play that are not directly related to the language itself, but which can impose a kind of taboo on innovation. Such prohibitive measures come from linguistic specialists and special institutions that have the appropriate legal status. There is, as it were, an artificial delay in the obvious process, the preservation of tradition in spite of the objective state of things.
Action law of linguistic analogy manifests itself in the internal overcoming of linguistic anomalies, which is carried out as a result of assimilation of one form of linguistic expression to another. In general terms, this is a powerful factor in linguistic evolution, since the result is some unification of forms, but, on the other hand, it can deprive the language of specific nuances of the semantic and grammatical plan. In such cases, the restraining principle of tradition can play a positive role.
The essence of the likening of forms (analogy) lies in the alignment of forms, which is observed in pronunciation, in the accent design of words (in stress), and partly in grammar (for example, in verb control). Particularly subject to the law of analogy colloquial, while the literary one relies more on tradition, which is understandable, since the latter is more conservative in nature.
Particularly active in modern Russian is the action
law of speech economy(or economy of speech efforts). The desire for economy of linguistic expression is found at different levels of the language system - in vocabulary, word formation, morphology, syntax.
The development of a language, like development in any other sphere of life and activity, cannot but be stimulated by the inconsistency of the ongoing processes. contradictions (or antinomies) are inherent in the language itself as a phenomenon, without them any changes are unthinkable. It is in the struggle of opposites that the self-development of language is manifested.
Usually there are five or six main antinomies
Antinomy of speaker and listener is created as a result of a difference in the interests of the interlocutors (or the reader and the author) entering into contact: the speaker is interested in simplifying and shortening the statement, and the listener is interested in simplifying and facilitating the perception and understanding of the statement.
A clash of interests creates a conflict situation, which must be removed by searching for forms of expression that satisfy both sides.
IN different eras society, this conflict is resolved in different ways. For example, in a society where the leading role is played by public forms of communication (disputes, rallies, oratory appeals, persuasive speeches), the attitude towards the listener is more tangible.
In other eras, a clear dominance of written speech and its influence on the communication process can be felt. The focus on the written text (the predominance of the interests of the writer, the speaker), the text of the prescription prevailed in Soviet society, and it was to this that the activities of the mass media were subordinated. Thus, despite the intralinguistic essence of this antinomy, it is thoroughly permeated with social content.
So the conflict between the speaker and the listener is resolved either in favor of the speaker or in favor of the listener. This can manifest itself not only at the level of general attitudes, as noted above, but also at the level of the linguistic forms themselves - in the preference for some and the rejection or restriction of others.
Antinomy of code and text- this is a contradiction between a set of language units (code - the sum of phonemes, morphemes, words, syntactic units) and their use in coherent speech (text). There is such a connection here: if you increase the code (increase the number of language characters), then the text that is built from these characters will be reduced; and vice versa, if the code is shortened, then , since the missing code characters will have to be transmitted descriptively, using the remaining characters.
Antinomy of the Usus and the Possibilities of the Language(in other words - systems and norms) lies in the fact that the possibilities of the language (system) are much wider than the use of linguistic signs accepted in the literary language; the traditional norm acts in the direction of restriction, prohibition, while the system is able to satisfy the great demands of communication. For example, the norm fixes the insufficiency of some grammatical forms (the absence of the 1st person singular form of the verb to win, the absence of aspect opposition in a number of verbs that qualify as two-species, etc.). The use compensates for such absences by using the possibilities of the language itself, often using analogies for this.
Antinomy caused by the asymmetry of the linguistic sign, manifests itself in the fact that the signified and the signifier are always in a state of conflict: the signified (meaning) tends to acquire new, more accurate means of expression (new signs for designation), and the signifier (sign) - to expand the range of its meanings, to acquire new meanings.
One more sphere of manifestation of contradictions can be named - this isantinomy of spoken and written language . At present, due to the growing role of spontaneous communication and the weakening of the framework of official public communication (in the past - prepared in writing), due to the weakening of censorship and self-censorship, the very functioning of the Russian language has changed.
In the past, rather isolated forms of language implementation - oral and written - begin to converge in some cases, activating their natural interaction. Oral speech perceives elements of bookishness, written speech makes extensive use of the principles of colloquialism. The very correlation of bookishness (the basis is written speech) and colloquialism (the basis is oral speech) begins to collapse. In sounding speech, not only lexical and grammatical features of book speech appear, but also purely written symbolism, for example: a person with a capital letter, kindness in quotation marks, quality with a plus (minus) sign, etc.
Moreover, from oral speech, these “book borrowings” again turn into written speech already in a colloquial version.
^29. Internal factors of language development.
It should be noted that the human body is by no means indifferent to how the language mechanism works. He tries in a certain way to respond to all those phenomena that arise in the language mechanism that do not adequately correspond to certain physiological characteristics of the organism. Thus, a permanent tendency arises for the adaptation of the linguistic mechanism to the characteristics of the human organism, which is practically expressed in tendencies of a more particular nature. Here are examples of intralanguage changes:
1) In phonetics: the emergence of new sounds (for example, in the early Proto-Slavic language there were no hissing sounds: [g], [h], [sh] - rather late sounds in all Slavic languages, resulting from the softening of sounds, respectively [g], [ k], [x|); loss of some sounds (for example, two previously different sounds cease to differ: for example, the Old Russian sound, denoted by the old letter%, in Russian and Belarusian languages coincided with the sound [e], and in Ukrainian - with the sound [I], cf. others .-Russian a&gj, rus, Belarusian, snow, Ukrainian sshg).
2) In grammar: the loss of some grammatical meanings and forms (for example, in the Proto-Slavic language, all names, pronouns and verbs had, except for the forms of the singular and plural, also forms of the dual number, used when talking about two objects; later the category of the dual number was lost in all Slavic languages except Slovenian); examples of the opposite process: the formation (already in the written history of the Slavic languages) of a special verbal form - the gerund; the division of a previously single name into two parts of speech - nouns and adjectives; the formation of a relatively new part of speech in Slavic languages - the numeral. Sometimes the grammatical form changes without changing the meaning: they used to say cities, snows, and now cities, snows.
3) In vocabulary: numerous and exceptionally varied changes in vocabulary, phraseology and lexical semantics. Suffice it to say that in the publication "New words and meanings: Dictionary-reference book on the materials of the press and literature of the 70s / Edited by N. 3. Kotelova" SM. years, about 5500 entries.
I. Tendency towards easier pronunciation.
The presence in languages of a well-known tendency to facilitate pronunciation has been repeatedly noted by researchers. At the same time, there were skeptics who were inclined not to attach much importance to it. They motivated their skepticism by the fact that the very criteria of ease or difficulty of pronunciation are too subjective, since they are usually viewed through the prism of a particular language. What seems difficult to pronounce due to the operation of the system "phonological synth" to a speaker of one language may not present any difficulties to a speaker of another language. Observations on the history of the development of the phonetic structure of various languages of the world also convincingly indicate that in all languages there are sounds and combinations of sounds that are relatively difficult to pronounce, from which each language seeks to free itself as far as possible or turn them into sounds that are easier to pronounce and sound combinations.
II. Expression tendency different values different forms.
The tendency to express different meanings in different forms is sometimes referred to as repulsion from homonymy.
The Arabic language in the more ancient era of its existence had only two verb tenses - the perfect, for example, katabtu "I wrote" and the imperfect aktubu "I wrote". These times originally had species value, but not temporary. As for their ability to express the relation of an action to a certain time plan, in this respect the above tenses were polysemantic. So, for example, the imperfect could have the meaning of the present, future and past tenses. This communication inconvenience required the creation of additional funds. So, for example, adding the particle qad to the forms of the perfect contributed to a clearer delineation of the perfect itself, for example, qad kataba "He (already) wrote." Adding the prefix sa- to imperfect forms such as sanaktubu "we will write" or "we will write" made it possible to express the future tense more clearly. Finally, the use of the perfect forms of the auxiliary verb kāna "to be" in conjunction with the imperfect forms, for example, kāna jaktubu "he wrote" made it possible to more clearly express the past continuous.
III. The tendency to express the same or similar meanings in the same form.
This trend is manifested in a number of phenomena that are widespread in various languages of the world, which are usually called the alignment of forms by analogy. Two of the most typical cases alignment of forms by analogy: 1) alignment of forms that are absolutely identical in meaning, but different in appearance, and 2) alignment of forms that are different in appearance and reveal only a partial similarity of functions or meanings.
Words like table, horse and son in Old Russian had specific dative instrumental and prepositional plural endings.
D. table horse son
T. tables horses sons
P. table of horse sons
In modern Russian, they have one common ending: tables, tables, tables; horses, horses, horses; sons, sons, sons. These common endings arose as a result of transferring, by analogy, the corresponding case endings of nouns representing the old stems in -ā, -jā such as sister, earth, cf. other Russian sisters, sisters, sisters; lands, lands, lands, etc. For alignment by analogy, the similarity of case functions turned out to be quite sufficient.
IV. The tendency to create clear boundaries between morphemes.
It may happen that the boundary between the stem and suffixes becomes not clear enough due to the merger of the final vowel of the stem with the initial vowel of the suffix. For example, characteristic feature types of declensions in the Indo-European language-base was the preservation in the paradigm of the declension of the stem and its hallmark, i.e., the final vowel of the stem. As an example for comparison, we can cite the reconstructed declension paradigm of the Russian word zhena, compared with the declension paradigm of this word in modern Russian. Only singular forms are given.
I. genā wife
P. genā-s wives
D . genā-i to wife
IN . genā-m wife
M. genā-i wife
It is easy to see that in the conjugation paradigm of the word wife, the former axis of the paradigm - the basis on -ā - is no longer maintained due to its modification in oblique cases as a result<244>various phonetic changes, which in some cases led to the merger of the stem vowel a with the vowel of the newly formed case suffix, for example, genāi > gene > wife, genām > geno > wife, etc. In order to restore clear boundaries between the word stem and the case suffix in in the minds of the speakers, a re-decomposition of the stems took place, and the sound that used to act as the final vowel of the stem went to the suffix.
V. The trend towards savings language tools.
The tendency to economize on linguistic resources is one of the most powerful internal trends that is manifested in various languages of the world. It can be a priori stated that there is not a single language on the globe in which 150 phonemes, 50 verb tenses and 30 different plural endings would differ. A language of this kind, burdened with a detailed arsenal means of expression, would not facilitate, but on the contrary, would make it difficult for people to communicate. Therefore, every language has a natural resistance to over-detailing. In the process of using a language as a means of communication, often spontaneously and independently of the will of the speakers themselves, the principle of the most rational and economical selection of language means really necessary for the purposes of communication is implemented.
The results of this trend are manifested in the most various fields language. So, for example, in one form of the instrumental case, its most diverse meanings can be included: the instrumental agent, the instrumental adverbial, the instrumental objective, the instrumental limitation, the instrumental predicative, the instrumental adjective, the instrumental comparison, etc. The genitive case has no less richness of individual meanings. : genitive quantitative, genitive predicative, genitive belonging, genitive weight, genitive object, etc. If each of these meanings were expressed in a separate form, then this would lead to an incredible cumbersome case system.
The vocabulary of the language, numbering many tens of thousands of words, opens up wide opportunities for the realization in the language of a huge number of sounds and their various shades. In fact, each language is content with a relatively small number of phonemes endowed with a meaningful function. How these few functions are singled out, no one has ever investigated. Modern phonologists are concerned with the function of phonemes, but not with the history of their origin. One can only assume a priori that some kind of spontaneous rational selection took place in this area, subject to a certain principle. In each language, apparently, a selection of a complex of phonemes associated with a useful opposition has taken place, although the appearance of new sounds in the language is not explained only by these reasons. With the principle of economy, apparently, the tendency to designate the same values with one form is connected.
One of the clearest manifestations of the trend towards economy is the tendency to create typical monotony. Each language is constantly striving to create a type uniformity.
VI. The trend towards limiting the complexity of speech messages.
The latest research indicates that psychological factors act in the process of generating speech, limiting the complexity of speech messages.
The process of generating speech occurs, in all likelihood, by sequentially recoding phonemes into morphemes, morphemes into words, and words into sentences. At some of these levels, recoding is carried out not in the long-term, but in the human operative memory, the volume of which is limited and equal to 7 ± 2 characters of the message. Therefore, the maximum ratio of the number of units of the lowest level of the language contained in one unit is more than high level, provided that the transition from the lowest level to the highest is carried out in RAM, cannot exceed 9: 1.
The capacity of RAM imposes restrictions not only on the depth, but also on the length of words. As a result of a number of linguo-psychological experiments, it was found that with an increase in the length of words beyond seven syllables, a deterioration in the perception of the message is observed. For this reason, with an increase in the length of words, the probability of their occurrence in texts sharply decreases. This limit of word length perception was found in experiments with isolated words. Context makes things easier to understand. The upper limit of the perception of words in context is approximately 10 syllables.
Given the favorable role of the context - intra-word and inter-word - in word recognition, it should be expected that exceeding the critical word length of 9 syllables, determined by the amount of RAM, greatly complicates their perception. The data of linguo-psychological experiments definitely indicate that the volume of perception of the length and depth of words is equal to the volume of a person's working memory. And in those styles of natural languages that are focused on the oral form of communication, the maximum length of words cannot exceed 9 syllables, and their maximum depth - 9 morphemes.
VII. The tendency to change the phonetic appearance of a word when it loses its lexical meaning.
This tendency is most clearly expressed in the process of transforming a significant word into a suffix. So, for example, in the Chuvash language there is an instrumental case characterized by the suffix -pa, -pe, cf. Chuv. pencilpa "pencil", văype "by force". This ending developed from the postposition palan, veil "c"
Auxiliary in colloquial English have verb in perfect forms, having lost their lexical meaning, was actually reduced to the sound "v", and the form had - to the sound "d", for example, I "v written "I wrote", he "d written "he wrote", etc.
The phonetic appearance of a word changes in frequently used words due to a change in their original meaning. A prime example can serve as a non-phonetic drop of the final g in the Russian word thank you, going back to the phrase God save. The frequent use of this word and the associated change in meaning God save > thank you - led to the destruction of its original phonetic appearance.
VIII. The tendency to create languages with a simple morphological structure.
In the languages of the world, there is a certain tendency to create a language type characterized by the simplest way of combining morphemes. It is curious that in the languages of the world the overwhelming majority are languages of the agglutinative type. Languages with internal inflection are relatively rare.
This fact has its specific reasons. In agglutinating languages, morphemes, as a rule, are marked, their boundaries in the word are defined. This creates a clear intra-word context allowing morphemes to be identified in the longest sequences. This advantage of agglutinative languages was pointed out at one time by I. N. Baudouin de Courtenay, who wrote the following on this subject: “Languages in which all attention in terms of morphological exponents is focused on the affixes following after the main morpheme (root) (Ural-Altaic languages , Finno-Ugric, etc.), are more sober and require much less expenditure of mental energy than languages in which morphological exponents are additions at the beginning of a word, additions at the end of a word, and psychophonetic alternations within a word.
The change and development of the language occurs according to certain laws. The presence of language laws is evidenced by the fact that language is not a collection of disparate, isolated elements. Changing, evolving linguistic phenomena are among themselves in a regular, causal relationship. Language laws are divided into internal and external.
internal called laws, which are causal processes occurring in individual languages and at individual language levels. These include the laws of phonetics, morphology, syntax, vocabulary: the fall of the reduced in Russian; movement of consonants in German. Internal laws are regular relationships between linguistic phenomena and processes that arise as a result of spontaneous causes independent of external influences. It is the internal laws that are evidence that the language is a relatively independent, self-developing and self-regulating system. Internal laws are divided into general and private.
Outer laws called laws, due to the connection of language with the history of society, various aspects of human activity. Thus, a territorial or social restriction in the use of a language leads to the formation of territorial and social dialects. Regular connections between language and the development of social formations are found in the course of historical development society. For example, the formation of nations and nation-states led to the formation national languages. The complication of social life, the division of labor caused the formation of styles, scientific and professional sublanguages.
For changes in historical movement society directly responds to the external structure of the language. Under the influence of living conditions, the vocabulary of the language changes, local and social dialects, jargons, styles, genres are formed.
The change and complication of the external structure of the language also affects its internal structure. However, the historical change of forms public life people does not violate the identity of the language, its independence. The change and development of the internal structure of the language is calculated over many centuries.
General laws cover all languages and all language levels. These include the law of consistency, the law of tradition, the law of analogy, the law of economy, the laws of contradictions (antinomies).
The law of consistency found in different languages and at different language levels.
For example, all languages have a similar level structure in which constitutive units are distinguished. The reduction in the number of cases in Russian (six out of nine) has led to an increase in analytical features in the syntactic structure of the language. The change in the semantics of a word is reflected in its syntactic links and in its form.Law of language tradition due to the desire for stability. When this stability is shattered, prohibitive measures coming from linguists come into effect. In dictionaries, reference books, official instructions, there are indications of the eligibility or incompetence of the use of language signs. Tradition is artificially preserved. For example, the rules preserve the tradition of using verbs call - call, call; turn on - turn on, turn on; hand - hand, hand. Although in many verbs the tradition was broken. For example, there used to be a rule boil - boil: Raven is not fried, not boiled (I. Krylov); The oven pot is dearer to you: you cook your own food in it (A. Pushkin).
Law of linguistic analogy manifests itself in the internal overcoming of linguistic anomalies, which is carried out as a result of assimilation of one form of linguistic expression to another. The result is some unification of forms. The essence of analogy lies in the alignment of forms in pronunciation, in stress, in grammar. For example, the transition of verbs from one class to another is caused by analogy: by analogy with the forms of verbs read - reads, throw - throws forms appeared drips (caplet), listens (listens).
Laws of contradictions (antinomies) explained by the inconsistency of the language. These include:
a) The antinomy of the speaker and the listener is created as a result of differences in the interests of the communicants. The speaker is interested in simplifying and shortening the statement (the law of economy of effort is manifested here), and the listener is interested in simplifying and facilitating the perception and understanding of the statement.
For example, in the Russian language of the XX century. many abbreviations appeared, which was convenient for compilers of texts. However, at present, more and more dissected names appear: Society for the Protection of Animals, Organized Crime Department, which have great impact because they carry open content;b) The antinomy of the usage and the possibilities of the language system (system and norms) lies in the fact that the possibilities of the language (system) are much wider than the use of linguistic signs accepted in the literary language. The traditional norm acts in the direction of limitation, while the system is able to satisfy large communication demands. For example, the norm fixes the absence of opposition by species in two-species verbs. Use compensates for such absences. For example, contrary to the norm, pairs are created attack - attack, organize - organize;
c) Antinomy, due to the asymmetry of the linguistic sign, is manifested in the fact that the signified and the signifier are always in a state of conflict. The signified (meaning) tends to acquire new, more accurate means of expression, and the signifier (sign) seeks to acquire new meanings. For example, the asymmetry of a linguistic sign leads to a narrowing or expansion of the meanings of words: dawn"illumination of the horizon before sunrise or sunset" and "the beginning, the birth of something";
d) Antinomy of two language functions - informational and expressive. The informational function leads to uniformity, standardization of language units, the expressive function encourages novelty, originality of expression. The speech standard is fixed in official areas of communication - in business correspondence, legal literature, state acts. Expression, novelty of expression is more characteristic of oratorical, journalistic, artistic speech;
e) Antinomy of two forms of language - written and oral. At present, rather isolated forms of language implementation are beginning to converge. Oral speech perceives elements of bookishness, written speech makes extensive use of the principles of colloquialism.
private laws occur in separate languages. In Russian, for example, these include the reduction of vowels in unstressed syllables, the regressive assimilation of consonants, and the stunning of consonants at the end of a word.
Linguists note different rates of change and development of languages. There are some general patterns in the rate of change. So, in the pre-literate period, the language structure changes faster than in the written one. Writing slows change, but does not stop it.
The rate of language change, according to some linguists, is affected by the number of people speaking it. Max Muller noted that the smaller the language, the more unstable it is and the faster it is reborn. There is an inverse relationship between the size of the language and the rate of evolution of its structure. However, this pattern is not observed in all languages. Yuri Vladimirovich Rozhdestvensky notes that some pre-literate languages change their structure faster than others, even when these languages had a common base language. Thus, the structure of the Icelandic language changed much more slowly than the system in English, although the number of Icelanders is significantly inferior to the British. Apparently, there was a special effect here geographical position, the isolation of the Icelandic language. It is also known that the Lithuanian language to a greater extent retained elements ancient system Indo-European languages than the Slavic languages, despite the Balto-Slavic linguistic unity in antiquity.
There are known cases of rare stability of the language structure over a historically long time. N.G. Chernyshevsky pointed to the amazing stability of the language in the colonies of Greeks, Germans, English and other peoples. The Arabic language of the nomadic Bedouins of Arabia remained practically unchanged for many centuries.
Different rates of change are also observed in the history of the same language. Thus, the decline of reduced vowels in the Old Russian language occurred, in terms of the rate of language changes, relatively quickly in the 10th-12th centuries, especially considering that these vowels were still in the Indo-European language-base. The consequences of this phonetic law were very significant for the phonetic, morphological and lexical system of the Russian language: the restructuring of the system of vowels and consonants, the stunning of voiced consonants at the end of a word, the assimilation and dissimilation of consonants; the appearance of fluent vowels, unpronounceable consonants, various consonant clusters; change in the sound image of morphemes, words. At the same time, the relative stability of the structure of the national Russian literary language in the period from Pushkin to the present day is also noted. Pushkin's language, according to its phonetic, grammatical, derivational structure, semantic and stylistic system, cannot be separated from modern language. However, the Russian language of the middle of the 17th century, distant from the language of Pushkin for the same period of time, cannot be called a modern language for him.
Thus, in the history of the same language, there are periods of relative stability and intense change.
Some linguists believe that language is an objective phenomenon that develops according to its own laws, and therefore it is not subject to subjective influences. It is unacceptable to arbitrarily introduce certain units of the language into the common language, change its norms. In Russian, you can only indicate individual cases the introduction of author's new words into the vocabulary of the Russian language, although author's neologisms are characteristic of the style of many writers.
However, some linguists, for example, E.D. Polivanov, representatives of the PLC believe that there is a need for subjective "intervention" in the organization of language tools. It can be expressed in the codification of language means; in establishing the norms of the literary language for all speakers.
The subjective impact on the language occurs in scientific sublanguages during the organization of term systems. This is due to the conventional nature of the term: it is, as a rule, introduced by condition.
In a certain epoch of development, the personal, subjective influence on the literary language is decisive for the literary language. The creation of national literary languages occurs under the influence of prominent national writers, poets.
