The Transparenztheorie
and the Componential Approach to Comparative Grammar
1. Linguistic synchrony is a reflection of linguistic diachrony. The
modern linguistic typology is a mapping of the historic typology, a
geographic mapping of the historical glottogenenis of mankind. Most prehistoric
tribes, their customs and languages have been preserved to a greater or
lesser degree in the modern ethnographic and linguistic diversity. 2. The dialectology of any language is a synchronic mapping of its
diachronic linguistic history. The history of a particular language has been
preserved to a greater or lesser extent in the diversity of its modern
dialects. 3. The internal genetic stability in language development is prior to
external influences and factors. A language cannot change of its own will
unless it is overlaid by a different language. Dialects and folk customs are
degenerate survivals of prehistory: they may grow and magnify but they cannot
produce new forms. Medieval linguistic evolution is but a hybridisation, a
decay of what had existed formerly in pure forms. 5. All pure cultures existed only in ancient primitive societies while
all modern advanced societies are mixed amalgams of different ethnic
components. Linguistic development is a convergent process of assimilation
eroding all ancient tribal dialects. Any modern language is a sum of tribal
dialects of all previous linguistic invasions into its area. ‘In reality
language diversity is always primary while language unity is the secondary
product either of the expansion of a language over wide territories or the
creation of an oral or literary standard language’ (Wagner 1970: 228-9). 6. The more primitive a society
is, the greater dialectal diversity it manifests. 7. The lexical
parallels betray only the degree of overlapping between two neighbouring
languages but it is the structural similarity that reveals genetic kinship.
The linguistic identity of an isolated tribal tongue will perish, but its
structural characteristic and special words will survive in dialectal
peculiarities. Oral dialects are prior to literary standards (F. de
Saussure). ‘Traditionally, the appearance of IE consonantism was equalled
with that of languages with the most ancient literary tradition such as
Sanskrit and partly classic languages, Old Greek and Latin. These tongues
enjoying wide popularity and prestige often determined directly the shape of
the reconstructed system in comparative Indo-European grammar. This explains
why Grimm and Rask understood the Old Germanic stage as a product of a shift
(Lautverschiebung) of original IE
phonemes ... But it is not a result of an appropriate linguistic analysis but
a product of casual historical development caused by the special prestige
enjoyed by languages of earliest literary records’ (Gamkrelidze, Ivanov 1980:
23). 8. Every linguistic change is a victory of one standard over another
caused either by an outer military invasion or by the ascent of a different social
and ethnic caste. Any sound change is a reception of an older linguistic
culture into a new standard or a translation of subdued ethnic languages into
the system of the victorious one. There are no sound
changes without exceptions, there are no defeats without surviving relics.
Dialects are dead reservoirs of relics, they have no
inner development but gradual decay. Every sound shift is a switch from one
ethnic tradition to another within a linguistic culture. The so-called
‘lexical cognates’ are mostly loanwords. Instead of sound laws we need an
integrated theory of receptions of loanwords.
9. The social stratification of dialects in a society is a map of the
historical superposition of ethnic castes in its historical area. The ethnic
stratification of a society is the germ of its social stratification.
Linguistic changes are only outer manifestations of ethnic and social
changes. There is no immanent linguistic development outside the ethnic and
social evolution. The social evolution of languages in civilised societies
forms only one thousandth of their tribal existence. The social changes in
the supremacy of classes reinforce shifts in the literary standard. The
official literary standard is not the national language fathering and
engendering local dialects; it is an ethnic and social dialect that won
victory over other dialects. The medieval evolution of languages may be
described in terms of ethnic transformations as ‘Normanisation’, ‘Germanisation’,
‘Slavinisation’ or ‘Arabisation’. The history of English and many other
European languages has several common stages: absorbing original
autochthonous populations (Celtisation), conquests resulting in feudalisation
(Normanisation), barons depart and London merchants take the lead
(re-Englishing England), modern townsfolk wins democratic revolutions, the
Puritan round-heads bring democratisation
(a new re-Celtisation). 10. Ancient migrations
have left over long chains of tribal dialects running across different
linguistic areas. Ancient tribes lived in concentric tribal centres that
periodically burst out into offshoots of colonisations. Later these radial
migration belts dissolved and began to assimilate into new local concentric
areas speaking national languages. 11. The peripheral
languages living in ethnic isolation preserve best the earliest shape of the
original proto-language in the ethnic cradle-land. They usually provide a
reliable record of the original stage of a proto-language before its ethnic
diaspora. The original linguistic cradle-land preserves the original
linguistic type reliably if and only if they has sufficiently eliminated all
outer intrusive ethnic elements. It is only the linguistic cradle-land and
periphery that have successfully preserved the original diversity of
languages. (An
extract from Prehistoric Dialects, 2004, ISBN 80-86580-05-9,
pp. 18-19) |