Linguistic Divergence in Romance

Abstract

1. This paper suggests a method of quantifying judgments of relative 'closeness' or 'distance' between related languages, and gives some results of its application. There is no speech community in which all speakers' speech behavior is identical. The linguist defines a homogeneous speech community as one in which the members' linguistic patterns are alike except for haphazard variations -haphazard as to type and magnitude and also as to the individuals producing them. It is questionable whether even this sort of speech community actually exists, but it is a useful fiction. The behavior of the individuals who make up a homogeneous speech community resembles the behavior of a network of machines coupled to each other with feedback.l The machines in the network are replicates programmed to behave in the same way. They are, however, programmed to deviate at random intervals and in random ways from the 'standard' way of behaving with which they were started. So far, the descriptions of the machine network and of the homogeneous speech community are equivalent. Now add that, in the machine network, a random factor of selection is applied from without to each deviation from standard behavior. This factor of selection2 determines in each instance whether or not the machine's programming is to be modified in a way which depends on the character of the deviation. A change in the programming of one machine is also transmitted to other machines in the network, and has the power to reprogram the other machines in a similar way when it reaches them. Because those deviations which are selected to reprogram the machines are transmitted around a network, an examination of the behavior of the machines in the network over any short interval will show a standard way of behaving with random deviations from it. Subsequent examination of the network, however, will show that the standard behavior itself changes with time. If the coupling between some machines in the network is destroyed or inhibited, the ability of a deviation which arises in one part of the network to induce deviation in other parts is correspondingly destroyed or inhibited. Each part of the network then continues more or less independently of the rest. After a time, there will be two or more standard ways of behaving, barring the extremely improbable case of parallel change. What we describe here in mechanical terms is similar to the 'wave theory'