hellog〜英語史ブログ / 2014-11-01

■ #2014. イタリア新言語学 (2) [history_of_linguistics][neolinguistics][neogrammarian][wave_theory][substratum_theory][historiography][loan_translation][language_death][origin_of_language]

　昨日の記事「#2013. イタリア新言語学 (1)」 ([2014-10-31-1]) に引き続き，この学派の紹介．新言語学が1910年に登場してから30余年も経過した後のことだが，学術雑誌 Language に，青年文法学派 (neogrammarian) を擁護する Hall による新言語学への猛烈な批判論文が掲載された．これに対して，翌年，3倍もの分量の文章により，新言語学派の論客 Bonfante が応酬した．言語学史的にはやや時代錯誤のタイミングでの論争だったが，言語の本質をどうとらえるえるかという問題に関する一級の論戦となっており，一読に値する．この対立は，19世紀の Schleicher と Schmidt の対立を彷彿とさせるし，現在の言語学と社会言語学の対立にもなぞらえることができる．
　それにしても，Hall はなぜそこまで強く批判するのかと思わざるを得ないくらい猛烈に新言語学をこき下ろしている．批判論文の最終段落では，"We have, in short, missed nothing by not knowing or heeding Bàrtoli's principles, theories, or conclusions to date, and we shall miss nothing if we disregard them in the future." (283) とにべもない．
　しかし，新言語学が拠って立つ基盤とその言語観の本質は，むしろ批判者である Hall (277) こそが適切に指摘している．昨日の記事の内容と合わせて味読されたい．

In a reaction against 19th-century positivism, Croce and his followers consider 'spirit' and 'spiritual activity' (assumed axiomatically, without objective definition) as separate from and superior to other elements of human behavior. Human thought is held to be a direct expression of spiritual activity; language is considered identical with thought; and hence linguistic activity derives directly from spiritual activity. As a corollary of this assumption, when linguistic change takes place, it is held to reflect change in spiritual activity, which must be the reflection of 'spiritual needs', 'creativity', and 'advance of the human spirit'. The most 'spiritual' part of language is syntax and style, and the least spiritual is phonology. Hence phonetic change must not be allowed to have any weight as a determining factor in linguistic change as a whole; it must be considered subordinate to and dependent on other, more 'spiritual' types of linguistic change.

　Bonfante による応酬も，同じくらいに徹底的である．Bonfante は，新言語学の立場を（英語で）詳述しており，とりわけ青年文法学派との違いを逐一指摘しながらその特徴を解説してくれているので，結果的におそらく最もアクセスしやすい新言語学の概説の1つとなっているのではないか．Hall の主張を要領よくまとめることは難しいので，いくつかの引用をもってそれに代えたい．（「#1069. フォスラー学派，新言語学派，柳田 --- 話者個人の心理を重んじる言語観」 ([2012-03-31-1]) の記述も参照されたい．）

The neolinguists claim . . . that every linguistic change---not only phonetic change---is a spiritual human process, not a physiological process. Physiology cannot EXPLAIN anything in linguistics; it can present only the conditions of a given phenomenon, never the causes. (346)

It is man who creates language, every moment, by his will and with his imagination; language is not imposed upon man like an exterior, ready-made product of mysterious origin. (346)

Every linguistic change, the neolinguists claim, is . . . of individual origin: in its beginnings it is the free creation of one man, which is imitated, assimilated (not copied!) by another man, and then by another, until it spreads over a more-or-less vast area. This creation will be more or less powerful, will have more or less chance of surviving and spreading, according to the creative power of the individual, his social influence, his literary reputation, and so on. (347)

For the neolinguists, who follow Vico's and Croce's philosophy, language is essentially expression---esthetic creation; the creation and the spread of linguistic innovations are quite comparable to the creation and the spread of feminine fashions, of art, of literature: they are based on esthetic choice. (347)

The neolinguists, tho stressing the esthetic nature of language, know that language, like every human phenomenon, is produced under certain special historical conditions, and that therefore the history of the French language cannot be written without taking into account the whole history of France---Christianity, the Germanic invasions, Feudalism, the Italian influence, the Court, the Academy, the French Revolution, Romanticism, and so on---nay, that the French language is an expression, an essential part of French culture and French spirit. (348)

The neolinguists think, like Leonardo, Humboldt, and Àscoli, that languages change in most cases because of ethnic mixture, by which they understand, of course, not racial mixture but cultural, i.e. spiritual. In this spiritual sense, and only in this sense, the terms 'substratum', 'adstratum', and 'superstratum' can be admitted. (352)

Without a deep understanding of English mentality, politics, religion, and folklore, all of which the English language expresses, a real history of English cannot be written---only a shadow or a caricature thereof. (354)
 
The neogrammarians have shown, of course, even greater aversion to so-called loan-translations, which the neolinguists freely admit. For the neogrammarians, a word like German Gewissen or Barmherzigkeit is a perfectly good German formation, because all the phonetic and morphological elements are German---even tho the spirit is Latin. (356)

. . . even after the death of that 'last speaker', each of these languages [Prussian, Cornish, Dalmatian, etc.]---allegedly dead, like rabbits---goes on living in a hundred devious, hidden, and subtle ways in other languages now living . . . . (357)

It follows logically that because of their isolationistic conception of language, the neogrammarians, when they are confronted with two similar innovations in two different languages, will be inclined to the theory of polygenesis---even if the languages are contiguous and historically related, like German and French, or Greek and Latin. The neolinguists, on the other hand, without making a dogma of it, incline strongly toward monogenesis. (361)

　最後の引用にあるように，青年文法学派と新言語学派の対立は言語起源論にまで及んでおり，言語思想のあらゆる面で徹底的に反目していたことがわかる．

　・ Hall, Robert A. "Bartoli's 'Neolinguistica'." Language 22 (1946): 273--83.
　・ Bonfante, Giuliano. "The Neolinguistic Position (A Reply to Hall's Criticism of Neolinguistics)." Language 23 (1947): 344--75.

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