Darwin-L Message Log 2: 1–35 — October 1993

Academic Discussion on the History and Theory of the Historical Sciences

Darwin-L was an international discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences, active from 1993–1997. Darwin-L was established to promote the reintegration of a range of fields all of which are concerned with reconstructing the past from evidence in the present, and to encourage communication among scholars, scientists, and researchers in these fields. The group had more than 600 members from 35 countries, and produced a consistently high level of discussion over its several years of operation. Darwin-L was not restricted to evolutionary biology nor to the work of Charles Darwin, but instead addressed the entire range of historical sciences from an explicitly comparative perspective, including evolutionary biology, historical linguistics, textual transmission and stemmatics, historical geology, systematics and phylogeny, archeology, paleontology, cosmology, historical geography, historical anthropology, and related “palaetiological” fields.

This log contains public messages posted to the Darwin-L discussion group during October 1993. It has been lightly edited for format: message numbers have been added for ease of reference, message headers have been trimmed, some irregular lines have been reformatted, and error messages and personal messages accidentally posted to the group as a whole have been deleted. No genuine editorial changes have been made to the content of any of the posts. This log is provided for personal reference and research purposes only, and none of the material contained herein should be published or quoted without the permission of the original poster.

The master copy of this log is maintained in the Darwin-L Archives (rjohara.net/darwin) by Dr. Robert J. O’Hara. The Darwin-L Archives also contain additional information about the Darwin-L discussion group, the complete Today in the Historical Sciences calendar for every month of the year, a collection of recommended readings on the historical sciences, and an account of William Whewell’s concept of “palaetiology.”

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DARWIN-L MESSAGE LOG 2: 1-35 -- OCTOBER 1993
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DARWIN-L
A Network Discussion Group on the
History and Theory of the Historical Sciences

Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu is an international network discussion group on
the history and theory of the historical sciences.  Darwin-L was established
in September 1993 to promote the reintegration of a range of fields all of
which are concerned with reconstructing the past from evidence in the present,
and to encourage communication among academic professionals in these fields.
Darwin-L is not restricted to evolutionary biology nor to the work of Charles
Darwin but instead addresses the entire range of historical sciences from an
interdisciplinary perspective, including evolutionary biology, historical
linguistics, textual transmission and stemmatics, historical geology,
systematics and phylogeny, archeology, paleontology, cosmology, historical
anthropology, historical geography, and related "palaetiological" fields.

This log contains public messages posted to Darwin-L during October 1993.
It has been lightly edited for format: message numbers have been added for ease
of reference, message headers have been trimmed, some irregular lines have been
reformatted, and some administrative messages and personal messages posted to
the group as a whole have been deleted.  No genuine editorial changes have been
made to the content of any of the posts.  This log is provided for personal
reference and research purposes only, and none of the material contained herein
should be published or quoted without the permission of the original poster.
The master copy of this log is maintained in the archives of Darwin-L by
listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu.  For instructions on how to retrieve copies of
this and other log files, and for additional information about Darwin-L, send
the e-mail message INFO DARWIN-L to listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu.

Darwin-L is administered by Robert J. O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu), Center for
Critical Inquiry in the Liberal Arts and Department of Biology, University of
North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, North Carolina 27412 U.S.A., and it
is supported by the Center for Critical Inquiry, University of North Carolina
at Greensboro, and the Department of History and the Academic Computing Center,
University of Kansas.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:1>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Fri Oct  1 00:19:57 1993

Date: Fri, 01 Oct 1993 01:26:36 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: List owner's monthly greeting
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

Greetings to all Darwin-L subscribers.  At the beginning of each month I
plan to send out a short note on the status of our group with a reminder of
basic commands.  Darwin-L is now just one month old, and we have more than
430 members from about 30 countries.  Our growth has been nothing short of
astonishing, and I am very grateful to all of you for your interest and
your many contributions.

I have recently had the default "reply-to" address for public messages
changed from the group's address (Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu) to the
address of the original sender of the message.  This means that when you
read a message from the group and type "reply" at your terminal, your reply
will most likely go to the individual person who sent the message rather
than the group as a whole.  This change is experimental, and I welcome
comments from members who feel that it either improves or degrades the
quality of our discussions.  The change is not meant to limit public
posting; indeed, I encourage people to continue posting publicly simply by
typing out the group's address (Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu) when sending
a message.  The change in the "reply-to" field will, however, cut down on
the number of error messages and personal messages that get sent to the
group by mistake, and so lighten the mail burden somewhat.  As I said, I
welcome comments on whether this change is beneficial or not; please send
them privately to darwin@iris.uncg.edu.

The following are the most frequently used listserv commands that Darwin-L
members may wish to know.  All of these commands should be sent as regular
e-mail messages to the listserv address (listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu),
not to the address of the group as a whole (Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu).
In each case leave the subject line of the message blank and include no
extraneous text, as command will be read and processed by the listserv
program rather than a person.  To join the group send the message:

   SUBSCRIBE DARWIN-L <Your Name>

   For example: SUBSCRIBE DARWIN-L John Smith

To cancel your subscription send the message:

   UNSUBSCRIBE DARWIN-L

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   SET DARWIN-L MAIL DIGEST

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   SET DARWIN-L MAIL ACK

For a comprehensive introduction to Darwin-L with notes on our scope and on
network etiquette, and a summary of all available commands, send the
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   INFO DARWIN-L

To post a public message to the group as a whole simply send it as regular
e-mail to the group's address (Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu).

I thank you all for your continuing interest in Darwin-L.

Bob O'Hara, Darwin-L list owner

Robert J. O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu)
Center for Critical Inquiry and Department of Biology
100 Foust Building, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, North Carolina 27412 U.S.A.

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<2:2>From swann@divsun.unige.ch  Fri Oct  1 05:16:27 1993

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 11:19:30 +0100
From: Swann Philip <swann@divsun.unige.ch>
To: Darwin-L <Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu>
Subject: Greenfield on Language

I recently completed a "continuing commentary" on the following paper:

Greenfield, P. M. (1991) Language, tools and brain: the
ontogeny and phylogeny of hierarchically organized behavior.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 14, 531-95

I have submitted this to BBS for publication and placed a
copy on our anonymous ftp server (tecfa.unige.ch,
dir /pub/tecfa-working-papers). The original article and my
commentary cover a wide range of issues in the biology of
language. Comments, arguments and such welcome. If you
don't have access to ftp, I can e-mail a copy.

Philip Swann
University of Geneva

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<2:3>From HOLSINGE%UCONNVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU  Fri Oct  1 06:47:07 1993

Date: Fri, 01 Oct 1993 07:31:34 -0500 (EST)
From: "Kent E. Holsinger" <HOLSINGE%UCONNVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: A parallel between linguistic and biological evolution?
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT

Sally Thomason made an interesting observation (something I had always
suspected was true, but wasn't sure about):

> If you cut off contact between two halves of one speech community, different
> changes will occur in the two groups' speech.

Almost the same thing can be said in biology:

If you cut off contact between two halves of a species, different changes will
occur in the two groups.

If you subsitute the phrase "gene flow" for "contact," you have (roughly) Ernst
Mayr's classical description of the way in which allopatric differentiation
occurs.  In fact, I wonder whether both of these principles are both instances
of a single more general principle.  Does it seem reasonable to conclude that
the following is true (I'm not entirely sure. I'm just throwing it out for
discussion.):

1) Define a population as a group of interacting entities that
 a) reproduces itself and
 b) has the property that newly arisen entities within the population
  have characteristics that resemble, but do not necessarily duplicate,
  the characteristics of the population.
2) If such a population is divided into two or more groups, so that individuals
 in a group interact only with other individuals in their group and not with
 individuals in other groups, then
 a) the newly produced groups are populations and
 b) the characteristics of these populations will tend to diverge from one
  another through time.

Actually, it occurs to me that I really have *two* questions about the above
scenario.  First, is it true?  (I think I can make a pretty good argument for
its truth in biology, but I'm not so sure about other fields.)  Second, if it
is true, is it interesting?  Does it really tell us something informative, or
is it so broad and general as to be uninformative?

-- Kent

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Kent E. Holsinger    Internet: Holsinge@UConnVM.UConn.edu |
|  Dept. of Ecology &     BITNET: Holsinge@UConnVM     |
|  Evolutionary Biology, U-43              |
|  University of Connecticut               |
|  Storrs, CT 06269-3043               |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:4>From LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU  Fri Oct  1 08:48:50 1993

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 08:48:50 -0500
From: "JOHN LANGDON"  <LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU>
To: ARKEO4@FENNEL.WT.UWA.EDU.AU, darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Cultural change and historical ("Darwinian") explanations

In message <931001101636.26606561@FENNEL.WT.UWA.EDU.AU>  writes:

> Consider two demes:  one deme is "well adapated" to the local environment.
> That is, it utilised available resouces efficiently.  In ecological terms,
> it is maximizing K.  The other deme is "poorly adapated;" it has behaviours
> which do NOT maximize resources in the most efficient manner.  Again, in
> ecological terms, it is a K-minimising strategy.
>
> Now, we must consider the two strategies in terms of the selective
> consequences in the envirnment we have at hand -- an empty continent. A
> moment's reflection will show that the K-minimising strategy has a much
> higher probability of being the colonising deme (in fact, its selective
> advantage at any moment in time is the square of the differences in r, the
> inherent rate of increase associated with each deme). This analysis leads
> to series of predictions regarding the archaeological record, many of which
> are testable given current techniques (but this is not particularly
> relevant to the point being made here).
>
> It is important to recognise that in the approach I take to the problem of
> pristine colonisation, I am assuming that I may speak in a coherent manner
> about something called "cultural demes:" that these various demes represent
> HERITABLE traditions dictating the way people behave (in this case in terms
> of subsistence strategy).  The differences in behaviour associated with
> these heritable traditions lead to different consequences for the members
> of the groups (in this case a different probablity of being the deme which
> first colonises the continent).  Hence the pattern in the archaeological
> record is to be understood in terms of SELECTIVE DIFFERENCES between the
> traditions; differences which have CONSEQUENCES in space and time.
> Hereditability is prerequisite to the kind of logic invoked.  And selection
> is the ONLY "first principle" involved.  I must stress that without
> invoking these two, joined, ideas my argument on the nature of pristine
> colonisation simply could not exist.
>
> Is the kind of cultural selection I invoke in this case really an "argument
> from analogy"?  Is the result merely "description?" I honestly think not.

Interesting example. To defend (or perhaps clarify) my previous assertion--
since I'm not yet willing to back off-- let me try to analyze this argument.
Since you are not talking about genes you are not talking about literal
Darwinian natural selection; thus cultural selection is set up to be analogous
to natural selection. I accept that. If you stopped here, you have described a
process by comparison with natural selection but not explained it.

However, there are several essential properties of organism which you have
asssumed to be true for the demes: Most importantly, you assume a key trait is
transmitted to the next generation robustly, i.e. with a small chance for real
change; in biological terms, "offspring resemble their parents." This trait in
your argument is the relative ability to utilize resources. The offspring of
the r-type deme are similarly r-type and the offspring of the K-type deme are
similarly K-type. To assume otherwise prevents us from making any projections
at all. Thus you have built the inference into your theory of cultural
selection. and provided a theoretical foundation for it (e.g. robust
transmission is a definitive property of culture). You have moved from analogy
and description to an explanatory model ready to stand on its own. Even if
natural selection were to be discarded by biologists, a theoretically based
model of cultural selection may still stand.

Does this make any sense?

The point I've tried to make is that borrowing a process from discipline A to
describe observations in discipline B is a reasonable first step, but there is
explanation only when the process has a theoretical basis within discipline B.

JOHN H. LANGDON      email LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU
DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY    FAX  (317) 788-3569
UNIVERSITY OF INDIANAPOLIS   PHONE (317) 788-3447
INDIANAPOLIS, IN 46227

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:5>From LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU  Fri Oct  1 09:12:10 1993

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 09:12:10 -0500
From: "JOHN LANGDON"  <LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU>
To: HOLSINGE%UCONNVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU, darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: A parallel between linguistic and biological evolution?

> > If you cut off contact between two halves of one speech community,
> > different changes will occur in the two groups' speech.
>
> Almost the same thing can be said in biology:
>
> If you cut off contact between two halves of a species, different changes
> will occur in the two groups.
>
> If you subsitute the phrase "gene flow" for "contact," you have (roughly)
> Ernst Mayr's classical description of the way in which allopatric
> differentiation occurs.  In fact, I wonder whether both of these principles
> are both instances of a single more general principle.

In my perspective, what species and languages have in common is that they are
both properties held by populations and not individuals. A species should not
be considered adequately defined by a single individual (although of necessity,
that is where taxonomists often have to begin). Language is not language unless
it is used to communicate among individuals. Therefore when the population is
divided and becomes two populations, its property (e.g. language) also becomes
two independent entities (two languages). Whether or not these two populations
or two languages are different from one another is best answerable in
retrospect after divergence has become more visible.

>  Does it seem reasonable to conclude that
> the following is true (I'm not entirely sure. I'm just throwing it out for
> discussion.):
>
> 1) Define a population as a group of interacting entities that
>  a) reproduces itself and
>  b) has the property that newly arisen entities within the population
>   have characteristics that resemble, but do not necessarily duplicate,
>   the characteristics of the population.
> 2) If such a population is divided into two or more groups, so that
> individuals in a group interact only with other individuals in their group
> and not with individuals in other groups, then
>  a) the newly produced groups are populations and
>  b) the characteristics of these populations will tend to diverge from one
>   another through time.
>
> Actually, it occurs to me that I really have *two* questions about the above
> scenario.  First, is it true?  (I think I can make a pretty good argument for
> its truth in biology, but I'm not so sure about other fields.)

This is true if and only if we assume the changes between generations (under 1b
above) will not be the same in both groups. It is easy to see why these are
different in both species and languages-- variation within populations and some
degree of randomness of changes. However, this assumption probably should be
written into the model above.

> Second, if it is true, is it interesting?  Does it really tell us something
> informative, or is it so broad and general as to be uninformative?

Probably it is not informative for biologists and linguists who already
understood this principle. But perhaps there are other systems that we have not
though of as belonging to this class-- e.g. academic "schools" of theory.

JOHN H. LANGDON      email LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU
DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY    FAX  (317) 788-3569
UNIVERSITY OF INDIANAPOLIS   PHONE (317) 788-3447
INDIANAPOLIS, IN 46227

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:6>From LARRYS@psc.plymouth.edu  Fri Oct  1 15:40:33 1993

Date: Fri, 01 Oct 1993 16:45:23 -0500 (EST)
From: LARRYS@psc.plymouth.edu
Subject: Re: Heritability and cultural evolution
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

I have been following the questions on language evolution with great
interest.  As someone who tried and partially succeeded in learning Mandarin
Chinese on his own, you might expect I am interested in the topic.

The comment I have to add is as follows.  This past year there was an article
in Natural History Magazine (or perhaps Discover) about the demise of the
aborigines that lived in Tasmania.  In that article the author mentioned that
roughly 10,000 years ago the Tasmanians were cut off from the rest of the
Australians by the change in sea level and as they lacked suitable boats to
cross the strait, their culture was essentially isolated until the arrival
of the Europeans.  At time a number of curiosities were observed, one being
that the inhabitants ate very little food from the marine environment and
lacked methods of obtaining such items.  In a sense a cultural attribute
was lost from the society never to be regained.  In a metaphorical sense
similar events have been proposed to explain the origin of floral and
faunal groups, i.e., a small subset of organisms arrives at some distant
location and through random demise of some individuals carrying certain
genetic information, that information is lost from the population and
therefore not available for selection to work on.  Getting around to my
question, is enough known about the Tasmanian language to determine
whether their language changed in the same way that their culture changed?

Larry Spencer
lts@oz.plymouth.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:7>From PICARD@Vax2.Concordia.CA  Fri Oct  1 17:44:55 1993

Date: Fri, 01 Oct 1993 18:49:17 -0500 (EST)
From: MARC PICARD <PICARD@Vax2.Concordia.CA>
Subject: Biological and linguistic change
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

	Because of the recent change in the default 'reply-to' from the group's
address to that of the original sender of the message, the following was sent
tome directly instead of DARWIN-L:
"Marc Picard notes "In regular sound change, expediency is the name of the
game.  The human vocal apparatus prefers certain combinations of sounds, and
that's what speakers unconsciously strive for." I'd like to focus in on the
"prefer". Do you mean that certain sound sequences are, in some sense,
more difficult than others? I assume that you do mean this, and would like
some further sense of what the dfficulty might consist in. For example, in
terms of the physical energy required to utter certain sequences, is there
a preference for minima? Or, again to speak physically (I'm a philosopher
of physics, after all!), is the path length of the sequence of motions
in the cords (or other parts of the 'instrument') a minima--a preference?
Or, is it just plain DIFFICULT to play the sequence, as, by analogy,
certain chords would be difficult to finger on a guitar?
Perhaps I'm being too literal here. Maybe by "prefer" Marc meant an
esthetic evaluation, as in, the ear prefers to hear certain sounds.
That would certainly be plausible, since, for example, the overall 'sound'
of e.g., German is quite different from the overall 'sound' of e.g., French.

George Gale
ggale@vax1.umkc.edu

	First, let me state that, to my knowledge, no phonologist has ever
attributed any sound change to a desire for euphony or acoustic esthetics or
whatever. Second, instead of using the terms 'easy' and 'difficult'in relation
to spech sounds and their combinations - something which has proven to be
notoriously difficult to measure or quantify in any useful way, as far as I am
aware - I think it is much more productive to look at ASSIMILATION, which is
the type of sound change I was discussing, as an attempt to get from here to
there (an UNCONSCIOUS attempt, obviously) by the shortest possible route, on
onehand, and by getting ready for what's coming next as soon as possible, on
the other. The problem is that speakers can't see beyond their own noses, so to
speak, so that having taken a shortcut here, they will often create a situation
that is less than ideal, and which will also have a tendency to be changed.
	Here is a simple case in point, an example of which could most
probably be found in the history of any language. Unstressed vowels have a
tendency to be 'slurred' (laxed/reduced to schwa) and then deleted. More often
than not, this leads to the buildup of consonant clusters which will almost
beg to be reduced, leading to another change. These can pile up, as when Latin
AUGUSTUM wound up as French /u/ (written AOUT with a circumflex on the U which
indicates that an /s/ used to follow, cf. the family name DAOUST, and
pronouncedas a short English 'oo').

Marc Picard

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:8>From sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu  Fri Oct  1 18:16:50 1993

To: HOLSINGE%UCONNVM.BITNET@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: A parallel between linguistic and biological evolution?
Date: Fri, 01 Oct 93 19:20:25 -0400
From: Sally Thomason <sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu>

Kent Holsinger asks if his formulation is true for fields other
than biology: it looks good for language change; in fact, it looks
like a more elegant statement of what I was trying to say.  As for
his other question, whether it's too general to be useful, that's
harder to answer: we historical linguists need our analogous
principle as part of our underlying assumptions, certainly, but I'm
not enough of a philosopher of science to know whether we actually
make *use* of the principle in doing historical linguistics.

  Sally Thomason
  sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:9>From sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu  Fri Oct  1 18:51:25 1993

To: LARRYS@psc.plymouth.edu
Subject: Re: Heritability and cultural evolution
Date: Fri, 01 Oct 93 19:55:00 -0400
From: Sally Thomason <sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu>

Larry Spencer asks if enough is known about the Tasmanian language
to find out whether it changed in the same way as the culture.  One
problem is that it'd be hard to compare lg. change to culture change
of the sort Larry exemplifies.

  The other problem is that in fact very little is known about
Tasmanian languages (sic).  Here's what Colin Yallop says about
them in his 1982 book AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL LANGUAGES:

p. 31: "The status of the Tasmanian languages (possibly only two
in number and now extinct) is not clear.  They appear to have
differed from mainland languages in certain respects, and it has
been argued that these differences reflect a distinct ancestry
rather than a relatively isolated development from the mainland
stock."

pp. 38-39: "At least five different dialects are thought to have
been spoken [in Tasmania] but they have been extinct since the
early twentieth century.  The five dialects are tentatively grouped
as two languages, either [Western vs. Eastern] or [Northern vs.
Southern].  The relationship between Tasmanian and mainland
languages is uncertain."

pp. 70-71: "3.6.  A note on the Tasmanian languages
 "What little we can reconstruct of the pronunciation of Tasmanian
languages is not conclusive evidence as to their relationship with
mainland languages.  Their consonantal system was comparable to one
of the simpler mainland languages, with perhaps four points of
articulation for plosives and nasals....There seems not to have been
any distinction of voicing...and there were no fricatives other
than possibly _gh_ or _h_.  But there may have been an unusually high
number of vowels in comparison with mainland languages...."

 And here's what S.A. Wurm, in his 1972 book LANGUAGES OF
AUSTRALIA AND TASMANIA, says about them (p. 168; his entire
section on Tasmanian lgs. is on pp. 168-174, mostly consisting
of a few comments on grammatical features):

 "In pre-European times, an estimated five to eight thousand
Tasmanian aborigines who were racially different from the
Australians were living in Tasmania....the last full-blood
Tasmanian died in 1877.  The languages...survived in fragments
until around the turn of the century....
 "Only limited and generally quite unreliable notes and
materials, mostly word-lists and some sentence materials, had been
collected in the Tasmanian languages, from which only a superficial
picture of them can be obtained."

 So, although Wurm concludes that the Tasmanian languges probably
are not related to Australian languages, it isn't at all clear that
there is enough material on Tasmanian lgs. to determine their
genetic relationships (or lack of them) with other groups.  They do
indeed share some vocabulary with Australian lgs. (which are believed
to be related to each other); but that could be borrowed vocab., in
one direction or the other.  And it doesn't look as if there's
enough evidence to find out about changes in Tasmanian, in spite
of that tentative grouping into two languages.

  Sally Thomason
  sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:10>From CRAVENS@macc.wisc.edu  Fri Oct  1 19:40:09 1993

Date: Fri, 01 Oct 93 19:43 CDT
From: Tom Cravens <CRAVENS@macc.wisc.edu>
Subject: linguistic change and teleology
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

Another example of linguistic change creating difficulties was reported
in talks (and perhaps in print) by William Labov a little over a decade
ago. Surface deletion (non-pronunciation) of final 't' after 'n' had
produced a merger of "can" and "can't" in Northern New Jersey. Often,
speakers had to actually ask whether what was intended was c-a-n or
c-a-n-t. This ties into teleogical questions debated a few days ago, in
that it appears (once again; this is normal) that phonological change
proceeds relentlessly onward, leaving speakers to mend whatever bits get
"broken" in the process (near quote, from Nigel Vincent 1978). It
makes clear what Sally Thomason mentioned, i.e. that language change
typically occurs below the level of speakers' conscious awareness, and
to some extent beyond their control once, late in its development, the
change jumps into awareness. The major exception, i.e. speakers' resistance,
seems to be the case of taboos. In parts of the US Midwest where -ar-
and -or- have merged, so that "far" and "for" sound the same, both
with 'ar', "forty" has -ar-, but he word "fort" resists the merger.
No teleological repair of the system, but individual items can be
repaired if deemed absolutely necessary. (There are other, more colorful
examples which I refrain from citing here; the extreme is the case of
the town which petitioned the King of Spain to change its name because,
through phonological development, it had come dangerously close to a
rather vulgar term for testicles. The King obliged.)

Tom Cravens
cravens@macc.wisc.edu
cravens@wiscmacc.bitnet

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:11>From WILLS@macc.wisc.edu  Fri Oct  1 21:51:51 1993

Date: Fri, 01 Oct 93 21:55 CDT
From: Jeffrey Wills <WILLS@macc.wisc.edu>
Subject: Ease of articulation
To: DARWIN-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

A recent poster suggested:

In sum, if the forces that govern sound change are ease of articulation
and ease of perception, as they seem to be, one should not think in terms of
the sounds themselves so much as in terms of what preceded and/or follows them
in the speech chain. In regular sound change, expediency is the name of the
game.  The human vocal apparatus prefers certain combinations of sounds, and
that's what speakers unconsciously strive for.

I would agree that ease of articulation and perception may generate (motivate)
linguistic variation--and here one might speak of expediency or striving--but
the process of selection is sociolinguistic. Whether variation arises from
articulatory ease or language contact or imagination (neologisms), the success
of the variants depends on a social process (which I think is the major
external conditioning environment).
	In Tom Cravens' example from the dialect of Florence, you can attribute
the variant /h/ for /k/ to whatever motive you want (e.g. articulatory ease or
a bad cough). Such a variant is probably attested in many speakers of other
languages and surely in other dialects of Italian. But why did (this is a
historical process) only the Florentines adopt/accept/extend this variant? Why
are young speakers on the eastern boundary of the dialect area now speaking
this way? Presumably reasons of prestige or social realignment or something
else in the environment--not because the sound change is "easier" for them than
for speakers on the northern boundary who have been exposed to the same variant
and have not changed.
	Let me ask a question of the biologists:
	A person carries around a variety of codes (languages) and can engage in
code-switching (shifting to a more polite register in front of an elder, or a
more formal register in the presence of a teacher, or into a foreign language
when appropriate). How would you deal with these or parallel them in your
field? The two languages which a bilingual speaks usually influence each other
to some extent but for a long period of time these can coexist in the same
place and in the same speakers (and over many generations). I assume we should
be treating each of these codes (languages) as the "individuals" in our trees
and treating language contact as hybridization (as previously discussed). The
languages not the carriers (people) are the object of study and historical
tracking.
  But does it matter that multiple codes are carried on the same carriers?

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:12>From PICARD@Vax2.Concordia.CA  Sat Oct  2 09:05:00 1993

Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1993 10:09:29 -0500 (EST)
From: MARC PICARD <PICARD@Vax2.Concordia.CA>
Subject: Tasmanian
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

  Sally Thomason has quoted Colin Yallop to the effect that "What little we
can reconstruct of the pronunciation of Tasmanian languages is not conclusive
evidence as to their relationship with mainland languages". She also says that
according to Wurm "What little we can reconstruct of the pronunciation of
Tasmanian languages is not conclusive evidence as to their relationship with
mainland languages".
  In THE LANGUAGES OF AUSTRALIA, however, R.M.W. Dixon says that
"linguistically...the hypothesis that the Tasmanian languages were of the
regular Australian type is fully verified, at the phonological level... [W]e
can conclude [that] there is NO evidence that the Tasmanian languages were NOT
of the regular Australian type" (p. 233).
	One thing they might probably all agree on, however, is the fact that
"the most horrifying example of genocide from anywhere in the world was surely
Tasmania: the original population of three to five thousand - before the white
invasion in 1803 - was halved each decade, partly by introduced diseases,
partlyby murder. Then in 1830 the 300 that remained were moved to an island in
the Bass Straits. Separated from their homeland, numbers decreased even more
rapidly - there were 45 left in 1847 and only 13 by 1861; Truganini, the last
full-blood Tasmanian, died in 1876" (Dixon, p. 78).

Marc Picard

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:13>From sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu  Sat Oct  2 09:39:37 1993

To: PICARD@vax2.concordia.ca
Subject: Re: Tasmanian
Date: Sat, 02 Oct 93 10:43:10 -0400
From: Sally Thomason <sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu>

 Marc Picard gives a useful quote from R.M.W. Dixon to round out the
commentary on Tasmanian languages.  I don't have Dixon's work at hand
and so can't check the context of his remarks about Tasmanian lgs.
being "of the regular Australian type", but note that "type" is used
in linguistics to refer to typological properties, not necessarily
to genetically inherited features.  The passages I quoted in an
earlier post made it explicit that, phonologically, the Tasmanian
languages fit well with the Australian languages typologically.  But
that doesn't provide evidence that the two groups are genetically
related, i.e. that they belong in the same language family; a close
typological match like that could be due *either* to inheritance *or*
to borrowing.  Without more evidence about Tasmanian, it's likely to
be impossible to distinguish between those two historical sources of
the shared features.  That is: the typological match, together with
shared vocabulary items, makes it clear that there was *some*
historical connection between the two groups (hardly surprising, since
they were close to each other geographically); but systematic similarities
in all grammatical subsystems would be needed to establish a family
relationship, and from what the quoted sources say, such evidence is
not available and not likely in the future (unless, of course, someone
comes up with some more Tasmanian data in a British archive somewhere).

 I should add that I'm basing these comments on what the experts I
quoted -- Wurm and Yallop -- say about the paucity and fragmentary
nature of Tasmanian data.  If they're wrong, then elucidation of the
historical picture might be possible in future after all.

 Sally Thomason
 sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:14>From Boalch@ba1.curtin.edu.au  Sun Oct  3 16:55:47 1993

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 93 10:39:04 WST
From: Gregg=Boalch%IS=Staff%CURTIN@ba1.curtin.edu.au
Subject: Tasmanian
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

Marc Picard wrote

>	One thing they might probably all agree on, however, is the fact that
>"the most horrifying example of genocide from anywhere in the world was
>surely Tasmania: the original population of three to five thousand - before
>the white invasion in 1803 - was halved each decade, partly by introduced
>diseases, partly by murder. Then in 1830 the 300 that remained were moved to
>an island in the Bass Straits. Separated from their homeland, numbers
>decreased even more rapidly - there were 45 left in 1847 and only 13 by
>1861; Truganini, the last full-blood Tasmanian, died in 1876" (Dixon, p. 78).

On a personal note, I'm glad he raises this point, as many Australians (in
this part of the country a majority if the recent surveys are to be believed)
have no real understanding of what was done to the indigenous peoples by the
English settlers.

The High Court has handed down a ruling (Mabo) recognising that Aboriginals
were in fact here prior to British settlement (up until now, Australia was
legally empty when Cook & Co arrived), and that the indigenous people have
rights to land occupied continuously by them since 1788.

In this part of Oz, the powers that be wish to reverse that ie deny rights
specifically to Aboriginals while guaranteeing the same rights to all other
groups. And in the Year of the Indigenous Peoples too !

Apologies for the inclusion of this "flame" on the list, but if it weren't
for the genocide (both physical and cultural) we would know so much more
about these people - be they Tasmanian, Nungar, Pitjunjarra, etc etc etc.
And in this part of Oz anyway the majority of Oz don't accept what happened
nor do they think it relevant - after all, they're only "boongs".

By the way, I was born here...now my spleen is well and truly vented, I can
go back to marking assignments...grrrr

************************************************************************
* Gregg Boalch        E-Mail: Boalch@ba1.curtin.edu.au *
* School of Information Systems   Phern:  (619) 351 7246     *
* Curtin University of Technology   Fax:  (619) 351 3076     *
*             Snail:  GPO Box U1987    *
* ...seek grace, elegance and       PERTH  W. AUSTRALIA 6001 *
*   understanding in all things...      _--_|\     *
*                  /  \    *
*                Here--->\_.--._/    *
*                    v     *
************************************************************************

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:15>From idavidso@metz.une.edu.au  Sun Oct  3 18:08:07 1993

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1993 09:11:28 +0700
To: Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: idavidso@metz.une.edu.au (Iain Davidson)
Subject: Re: Tasmanian

Sally Thomason <sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu> writes:
"But that doesn't provide evidence that the two groups are genetically
related, i.e. that they belong in the same language family; a close
typological match like that could be due *either* to inheritance *or*
to borrowing.  Without more evidence about Tasmanian, it's likely to
be impossible to distinguish between those two historical sources of
the shared features  That is: the typological match, together with
shared vocabulary items, makes it clear that there was *some*
historical connection between the two groups (hardly surprising, since
they were close to each other geographically); ."

There is one thing all scholars of Tasmania are agreed about.  That is that
there has been no contact across Bass Strait for a long time.  The
isolation was probably at about 12 thousand, and there is emerging
archaeological evidence for the progressive isolation and abandonment
(mechanism unknown) of the Bass Strait islands.  So loan words and contacts
between Tasmanian and mainland Australian languages seem highly unlikely,
unless they took place in the 19th century.

Iain Davidson
Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology
University of New England
Armidale NSW 2351
AUSTRALIA
Tel (067) 732 441
Fax  (International) +61 67 73 25 26
      (Domestic)   067 73 25 26

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:16>From LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU  Mon Oct  4 10:49:31 1993

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1993 10:49:31 -0500
From: "JOHN LANGDON"  <LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU>
Reply-To: "JOHN LANGDON"  <LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Ease of articulation

In message <23100121550438@vms2.macc.wisc.edu>  writes:
> 	Let me ask a question of the biologists:
> 	A person carries around a variety of codes (languages) and can engage in
> code-switching (shifting to a more polite register in front of an elder, or a
> more formal register in the presence of a teacher, or into a foreign language
> when appropriate). How would you deal with these or parallel them in your
> field? The two languages which a bilingual speaks usually influence each
> other to some extent but for a long period of time these can coexist in the
> same place and in the same speakers (and over many generations). I assume we
> should be treating each of these codes (languages) as the "individuals" in
> our trees and treating language contact as hybridization (as previously
> discussed). The languages not the carriers (people) are the object of study
> and historical tracking.

I understand the original analogy to be between language and genotype, since
these are the two concepts that evolve. However, use of a languge (and that is
what is being considered above) would be analogous to a behavioral strategy, or
to a particular phenotypic expression of the genome. Are there biological
instances in which an organism displays different strategies/phenotypes in
different contexts? Certainly. A leopard locomotes one way in a tree and
another on the ground. A baboon is more wary for predators in the open than
when in a social group, where it is more concerned with conspecifics. A
chameleon turns different colors in different environments.

This appears to be a discussion of adaptive flexibility or generality within an
individual vs. long term evolutionary adaptation. As with language, some
individual organisms are more flexible or successfully adaptive than others.

JOHN H. LANGDON      email LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU
DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY    FAX  (317) 788-3569
UNIVERSITY OF INDIANAPOLIS   PHONE (317) 788-3447
INDIANAPOLIS, IN 46227

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:17>From GGALE@VAX1.UMKC.EDU  Mon Oct  4 15:50:22 1993

Date: Mon, 04 Oct 1993 15:49:04 -0500 (CDT)
From: GGALE@VAX1.UMKC.EDU
Subject: Might be help on Darwin-L; sorry for all the headers --George Gale
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

Date: Mon, 04 Oct 1993 10:07:07 -0500
From: Skip Hills <hillss@QUCDN.QUEENSU.CA>
Subject: Cross-cultural biology
To: Multiple recipients of list HPSST-L <HPSST-L%QUCDN.bitnet@vm42.cso.uiuc.edu>

Dear HPSST-Lers

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<Forwarded Message>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1993 15:33:00 IST
>From: Jayashree Ramadas <JRAM%TIFRVAX.BITNET@QUCDN.QueensU.CA>
>Subject: Cross-cultural biology
>To: Multiple recipients of list SMKCC-L <SMKCC-L@QUCDN.QueensU.CA>
>
>Hello, I am looking for cross-cultural studies of learning, particularly
>in Biology, and particularly relating to ideas about life and about the
>human body.  Studies in tribal and aboriginal societies would be most
>helpful, and names/ addresses of people.
>
>A lot of work seems to have been done in Australia, though I do not know
>how to access it.  Would anyone on this list know of P.J. Harris and
>S.G. Harris who have worked with aboriginal communities in Australia.
>I would be most grateful for their addresses, email if possible.
>
>Thank you,
>
>Jayashree Ramadas

*************************************************
*  Skip Hills             *
*  Faculty of Education         *
*  Queen's University         *
*  Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6        *
*  e-mail: hillss@qucdn (Bitnet)      *
*    hillss@qucdn.queensu.ca (Internet) *
*************************************************

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:18>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Mon Oct  4 18:24:36 1993

Date: Mon, 04 Oct 1993 19:31:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: "Reply-to" change reversed
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

Greetings to all.  The general consensus of our members has been that the
experimental change of the "reply-to" default from the group as a whole to
the original sender of each message was not successful.  I am in agreement
with this view and found the change rather annoying myself once it was made.
Running a list is rather like teaching or being a parent: there are some
ideas that seem in advance to be very good, but once they are tried in
practice they show themselves to be failures.  Because so many of our
postings discuss issues of general interdisciplinary interest -- and this is
just what the group is for -- the general feeling was that the advantage of
listening in on everyone's discussions outweighs the burden of the high mail
volume and the occasional error message posted to the group as a whole (we
have had relatively few of these anyway).  I did receive some messages from
people who favored the change, and am sorry that I was not able to
accommodate their wishes.  In a situation such as this it is simply not
possible to satisfy everyone all the time, and I believe that having
"reply-to" default to the group as a whole is, on balance, in our best
interest.  I do encourage posters to remember that, because we are a
high-volume list, responses to specialized queries and personal messages
to other list members are best sent through private e-mail.

I also remind those people who are having trouble keeping up with their mail
that it is possible to receive your mail from Darwin-L (and from most
listserv groups) in "digest" format.  Ordinarily each message from a listserv
group is sent to you as it is posted, but if you set your mail to "digest"
format you will receive only one message from the group each day, consisting
of the whole day's postings strung together one after another.  You can scan
the list of subject headers at the top of the daily digest and scroll down to
find items of interest, or you can discard the entire digest with a single
"delete" command.  To receive your mail from Darwin-L in digest format send
the one-line message:

   SET DARWIN-L MAIL DIGEST

to listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu.  I also remind members that all messages
posted to the group are logged automatically by the listserv program, and can
be retrieved at any time from the Kansas mainframe.  For information on how
to retrieve log files consult the general information document for our group;
this can be gotten by sending the message:

   INFO DARWIN-L

to listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu.  The log files as recorded by the listserv
program are rather inelegant, containing as they do all the long message
headers and errors that appear on the list.  I am in the process of cleaning
up the September log file and will announce the availability of a lightly
edited version shortly.  If you are considering retrieving the past month's
log you might want to wait until this more readable version is available.

In many respects, e-mail is still a rather primitive means of communication,
and it often doesn't deal intelligently with ordinary textual phenomena such
as line wrapping and variation in typestyles.  As someone mentioned recently,
it is always wise to type hard carriage returns at the end of each line of
your messages (rather than letting your mail system wrap the lines
automatically), because the mail systems of most of our members are limited
to 80-character lines.  Someday we will have software that obviates the need
for such practices, but unfortunately that is not the case today.

I thanks you all for your continuing interest in Darwin-L, and for your
patience as we come to know each other and develop means of efficient
communication.

Bob O'Hara, Darwin-L list owner

Robert J. O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu)
Center for Critical Inquiry and Department of Biology
100 Foust Building, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, North Carolina 27412 U.S.A.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:19>From acvascon@ibase.br  Mon Oct  4 19:16:21 1993

From: acvascon@ibase.br
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 93 21:18:22 BRA
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Fossil Cnidaria `95

    VII INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON FOSSIL

        CNIDARIA & PORIFERA

         Madrid, Spain

       September 12-15, 1995

     First Circular and Call for Papers

Scientific Topics

     Symposium themes were selected mainly from topics
of proceding  symposiums. Some other topics will be included
in Madrid for the first time. Each session will be opened by
an invited lecture, and volunteered papers will follow. Some
free-papers sessions will be included in the afternoons. The
selected topics are:

   1. Paleobiology of Cnidaria
    (Functional morphology, ontogeny, taxonomy,
    intraspecific variability, etc.)

   2. Paleobiology of Porifera
    (Functional morphology, ontogeny, taxonomy,
    intraspecific variability, etc.)

   3. Biomineralization, microstructures and diagenesis
    of Cnidaria and Porifera

   4. Origin and evolution of Cnidaria and Porifera

   5. Development of Cnidaria and Porifera in nonreef
    environments

   6. Development of Cnidaria and Porifera in reef
    environments

   7. Taphonomy of Cnidaria and Porifera

   8. Biogeography

   9. Cnidaria and Porifera in biosedimentary process

Oral Presentations

     Space  constraints make  oral presentations are
preferable to poster communications. English is the official
language of  the Symposium.  Each speaker  will be  given 15
minutes  for  presentation  and  5  minutes  for  discussion
(invited speakers  will have  more  time).  Two  35mm  slide
projectors and  one overhead  transparency projector will be
available in  each meeting  room.  VCR  monitors  for  video
presentations will  be available  upon request.  As many  as
three simultaneous sessions are expected.

Poster Presentations

    Poster exhibitions will run concurrently with oral
presentations. Some  poster boards  will  be  available  for
poster displays.  Information about  the physical  layout of
the poster sessions will be included in the second circular.

Publications

    The proceedings of the Symposium will be published
in a  volume of  the Boletin de la Real Sociedad Espanola de
Historia Natural. All participants are invited to submit one
or  more manuscripts  in English.  Manuscripts  must  be
submitted to  the editor  of the  proceedings at the time of
the symposium.  Guidelines to  authors will be in the second
circular.

Field Excursions

    Five filed trips (listed below) will be offered to
exposures of  Cambrian to Miocene strata containing Cnidaria
and Porifera.  Please indicate  on the  attached form  those
trips in  which you  may participate.  Details pertaining to
cost, duration, accomodation and leadres will be provided in
the second circular.

Pre-Symposium Field Trips

   A. Cantabiran Mountains (NW Spain)
    Devonian and Carboniferous Cnidaria (Rugosans,
    Tabulates) and Porifera (Stromatoporoids,
    Chaetetids). Reef and plataform sedimentology.

   B. Demanda Mountains-Catalan Basin (North Spain)
    Triassic and Jurassic reefs (Scleractinians and
    Sponges). Sedimentology, Diagenesis.

   C. Catalonia (NE Spain)
    Cretaceous reefs (Scleractinians and Rudists).
    Eocene Vic Basin (Scleractinian reefs, deepwater
    Sponges). Reef and basinal sedimentology.

Post-Symposium Field Trips

   D. Sierra Morena (SW Spain)
    Cambrian, Archaeocyatha (reefs and plataform
    facies), Devonian and Carboniferous Rugosa and
    Tabulata. Reef and plataform sedimentology.

   E. Almeria-Murcia-Balearic Islands (SE Spain)
    Miocene reefs (Scleractinians, Algae,
    Sedimentology).

         DATES

 First Circular:       August 1st 1993

 Second Circular:      August 1st 1994

 Advanced registration at reduced fees, field trip
deposits and receipt of abstracts: March 1st 1995

 Final registration payment:   August 1st 1995

  Manuscripts  must be submitted September 12th 1995 to be
considered for the Proceedings.

  An  ice-breaker Welcoming Reception will be held Monday,
September 11th  evening. The  Opening Ceremony will commence
Tuesday, September 12th morning. The Techinical Program will
commence  Tuesday, September  12  afternoon  and  continue
through Friday, September 15th morning. The General Assembly
will be held Friday, September 15th afternoon.

         CORRESPONDENCE

 Send all correspondence concerning the symposium to the
following address:

VII Symposium on Fossil
Cnidaria and Porifera
Departamento de Paleontologia
Facultad de Ciencias Geologicas
Universidad Complutense
28040  MADRID SPAIN

Specific questions may be directed to:

Sergio Rodriguez (Chairman)
Elena Moreno   (Treasurer)
Antonio Perejon  (Publication Convenor)

Tel (34) 1 3944854
Fax (34) 1 3944849

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:20>From acvascon@ibase.br  Mon Oct  4 19:17:54 1993

From: acvascon@ibase.br
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 93 21:19:55 BRA
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Coral Reef Meeting `94

     International Society for Reef Studies

    Second European Meeting of the International

      Society for Reef Studies

  August 30-31 and 1-2 September, 1994 Luxembourg,
      Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg

    The meeting will be held in the buildings of the
Centre Universitaire at Luxembourg (Grand-Duchy of
Luxembourg) on  august 30  to 31 and September 1 to 2, 1994.
There will  be a 2-day field trip offered before the meeting
that will  lead to  the most  spectacular outcrops of Middle
and Upper Jurassic  coral reefs  of Lorraine  and southern
Luxembourg. If  there is  sufficient  interest  (minimum  15
participants) an  additional field  trip to  the Recent  and
Pleistocene coral  reefs of  the Sinai Peninsula (Egypt) may
be organized. Depending on the flight schedule this trip may
be a  few days  after the  meeting and  will start  from  an
airport in Germany or France.

     The  meeting will  be jointly organized by Jorn
geister (Universitat Bern, Switzerland), Bernard Lathuiliere
(Universite  de Nancy  I, France),  alain  Faber  (Musee
d`Historie Naturelle, Luxembourg) and Robert Maquil (Service
Geologique, Luxembourg).  A first  circular will be prepared
to be  distributed to  those requesting  it in  January 1994
(after the Vienna Meeting).

For information contact:

   Jorn Geister
   Geologisches Institut der Universitat Bern,
   Baltzerstr. 1, CH 3012
   Bern, Switzerland
   Phone: +41 31-644567
   Fax: +41 31-654843

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:21>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Mon Oct  4 23:20:57 1993

Date: Tue, 05 Oct 1993 00:27:32 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: Production of variation vs. selection in evolution and linguistics
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

Jeff Wills makes an important point I think in discussing the two parts of
the notion of "sound change":

>I would agree that ease of articulation and perception may generate
>(motivate) linguistic variation--and here one might speak of expediency or
>striving--but the process of selection is sociolinguistic.  Whether
>variation arises from articulatory ease or language contact or imagination
>(neologisms), the success of the variants depends on a social process
>(which I think is the major external conditioning environment).

>In Tom Cravens' example from the dialect of Florence, you can attribute the
>variant /h/ for /k/ to whatever motive you want (e.g. articulatory ease or
>a bad cough). Such a variant is probably attested in many speakers of other
>languages and surely in other dialects of Italian.  But why did (this is a
>historical process) only the Florentines adopt/accept/extend this variant?
>Why are young speakers on the eastern boundary of the dialect area now
>speaking this way?  Presumably reasons of prestige or social realignment or
>something else in the environment--not because the sound change is "easier"
>for them than for speakers on the northern boundary who have been exposed
>to the same variant and have not changed.

When we look back on the history of a language any instance of a change
really involves both these phenomena Jeff describes: first the production
of the novel item, and then its spread through a speech community.  By way
of refining some of the parallels we have been drawing between linguistics
and evolution I would point out that this is precisely the distinction made
within population biology between the production of variation and its
spread by natural selection (or perhaps genetic drift).  Evolutionary
variation may be produced within a population by any of a number of means:
mutation, migration (the arrival of a new individual with a novel
genotype), genetic recombination, and so on.  Once variation is produced,
however, it is "tested" in the particular environment in which it arose. It
might be the case that a particular mutation arises in a population and is
immediately eliminated because it is disadvantageous, but had that mutation
appeared 10 years earlier or 10 years later, or at the same time but on the
other side of the river, it might have spread because the environment in
which it found itself would have been different.

Further, evolutionary biologists speak of variation as being "random", but
this does not mean that all variations are equally probable; indeed, for
biophysical reasons certain forms of DNA or protein variation are much
easier to produce than others, as are certain morphological variations.
When evolutionary biologists speak of variation as "random" they mean that
it is random with respect to whether it will be advantageous in a given
environment.  If mutations A and B are equally probably from a biophysical
point of view, but B confers a greater advantage upon its carriers in
environment X than does A, variant B will not be _produced_ at greater
frequency than A in that environment, although once it _is_ produced it
will have a greater chance of spreading through the population and becoming
"fixed" (present in all individuals) than A will.

Natural selection operates on a local scale, both geographically and
temporally, and changes that appear to have occurred randomly when seen
from a distance may in fact have been driven by local selection in a
particular set of environmental conditions that no longer exist.  I would
suspect that much language change (i.e., production of variation plus
spread to fixation) is likewise influenced by local "adaptation" to the
social environment, but perhaps this isn't the case.  The sociolinguists
among us (and the real population biologists like Kent Holsinger and Greg
Mayer) might be able to provide more insight into this.

Bob O'Hara, Darwin-L list owner

Robert J. O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu)
Center for Critical Inquiry and Department of Biology
100 Foust Building, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, North Carolina 27412 U.S.A.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:22>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Tue Oct  5 09:55:00 1993

Date: Tue, 05 Oct 1993 11:01:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: Darwin's influence on fiction
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

This message came to me privately, but I think it was meant for the
group as a whole.  I take the liberty of posting it here.

Bob O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1993 15:19 -0500 (EST)
From: CBLINDERMAN@vax.clarku.edu
Subject: RE: List owner's monthly greeting
To: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu

Much has been done tracking Darwinian influence on creation of male
characters in fiction (eg Dr.Jekyll-Mr. Hyde).  A graduate student of mine
wants to write thesis tracking Darwinian influence on creation of female
characters (cp. Claude Bernard > Zola > Nana).  Suggestions re primary
sources & criticism would be appreciated.

CBLINDERMAN@vax.clarku.edu

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<2:23>From JLOESBE@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU  Tue Oct  5 11:14:00 1993

Date: Tue, 05 Oct 93 12:11:59 EDT
From: Jonathan Loesberg <JLOESBE@american.edu>
Organization: The American University
Subject: Re: Darwin's influence on fiction
To: Multiple recipients of list <darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu>

There are two relatively recent books on Darwin and Victorian fiction
that both treat Darwin's influence on George Eliot and on Thomas Hardy,
hence on female characters: Gillian Beer's "Darwin's Plots" and George
Levine's "Darwin and the Novelists."

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<2:24>From maisel@Sdsc.Edu  Tue Oct  5 12:22:25 1993

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 93 17:25:54 GMT
From: maisel@Sdsc.Edu (Merry Maisel, 619-534-5127)
Subject: question from another list (human biol. list HUMBIO-L)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1993 10:29:23 -0600 (MDT)
From: Jack Kelso <kelsoj@spot.Colorado.EDU>
To: HUMBIO-L@ACC.FAU.EDU

A question to ponder.  Suppose you have a situation such that selection
acts on one gender for a trait present in  both genders.  What are the
evolutionary dynamics of such a situation?  To elaborate -- I find mothers
who are blood type B are more fertile regardless of fathers's blood type than
mothers of other ABO blood types.  Intuitively this would seem to be a
situation in which the polymorphism continues to be maintained by being
"stored" in one gender.  I can't believe that someone hasn't worked this
out.  So please if you know how to figure or know of a reference I would
greatly appreciate your help.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:25>From mayerg@cs.uwp.edu  Tue Oct  5 14:04:30 1993

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1993 13:04:29 -0500 (CDT)
From: Gregory Mayer <mayerg@cs.uwp.edu>
Subject: Re: Ease of articulation
To: Jeffrey Wills <WILLS@macc.wisc.edu>

On Fri, 1 Oct 1993, Jeffrey Wills wrote:

>	Let me ask a question of the biologists:
>	A person carries around a variety of codes (languages) and can engage in
> code-switching (shifting to a more polite register in front of an elder, or a
> more formal register in the presence of a teacher, or into a foreign language
> when appropriate). How would you deal with these or parallel them in your
> field? The two languages which a bilingual speaks usually influence each
> other to some extent but for a long period of time these can coexist in the
> same place and in the same speakers (and over many generations). I assume we
> should be treating each of these codes (languages) as the "individuals" in
> our trees and treating language contact as hybridization (as previously
> discussed). The languages not the carriers (people) are the object of study
> and historical tracking. But does it matter that multiple codes are carried
> on the same carriers?

	A parallel situation is well known in biology: nuclear and
organellar genomes.  In eukaryotes (the organisms we all know and love:
trees, birds, butterflies, lobsters), most of the genetic material resides
in the nucleus of the cell, and there are two copies of the complete set
(a condition known as diploidy).  Some of the genetic material, however,
exists outside the nucleus in structures called organelles.  Animals have
mitochondria, and plants have chloroplasts and mitochondria.  The genetic
material of these organelles exists in a single copy form (haploidy).  The
organellar DNAs are inherited independently of the nuclear DNA (you of
course get them from your parents, but they are not linked, in the genetic
sense, to the nuclear DNA).  In animals, there is the further peculiarity
that mitochondrial DNA almost always comes from your mother.  The
organellar DNAs are a separate code from the nuclear DNA (and thus
comparable to a second language) in two senses:

	i) They code for and regulate the production of their own set of
proteins and RNAs which are used in organellar metabolism; and
	ii)  Their actual genetic code is slightly different.  For
example, the code "CGG" means the amino acid arginine in the nuclear
genome, but the amino acid tryptophan in plant mitochondria.

	The two genomes (nuclear and organellar) do interact with one
another, at both a metabolic and evolutionary scale.  Metabolically, the
two work together in total cell functioning.  Evolutionarily, genetic bits
and pieces can be incorporated from one to the other; the general trend
seems to have been for a simplification of the organellar genome, and the
insertion of nuclear sequences into it, but it's gone both ways.

	When making phylogenetic trees from DNA data, a nuclear sequence
is analyzed separately from a mitochondrial sequence, because the two
trees needn't coincide.  Thus, an individual organism's closest
mitochondrial relatives may not be its closest nuclear relatives.
Biologists refer to these trees as "gene trees", and you can make one for
each gene you study, nuclear or organellar. (Technical note: because
organelles are haploid, they, in general, don't recombine, and you would
thus usually combine all sequences from a particular organelle into a
single analysis, rather than one for each gene.)  A population or species
tree attempts to show the history of the populations, in which the nuclear
and organellar genomes coexist.  This need not be identical to any single
gene tree.

	The parallels to language are, I believe, as follows:

1.  The separate genomes (nuclear, organellar) are like separate
languages.  Thus we might study the history of lizard mitochondria and
lizard nuclear DNA as we might study the history of Spanish and Arabic.

2.  Because lizard mitochondria exist in the same bodies as do lizard
nuclei, there can be some borrowing and interchange among them.
Similarly, someone bilingual in Spanish and Arabic (and there were many
such people for many years) might exchange words from one language to the
other.  Such borrowings can take place without obscuring the historical
origin of the language/genome.

3.  The history of Spanish and Arab speakers might be different from the
history of the Spanish and Arab languages, just as the history of lizards
might be different (in the sense of not having isomorphic trees) from the
history of a particular gene/genome.

4.  Since the organellar and nuclear genetic codes (which are sort of like
alphabets) are only slightly different, a more apt linguistic comparison
might be with someone bilingual in Spanish and Portuguese, in which the
alphabets, as well as many of the words and much of the grammar, are quite
similar.

5.  The maternal inheritance of mitochondria might be paralleled by single
sex languages.  Island-Carib men are supposed to have spoken a form of
Cariban among themselves for certain purposes, but the everyday language
of men and women was Arawakan.

	The recognition of such parallels is useful if it allows one or
another discipline to clarify the structure of its questions and
phenomena, or to adopt a problem-solving technique from the other.
Whether _these_ parallels are useful, I do not yet know.

Gregory C. Mayer
mayerg@cs.uwp.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:26>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Tue Oct  5 23:59:33 1993

Date: Wed, 06 Oct 1993 01:06:11 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: October 6 -- Today in the Historical Sciences
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

OCTOBER 6 -- TODAY IN THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES

1892: ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, poet laureate of England, dies at 1:35 a.m.
He will be buried in Westminster Abbey.  Tennyson's life had spanned much
of the nineteenth century, and he will be remembered by historical
scientists for producing one of the greatest literary expressions of the
collapse of the static and providential world-view of natural theology
under the weight of the new historical geology, with its emphasis on the
succession of types, extinction, and the "struggle for existence":

   Are God and Nature then at strife,
   That Nature lends such evil dreams?
   So careful of the type she seems,
   So careless of the single life;

   That I, considering everywhere
   Her secret meaning in her deeds,
   And finding that of fifty seeds
   She often brings but one to bear,

   I falter where I firmly trod,
   And falling with my weight of cares
   Upon the great world's altar-stairs
   That slope thro' darkness up to God,

   I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
   And gather dust and chaff, and call
   To what I feel is Lord of all,
   And faintly trust the larger hope.

   'So careful of the type?' but no.
   From scarped cliff and quarried stone
   She cries, 'A thousand types are gone:
   I care for nothing: all shall go.

   'Thou makest thine appeal to me:
   I bring to life, I bring to death:
   The spirit does but mean the breath:
   I know no more.'  And he, shall he,

   Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair,
   Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
   Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies,
   Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,

   Who trusted God was love indeed
   And love Creation's final law --
   Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
   With ravine, shriek'd against his creed --

   Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills,
   Who battled for the True, the Just,
   Be blown about the desert dust,
   Or seal'd within the iron hills?

   No more?  A monster then, a dream,
   A discord.  Dragons of the prime,
   That tare each other in their slime,
   Were mellow music match'd with him.

   (From _In Memoriam_, 1849.)

Today in the Historical Sciences is a feature of Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.
ukans.edu, a network discussion group on the history and theory of the
historical sciences.  E-mail darwin@iris.uncg.edu for more information.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:27>From Boalch@ba1.curtin.edu.au  Wed Oct  6 04:20:29 1993

Date: Wed,  6 Oct 93 17:22:55 WST
From: Gregg=Boalch%IS=Staff%CURTIN@ba1.curtin.edu.au
Subject: Research
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

I am doing research into the use of expert systems as a tool for hypothesis
validation and generation in historical research, in particular in chronology
determination.  I would like to spend a term or two during either 1994 or
1995 at a University where this research is either of interest or already
underway - preferably under a fellowship (young family and all that).

Can anyone on the list please suggest any campuses (campii?) or contacts with
whom I can discuss this matter directly.

Apologies for any duplication - this is being posted to a number of lists
(ANE-L, AHC-L, HALBION-L, ANCIEN-L, KLIEO-L).

Thanking you all for your time...

************************************************************************
* Gregg Boalch        E-Mail: Boalch@ba1.curtin.edu.au *
* School of Information Systems   Phern:  (619) 351 7246     *
* Curtin University of Technology   Fax:  (619) 351 3076     *
*             Snail:  GPO Box U1987    *
* ...seek grace, elegance and       PERTH  W. AUSTRALIA 6001 *
*   understanding in all things...      _--_|\     *
*                  /  \    *
*                Here--->\_.--._/    *
*                    v     *
************************************************************************

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:28>From @SIVM.SI.EDU:IRMSS668@SIVM.SI.EDU  Wed Oct  6 06:33:28 1993

Date: Wed, 06 Oct 1993 07:34:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jim Felley <IRMSS668%SIVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: Re: Ease of articulation
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

  On Fri, 1 Oct 1993, Jeffrey Wills asked about analogies in genetics
to people who can speak several languages (following the thread of
analogies between organic evolution and linguistic evolution.
  Gregory C. Mayer offered the analogy of extra-nuclear and nuclear
DNA, as separate genomes which can interact.  I feel that this
analogy has several strengths, well presented by Myers.  However,
focusing on the situational use of different languages (you speak
French in France, and when you cross the channel, you switch to
English), I found this analogy to be missing something.  In particular,
the different cellular genomes are active simultaneously, whereas
people tend to use different languages in particular contexts.
 Thus, I present the analogy between use of different languages, and
portions of the genome that are inducible.  Organisms have some genes
whose products are created only in certain circumstances.  Under
certain environmental conditions, the gene is "turned on", and creates
products that are appropriate to that environment.  Thus, the
genes in _E. coli_ bacteria that produce enzymes for metabolizing
lactose do not produce these products until lactose is present in the
environment.
 This seems to me to approach the condition with multiple languages--
that the individual senses cues in the environment that induce him to
use certain sets of words and grammatical rules, and not others.
 Pushing this analogy further will likely result in questions such as
"is a word analogous to a gene?".  So I'll probably bow out of this
discussion now!

            Jim

  #%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#
  %                     %
  #   James D. Felley, Computer Specialist      #
  %   Room 2310, A&I Building, Smithsonian Institution  %
  #   900 Jefferson Drive, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20560   #
  %   Phone (202)-357-4229 FAX (202)-786-2687     %
  #        EMAIL:  IRMSS668@SIVM.BITNET     #
  %          IRMSS668@SIVM.SI.EDU     %
  #%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#

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<2:29>From MORSEGAG@ucs.indiana.edu  Wed Oct  6 10:24:37 1993

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 93 10:28:16 EST
From: MORSEGAG@ucs.indiana.edu
Subject: Re: Linnaeus and literature
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

Eric Miller--
You might be interested in the work of John and Willam Bartram, American
naturalists.  John was Linnaeus's contemporary and corresponded with him,
though none of L's letters to JB survive.  _John and William Bartram's America:
Selections from the Writins of the Philadelphia Naturalists_, ed. Helen Gere
Cruikshank, ill. F. L. Jaques (a plus), publ. Devin-Adair, NYC, 1957 is a good
book if you aren't familiar with the Bartrams yet.  Not a whole lot of refer-
ence to Linnaeus, but interesting for showing the first impacts of his
work on naturalists, I should think.  Also, have you looked into Fabre's
Souvenirs Entomologiques (or the amazing translations by A. Texeira de Mattos)
for any discussion of Linnaeus?  I dont know if his impact on naturalists
is what you're looking for.
I would have sent this to you personally rather than to the list as a whole,
but had no address but the list header.
Elise Morse-Gagne

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:30>From buchignani@hg.uleth.ca  Wed Oct  6 13:13:28 1993

Date: Wed, 06 Oct 1993 12:17:14 MDT
From: Norman Buchignani <buchignani@hg.uleth.ca>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: RE: Research

>Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1993 09:25:05 -0500
>From: Gregg=Boalch%IS=Staff%CURTIN@ba1.curtin.edu.au
>To: Multiple recipients of list <darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu>

>I am doing research into the use of expert systems as a tool for hypothesis
>validation and generation in historical research, in particular in chronology
>determination.  I would like to spend a term or two during either 1994 or
>1995 at a University where this research is either of interest or already
>underway - preferably under a fellowship (young family and all that).

Don't know of any such places, but am mighty interested in your proposed work.
I am just now starting to do something analogous (but not on chronology) re:
themes in a full corpus of travellers accounts of a particular folk. I intend
to use a mix of lit crit, formal content analysis and hypertext techniques. How
can expert systems help folk like me?

Norman Buchignani
Department of Anthropology
University of Lethbridge

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:31>From @VM1.ULAVAL.CA:C017@MUSIC.ULAVAL.CA  Thu Oct  7 09:10:41 1993

Date: Thu, 07 Oct 93 10:14:47 EST
From: C017000 <C017@MUSIC.ULAVAL.CA>
To: <darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu>
Subject: Re: Ease of articulation

I would agree with Jim Felley in that the analogy between nuclear
DNA and organellar DNA might not be the most appropriate. I wonder
if we could not compare the use of different languages in different
circumstances to the use of different sources of energy in different
environmental conditions e.g. the use of glucose or lipids as source
for ATP. Like the different languages, which involve different words
and grammary but the same "physical tools" to express yourself,
glucose and lipids involve different enzymes (at least for some
part of their degradation) but the same cellular machinery.
Any comments ?

M.-C. Baby
Dept. of Biology
University Laval
e-mail: c017@music.ulaval.ca

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<2:32>From mahaffy@dordt.edu  Thu Oct  7 16:37:40 1993

Subject: Why altruism?
To: Address Darwin list <Darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu>
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1993 16:41:54 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Prof. James Mahaffy" <mahaffy@dordt.edu>

   I am reading a paper by a philosopher that deals with altruism
and wasn't sure he got it quite right.  So I decided to unlurk and
ask a couple of questions.  The questions really center around the
selective pressure from an evolutionary perspective that would
result in altruistic behavior.  My area is Carboniferous
paleoecolgy so I am a bit out of my area of expertise and would
appreciate some feed back from some of you that know more about
this than me.

1. I gather it is not an easy question since it often clearly works
 against the survivability of the person with altruistic behavior
 [depending on the nature of that behavior]. Although I have not
 had time to more than glance at them, some of the threads I have
 seen on Darwin-l seem to question the degree to which you can
 see biological selection as a direct causative agent for at
 least some of human's cultural differentiation.

2. My recollection and gut biological instinct is that the answer
 (of someone that would like to find selective pressure for this
 behavior) is that although altruism could be detrimental to the
 parent it could increase the survivability of their offspring or
 others of the race and hence selecting for a genetic component
 in the race that favors altruism.

 These are a couple of the questions I have, but any general
light on altruism would be appreciated.
--
James F. Mahaffy       e-mail: mahaffy@dordt.edu
Biology Department       phone: 712 722-6279
Dordt College        FAX 712 722-1198
Sioux Center, Iowa 51250

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:33>From LBRYNES@vax.clarku.edu  Fri Oct  8 04:55:35 1993

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1993 05:59 EST
From: GIVE PEAS A CHANCE <LBRYNES@vax.clarku.edu>
Subject: Re: Why altruism?
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

James
    My hunch is that you will receive several traditional
    answers to your inquiry and many answers grounded
    in sociobiology...so I'll skip those.

    I would recommend that you peruse the work of Lynn Margulis
    on Symbiosis and evolution. ....with symb. as the author of
    evoltuion and nat. selec. as the editor.

    Altruism proproably comes in many kinds and ways.
    The resonance of philanthropy is probably the promblem for
    many, as is the "nature red in tooth and claw" popular
    metaphor.
Lois

Lois Brynes
Associate Director
New England Science Center
Worcester MA 01604
USA
lbrynes@vax.clarku.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:34>From GA3704@SIUCVMB.SIU.EDU  Fri Oct  8 11:10:31 1993

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 93 11:15:18 CST
From: "Margaret E. Winters" <GA3704@SIUCVMB.SIU.EDU>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: altruism

Could someone explain briefly what altruism means in this
context - I'm sure I'm not the only poor historical linguist
to be lost now!  Thanks -
Margaret Winters
<ga3704@siucvmb.siu.edu>

_______________________________________________________________________________

<2:35>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Fri Oct  8 11:35:02 1993

Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1993 12:41:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: Ploidy and polymorphism in evolution and philology
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

Let me add another case to the discussion of ploidy and polymorphism in
language and evolution, namely, the case of textual transmission.  I'm not
quite able to fit all of these examples into a precisely defined framework
yet, but exploring the parallels is very illuminating I think.  (William
Whewell would be proud of us: "It is not an arbitrary and useless
proceeding to construct such a Class of [historical] sciences.  For wide
and various as their subjects are, it will be found that they have all
certain principles, maxims, and rules of procedure in common; and thus may
reflect light upon each other by being treated together.")

The discussion began with Jeff Wills' example of someone who speaks two
languages, and how these will influence one another in that speaker, even
though the languages themselves are different "tips" of the linguistic
tree.  Further, the same individual will use different languages or
different speech registers in different environmental contexts.

Several interesting evolutionary (biological) parallels were developed,
including the fact that in many organisms (such as ourselves) genetic
material is carried both in the nucleus and in extranuclear organelles such
as mitochondria and chloroplasts, and that these different genomes may
influence one another, although they function semi-autonomously and have
different rules of transmission.  Another parallel that was suggested was
the differential expression of different genes at different times in
development: all of them are present at all times, but they may be "turned
on" at different times in different circumstances.  This last case seems
somewhat like the use of different speech registers in different contexts.

To set up the case of textual transmission, let's consider first the
arrangement of nuclear genes on chromosomes in a bit more detail.  As was
mentioned, the majority of macroscopic organisms are said to be "diploid",
that is, they have two copies of each chromosome.  At any particular
corresponding point (locus) the two chromosomes may be identical, or they
may differ.  If they differ the individual is said to be "polymorphic" at
that locus: its two matching chromosomes have different readings at that
particular locus.  It might be the case that some particular individual is
not polymorphic, but that its population is -- the individual's chromosomes
match at that point, but there are other individuals in the population that
have different readings at that chromosomal location.  I have been speaking
in genetic terms here, but much the same can be said of morphology also: a
population of organisms might be polymorphic for a particular eye color,
with some individuals brown, some blue, some green, as is the case in
humans.  And it is possible for one individual to be morphologically
polymorphic if we consider its left and right sides (doesn't happen very
often with eye color in humans, but can in other things).

Now the new case I want to interject is the case of textual transmission.
While my own background is in evolutionary biology, I've been working with
a textual scholar on some of these problems so have at least a basic idea
of what's going on, although specialists are welcome to amplify or correct
what I say, of course.  The works of most medieval and ancient authors are
not known today from copies actually written by the authors themselves.
What we have are copies of the originals, and copies of copies, written
over hundreds or thousands of years.  Because the process of copying is
imperfect, the many extant copies of a work will ordinarily differ from one
another at many locations (loci!).  But the interesting point with regard
to the present discussion is that a single manuscript may be polymorphic at
one or more loci.  If a scribe making a copy of a text comes across a word
that doesn't seem to make sense, the scribe may copy the word but write
above it or in the margin another word that he thinks is in fact the
correct reading.  Or the scribe might insert what he thinks is the correct
reading into the main text and put the old and perhaps erroneous reading
between the lines or in the margin.  Thus at that particular locus the one
physical document will be polymorphic: it will carry more than one reading.
Unlike organisms, however, manuscripts aren't of any particular ploidy;
rather, at most loci a manuscript will carry only one reading (haploid), at
some loci it will carry two readings (diploid), and at some loci it might
carry three or more readings (triploid or polyploid).

There are many differences between manuscript transmission and both
linguistic and biological evolution, most notably that manuscript
transmission is not a populational phenomenon (it is closer to being
clonal, with a fair bit of horizontal transmission), but I will leave those
issues for a later discussion so as to emphasize the particular issue of
ploidy/polymorphism.

The best general introduction to manuscript transmission for evolutionary
biologists is Cameron's paper in the Hoenigswald & Wiener volume that I
have mentioned here before.  The full citation is:

Cameron, H. Don.  1987.  The upside-down cladogram: problems in manuscript
affiliation.  Pp. 227-242 in: Biological Metaphor and Cladistic
Classification: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (Henry M. Hoenigswald &
Linda F. Wiener, eds.).  Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Bob O'Hara, Darwin-L list owner

Robert J. O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu)
Center for Critical Inquiry and Department of Biology
100 Foust Building, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, North Carolina 27412 U.S.A.

_______________________________________________________________________________
Darwin-L Message Log 2: 1-35 -- October 1993            End