Chapter 3 - Aspects of Language Change

Summary

In this chapter, the stability paradox is resolved. It is demonstrated that the idiolect is the true locus of language change. Language change can be of three basic types: independent innovation, propagation, and propagation-dependent innovation. Independent innovation is the type that is most likely to lead to structural change, but it does not correlate with social factors like network ties. The apparent stability of Late Modern English is due to a large number of idiolects undergoing change that mostly consists in propagation and propagation-dependent innovation. As most of the changes are the result of idiolects adopting features that existed in other idiolects already, these changes do not typically alter the structure of the communal language. Moreover, the emergence of Standard English both provided an existing target for which many speakers aimed and concealed a great deal of the variation that did occur through its predominance in printed texts.