昨日の記事「#1992. Milroy による言語外的要因への擁護」 ([2014-10-10-1]) を含め，ここ2週間余のあいだに言語接触や言語変化における言語外的要因の重要性について複数の記事を書いてきた (cf. [2014-09-25-1], [2014-09-26-1], [2014-10-04-1]) ．今回は，視点のバランスを取るために，言語外的要因に対する慎重論もみておきたい．Hickey (195) は，自らが言語接触の入門書を編んでいるほどの論客だが，"Language Change" と題する文章で，言語接触による言語変化の説明について冷静な見解を示している．
Already in 19th century Indo-European studies contact appears as an explanation for change though by and large mainstream Indo-Europeanists preferred language-internal accounts. One should stress that strictly speaking contact is not so much an explanation for language change as a suggestion for the source of a change, that is, it does not say why a change took place but rather where it came from. For instance, a language such as Irish or Welsh may have VSO as a result of early contact with languages also showing this word order. However, this does not explain how VSO arose in the first place (assuming that it is not an original word order for any language). The upshot of this is that contact accounts frequently just push back the quest for explanation a stage further.
Considerable criticism has been levelled at contact accounts because scholars have often been all too ready to accept contact as a source, to the neglect of internal factors or inherited features within a language. This readiness to accept contact, particularly when other possibilities have not been given due consideration, has led to much criticism of contact accounts in the 1970s and 1980s . . . . However, a certain swing around can be seen from the 1990s onwards, a re-valorisation of language contact when considered from an objective and linguistically acceptable point of view as demanded by Thomason & Kaufman (1988) . . . .
言語接触は，言語変化がなぜ生じたかではなく言語変化がどこからきたかを説明するにすぎず，究極の原因については何も語ってくれないという批判だ．究極の原因に関する限り，確かにこの批判は的を射ているようにも思われる．しかし，当該の言語変化の直接の「原因」とはいわずとも，間接的に引き金になっていたり，すでに別の原因で始まっていた変化に一押しを加えるなど，何らかの形で参与した「要因」として，より慎重にいえば「諸要因の1つ」として，ある程度客観的に指摘することのできる言語接触の事例はある．この控えめな意味における「言語外的要因」を擁護する風潮は，上の引用にもあるとおり，1990年代から勢いを強めてきた．振り子が振れた結果，言語接触や言語外的要因を安易に喧伝するきらいも確かにあるように思われ，その懸念もわからないではないが，昨日の記事で見たように言語内的要因をデフォルトとしてきた言語変化研究における長い伝統を思い起こせば，言語接触擁護派の攻勢はようやく始まったばかりのようにも見える．
上に引用した Hickey の "Language Change" は，限られた紙幅ながらも，言語変化理論を手際よくまとめた良質の解説文である．以下，参考までに節の目次を挙げておく．
Introduction
Issues in language change
Internal and external factors
Simplicity and symmetry
Iconicity and indexicality
Markedness and naturalness
Telic changes and epiphenomena
Mergers and distinctions
Possible changes
Unidirectionality of change
Ebb and flow
Change and levels of language
Phonological change
Morphological change
Syntactic change
The study of universal grammar
The principles and parameters model
Semantic change
Pragmatic change
Methodologies
Comparative method
Internal reconstruction
Analogy
Sociolinguistic investigations
Data collection method
Genre variation and stylistics
Pathways of change
Long-term change: Grammaticalization
Large-scale changes: The typological perspective
Contact accounts
Language areas (Sprachbünde)
Conclusion
・ Hickey, Raymond. "Language Change." Variation and Change. Ed. Mirjam Fried et al. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2010. 171--202.
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