Dyachrony

Synchrony versus diachrony

We can study a given language in two ways, Saussure maintains. The first is that we can look at the language as it is (or was) at any particular point in time. Thus wemight study the syntax of American English in the early twenty-first century, or the phonology of seventeenth-century French or the patterns of compounding in Classical Chinese. These are allSYNCHRONIC studies (syn- ‘alike’, chronos ‘time’).

Saussure was reacting to an environment in which the only linguistic study that was seen as being scientific was the study of the development of languages.By putting the synchronic side of language studies back on the linguistic map, he expanded the scope of linguistics. Yet by the late twentieth century, there were some linguists complaining that thisstrict distinction between synchronic
and diachronic linguistics had become a major problem in dealing with language.

All living languages are in a continuous state of change. Much of thecomplaint tradition, which is a social factor affecting many languages including English, is a reaction to recent changes. For example, people who complain that some speakers do not distinguish between implyand infer are caught up in a change whereby the two used to mean different things and now are less likely to be semantically distinct, especially in less formal contexts. This is evidence thataspects of language change are reflected in the synchronic structure of any given language or variety. This is the subject matter of variationist linguistics, as developed by William Labov. Any linguisticchange progresses gradually through a speech community. Some speakers adopt the change more quickly than others, and some speakers use both the conservative and the innovative form for some periodduring the change. Thus any synchronic description of a variety, if it is detailed enough, can make sense only if aspects of diachrony are taken into account. Furthermore, language change leaves relics...