Synchrony, Diachrony and History
The perhaps most important work of Coseriu’s linguistic theory is Sincronía, Diacronía e historia (“Synchrony, Diachrony and History”), which combines the theoretical foundations to describe linguistic change with the central concepts of Coseriu’s theory of language. As in other treatises of this period, Coseriu begins by discussing Ferdinand de Saussure, in this case the distinction between synchrony and diachrony. The basic assumption is that language change cannot be explained on the level of the langue. Coseriu refers to Humboldt, Hegel and Aristotle, adopting from Humboldt the distinction between energeia and ergon, which goes back to Aristotle, and from Hegel the view of man as a historical being by means of language. Language is not ergon, “work”, “product”, but rather energeia, “activity” or “action” of the human being as a creative, sign-producing individual. From this perspective, the question why languages change is poorly asked. It is not as if languages were stable entities, which change for some determinable reasons, but that they are nothing but the historical objectification of speech. Thus, language change basically depends on the description of speech and the facts presented by the activity of the speakers. The pending question is rather opposite: Why don’t speakers create an entirely new language? Here, Coseriu answers with the notion of historicity: Language is as it is and not different, because in it man’s present condition is manifest; in his historicity, man has absorbed language in himself and has become part of it in return.
Diachrony is different from language history in that it is the study of projections. Various states of language are regarded in their succession. The study of different diachronic states is precisely not the same as the description of language change. Actual change cannot be found in the projections, in the comparison of various langues, but in the history of a language. Thus, language history is established as an own discipline aside “historical grammar”. While historical grammar compares states of language, language history describes linguistic development as a creative activity of individuals – and trigger for the resulting states of language. Innovations in the speech of individuals are examined, as also the adoption of these innovations by other individuals, selection processes between opposing forms in a community and finally different types of generality of a linguistic fact. On the one hand, there is extensive generality, i.e. generality within a specific linguistic community, on the other hand intensive generality, i.e. generality of a linguistic fact within a specific linguistic system.
Sincronía, diacronía e historia. El problema del cambio lingüístico, Montevideo; also in RFHC 15, 1957, S. 201-355; photomecanical reproduction Tübingen 1969 (List of publications No. 24). German translation: Synchronie, Diachronie und Geschichte. Das Problem des Sprachwandels, übers. von H. Sohre. München, Fink 1974.