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I just found an interesting article by Ronald Butters.  Here’s the introduction to his article:

“The vast literature on reasons why human languages inevitably change through time focuses on two types of causation, “functional,” and “social.”  My purpose here is to explore a third category of explanation, one that has largely been ignored or dismissed as seemingly inconsequential: I argue that a change/chaos model of linguistic change is a necessary and important supplement to functional and social explanations.”

 

I would like to use specific examples of changes in English such as the Great Vowel Shift, loss of inflections, and whatever else I have pages left for in order to either support this theory or challenge it.  This is the first time I’ve been introduced to this model, and is a nice change from other explanations I have heard for linguistic change so far.  Any comments of suggestions are welcome!