Inertia and resistance
Tourists obediently following a guide through Tokyo Station
Japanese election posters
Resistance Is not a unitary phenomenon with one cause.
Is there resistance stemming from the mere existence of structure itself? Or is structure to be conceived as absolutely brittle so that the slightest change produces a new structure?
Is every change in the rules of chess the creation of a new game? This will be just a verbal quibble, if the rules are taken in abstraction from their social existence in process?
But structures as embodied do resist, even while they are lived with a certain spaciousness.
Does grammar have inertia? As a formal system of combinations, no. But as a system of norms, yes. When we make mistakes with grammar we are not yet speaking a new grammar.
Embodied grammar reasserts itself. Habits are not formed instantly. Most language changes occur as drifts we are not aware of. But some social and place norms change with drama and conflict.