James Milroy: Some new perspectives on sound change: sociolinguistics and the Neogrammarians.

146-160.

Answer the following questions using the book and other sources.

Why does Milroy say that sound change appers to have no “obvious function or

rational motivation” (146)?

Because sound change is arbitrary and does not obey to any logical reason or rule. In addition, we found this sentence where he describes sound change as “probably the most mysterious aspect of change in language”.

What is/are the main difference/s between Milroy’s approach and that of the

Neogrammarians (147-148)?

According to Neogrammarians the language is an object, they don't taking into account the speakers. Milroy has a very different point of view, he emphasizes the importance of studying the language in a social context.

According to Milroy, what is language change dependent on? (149?)

Language change depends on the degree of internal cohesion in a community influenced by exterior changes (to accept or not these changes). In other words, it depends on the desire expressed by the speech community to maintain local norms or to adopt new external norms of language; therefore, it is a question of maintenance of the “old” forms and “social acceptance” of the new forms.

Why does Milroy say that sound change actually doesn’t exist (150)?

Because, according to him, there's a substitution (a sound is substituted by another with the past of time). There's not literal change.

Why does Milroy disagree with the Neogrammarians when they say that sound

change is “blind” (150)?

Because Neogrammarians not take into consideration the social dimension of language into the internal processes of change.

What is meant by “lexical diffusion” (151)?

Lexical diffusion is both a phenomenon and a theory. The phenomenon is that by which a phoneme is modified in a subset of the lexicon, and spreads gradually to other lexical items. For example, in English, /uː/ has changed to /ʊ/ in good and hood but not in food; some dialects have it in hoof and roof but others do not; in flood and blood it happened early enough that the words were affected by the change of /ʊ/ to /ʌ/, which is now no longer productive.

(http://www.answers.com/topic/lexical-diffusion)

Lexican diffusion explains the manner in which a phoneme variation can affect all the language system

What does dialect displacement mean? Give an example. (152)

Dialect displacement is the displacement of one dialect by another which is, for one or other reason, socially dominant at some particular time. In the text, Milroy refers to the gradual displacement of heavily inflected West Midland dialects of Middle English by weakly inflected East Midland dialects.

What are “community” or “vernacular” norms? What term that we have used in class

is similar (152)?

The OED (Oxford English Dictionary) gives the following definition of the term “vernacular”: “that writes, uses, or speaks the native or indigenous language of a country or district”.

Therefore, vernacular norms can be identified as the local norms agreed on socially by the members of a particular speech community, which typically differ from other norms belonging to other communities and thus give rise to the coexistence of several varieties (dialects) within the same language.

What does Milroy mean when he says that h-dropping may not ever reach

“completion” (153)?

What he want to say that this sound-change can´t be adopted by all the members of a speech community so this can´t be considered as standard.

Explain what Milroy means by “speaker innovation” and change in the system. How

are they connected (153)?

This innovation is the participation in an active way from the speaker in the language.

Why isn’t borrowing from one language to another and the replacement of one

sound by another through speaker innovation with a language as radically different

as the Neogrammarians posited (154-6)?

Milroy says that the process of a community of speakers accepting the replacement of one sound by another through speaker innovation is based on a borrowing in the speaker level. The innovation spreads through the borrowing from one speaker to another.

What is necessary for a sound to spread (157)?

Sound changes have normally observed to spread gradually through the lexicon. The spread of sounds can result from borrowing or a sudden replacement of one trill by another. We must point out that the spreading of sounds is a social process.

Why does believing in the ideology of standardization lead to believing in “blind

necessity” (158)?

Standardization is the process of establishing a technical standard, which could be a standard specification, standard test method, standard definition, standard procedure (or practice), etc.

The existence of a published standard does not necessarily imply that it is useful or correct. Just because an item is stamped with a standard number does not, by itself, indicate that the item is fit for any particular use. The people who use the item or service (engineers, trade unions, etc) or specify it (building codes, government, industry, etc) have the responsibility to consider the available standards, specify the correct one, enforce compliance, and use the item correctly. Validation of suitability is necessary.

In the context of social criticism and social sciences, standardization often means the process of establishing standards of various kinds and improving efficiency to handle people, their interactions, cases, and so forth. Examples include formalization of judicial procedure in court, and establishing uniform criteria for diagnosing mental disease. Standardization in this sense is often discussed along with (or synonymously to) such large-scale social changes as modernization, bureaucratization, homogenization, and centralization of society.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization)

Standard languages are not normal languages because they are created by the imposition of strong powers like the militar or political power. So, the sound-patterns in them and the changes that come about in these sound patterns do not come about through blind necessity.

What does Milroy mean by “clean” and “dirty” data (158)?

Clean data is idealized, he refers to this term as “clear”, “uniform”, etc. On the other hand, the term dirty data refers to “chaotic” and “irregular”