Sociolinguistics and the Neogrammarians.
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)?
Milroy refers to sound change as probably the most mysterious change in language: the replacement of vowel sound is arbitrary and there is apparently no profit and no loss. As, for example, in a change from [e:] to [i:] it is impossible to see any benefit. The use of one vowel-sound rather than another is arbitrary.
What is/are the main difference/s between Milroy’s approach and that of the Neogrammarians (147-148)?
One of the main thing we have take into account talking about the differences between Neogrammarian and Milory’s theories is the fact that nowadays Scholars have access to bilingual (and also multilingual communities). However, Neogrammarians used to study linguistic change in monolingual communities. While the Neogrammarians were interested only in the language, separating the language from the speaker, sociolinguists like Milroy firmly believes in the importance of analysing speech and language in social contexts.
This 19th Century movement was based on the idea that sound change is regular. According to this hypothesis, a diachronic sound change affects simultaneously all words in which its environment is met, without exception. Neogrammarians tended to be dichotomous, and their main sources of study were written texts rather than spoken.
Moreover, another Neogrammarian claim is that regular sound change is phonetically gradual but lexically abrupt; In the text we find that Milroy is against these ideas because he says that he does not think this is a ‘plausible scenario’ for sound change.
According to Milroy, what is language change dependent on? (149?)
A linguistic change is embedded in context of language maintenance. The degree to which change is admitted will depend on the degree of internal cohesion in the community, and change from outside will be admitted to the extent that there are large numbers of “weak ties” with outsiders.
Why does Milroy say that sound change actually doesn’t exist (150)?
Milroy affirms that speech rounds do not physically change and in the course of time one sound is replaced by another: Speakers gradually and variably begin to use sound X in environments where speakers formerly used sound Y.
Why does Milroy disagree with the Neogrammarians when they say that sound change is “blind” (150)?
Milroy disagrees with the idea of “blind” sound change because sound change is a social process by which the speakers change the language they use. Speaker make the sound change by using the language.
What is meant by “lexical diffusion” (151)?
Accroding to Chen and Wang (1975), lexical diffusion is a phonological rule that gradually extends its scope of operation to a larger and larger portion of the lexicon, until all relevant items have been transformed by the process.
What does dialect displacement mean? Give an example. (152)
Dialect displacement is the displacement of one dialecto by another which is, for some rehaznos, socially dominant at some particular time. In the text we find the referente to the gradual displacemente of heavily inflected East Midlands dialecto, which led to morphological simplification of the grammar of English more generally. But other example may be the displacement of Valencian in favour of Spanish in the Valencian Kingdom.
What are “community” or “vernacular” norms? What term that we have used in class is similar (152)?
They are norms maintaned and enforced by social pressure. Normally we think in norms as those which are codified and legislated by the institutions of society, this is, standardizing norms. But there are different dialescts of a language, so this mean that, apart form the tandard ones, other norms exist.
What does Milroy mean when he says that h-dropping may not ever reach “completion” (153)?
Explain what Milroy means by “speaker innovation” and change in the system. How are they connected (153)?
The terms innovation and change should reflect a conceptual distinction- an innovation is an act of the speaker, whereas a change is manifested within the language system. When an innovation is taken up by a speech community, the process involved is fundamentally a borrowing process; therefore, the implantation of a sound change depends on the borrowing of an innovation.
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)?
It is possible to argue that each single event of borrowing into a new speech community is just as much an innovation as the presumed original event in the “original speech community”, this affirmation leads Milroy to state that the distinction between true sound change and phonological borrowing is poorly motivated.
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)?
From a sociolinguistic perspective, standard languages are not “normal” languages. They are created by the imposition of political and military power, hence, the sound-patterns in them and the changes that come about in these sound patterns do not come about through blind necessity.
Standard languages are carefully constructed in order to appear as if they are discrete linguistic entities- and the ideology of standardization causes people to believe that they are indeed discrete physical entities.
What does Milroy mean by “clean” and “dirty” data (158)?
When Milroy speaks about “clean” data in the last section of the text, he refers to language that is uniform, unilinear and normalized (idealized). The “dirty” data is the result of sociolinguistic studies, in which language is considered as irregular and chaotic.