Questions 2 - James Milroy: Some new perspectives on sound change: sociolinguistics and the Neogrammarians.

Ø Why does Milroy say that sound change appers to have no “obvious function or rational motivation” (146)?

Because it is impossible to see any progress or benefit to the language or its speakers sound rather than another is purely arbitrary. There is apparently no profit and no loss in the use of one vowel rather than another.

Ø What is/are the main difference/s between Milroy’s approach and that of the Neogrammarians (147-148)?

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

The degree to which change is admitted will depend on the degree of internal cohesion of the community(the extent to which it is bound by ‘strong ties’ which resist change), and change from outside will be admitted to the extent that there are large numbers of weak ties with outsiders.

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

Sound change doesn’t exist because speech ‘sounds’ do not physically change: what happens is that in the course of time one sound is substituted for another; speakers of a given dialect gradually and variably begin to use sound X in environments where speakers formerly used sound Y.

Ø Why does Milroy disagree with the Neogrammarians when they say that sound change is “blind” (150)?

He thinks that if the sound change is ‘blind’ it does not make sense to say that sound-change is phonetically gradual either. It is socially gradual: it passes from speaker to speaker and from group to group.

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

Lexical diffusion differs markedly from the older form.

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

There is displacement of one dialect by another which is socially dominant at some particular time for some reason. For example, there is evidence from recordings of persons born around 1860 which can be interpreted as indicating that much New Zealand English in the nineteenth century was southern British in type (favoured by males), and it was displaced by an Australasian type (favoured by females) with some effects of mixing and residue.

Ø What are “community” or “vernacular” norms? What term that we have used in class is similar (152)?

They are norms that exist apart from the standard ones, and that these norms are observed by speakers and maintained by communities often in opposition to standardizing norms.

Ø What does Milroy mean when he says that h-dropping may not ever reach “completion” (153)?

He means that a change can persist as a variable state for seven or eight centuries without ever going to ‘completion’ in the traditional sense.

Ø Explain what Milroy means by “speaker innovation” and change in the system. How are they connected (153)?

Speaker innovation is an act of the speaker, whereas a change is manifested within the language system. It is speakers, and not languages, who innovates. Innovation must be unstructured and irregular and not describable by quantitative or statistical methods. It is not known that it will lead to a change and is probably thought to be an error or defective usage of some kind. It is also quite clear this distinction between innovation and change has not been sufficiently carefully or consistently observed in historical linguistics, and that many discussions about linguistic change have been in reality about linguistic innovation.

Ø 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)?

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

Ø Why does believing in the ideology of standardization lead to believing in “blind necessity” (158)?

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