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

146-160.

Answer the following questions using the book and other sources.

1-Why does Milroy say that sound change appears 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. The use of one vowel-sound rather than another is purely arbitrary.

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

They had the tendency of separating languages from their speakers and Milroy’s way is sociolinguistic that mean to analyze languages and their speakers together.

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

As language stability depends on speaker-agreement on the variable norms of language, linguistic change is brought about by changes in agreement of norms.

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

It must be assumed that the vast majority of innovations are ephemeral and lead nowhere. Although we can observe linguistic innovations, we do not know when we observe them whether they are innovations that will lead to change.

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

They defended that languages change speakers instead Milroy’s idea that are speakers who change languages.

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

Is a phenomenon and a theory. The phenomenon is given by a phonem which is modified in a subset of the lexicon and spreads gradually to the other lexical item.

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

-It defines the displacement of one dialect to another which is socially dominant at some particular time.

- Scottish versus English.

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

Deviant norms.

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

That, even past the centuries, the sound change has not been accepted or adopted in a traditional way.

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

There is a conceptual distinction, innovation is an act of the speaker, while a change is manifested in the language system. Change and innovation have been confused for much time. It is clear that for a speaker-innovation to become a change it must be adopted by some community.

11-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)?

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.

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

The implementation of a sound change depends on the borrowing of an innovation and it is implemented being passed from speaker to speaker.

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

Because the idea that the sound changes differentiating the well-defined socially-constructed entities must always come about blindly and independently of socially-based-human intervention.

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

- “Clean data” means to be immune to borrowings from other languages, like Spanish and “Dirty Data” means to be permeable like English.

1-What is more common in language uniformity or variability?

Variability.

2-What kinds of variability exist?

External and internal.

3- How do we decide if a particular group of speakers belong to a particular dialect or language?

It depends on many factors, such as sociological, familiar, economical, and so on.

4-Saussure emphasized the importance of synchronic descriptions of languages rather than diachronic. He and is disciples (structuralists) focused on language at different periods as finite entities. Is this reasonable?

No. It doesn’t make sense. Periods are always connected between them.

5-The unattested states of language were seen as transitional stages in which the structure of a language was, as it were, disturbed. This made linguistic change look abnormal. Is it abnormal?

Not at all. Unattested states of language might be invisible from a historic-linguistic point of view, but they have always been existed and they are, in some cases, the base of many languages.

Milroy (1992: 3) says “the equation of uniformity with structuredness or regularity is most evident in popular (non-professional) attitudes to language: one variety –usually a standard language – is considered to be correct and regular, and others –usually ‘non-standard’ dialects – are thought to be incorrect, irregular, ungrammatical and deviant. Furthermore, linguistic changes in progress are commonly perceived as ‘errors’. Thus although everyone knows that language is variable, many people believe that invariance is nonetheless to be desired, and professional scholars of language have not been immune to the consequences of these same beliefs.”

6-Can you think of any example of non-professional attitudes to your own language?

The end of participles –ado becomes –ao, and so on.

7-Why does Milroy use “scare quotes” around non-standard and errors?

8-Are non-standard dialects “incorrect, irregular, ungrammatical and deviant.”?

Their grammatical system might be weak or inexistent but it doesn’t meant to be incorrect.

9-Which of these systems is more irregular? Why?

Myself Yourself Himself more irregular Herself Ourselves Themselves

Myself Yourself Hisself should be the regular Herself Ourselves Theirselves

“… much of the change generally accepted body of knowledge on which theories of change are based depends on quite narrow interpretations of written data and econtexutalized citation forms (whether written or spoken), rather than on observation of spoken language in context (situated speech). (Milroy 1992: 5)

10- Why do you think this is so?

11-Any description of a language involves norms? Think of the descriptions of your own language. Why is this so? For example: He ate the pie already is considered to be non-standard in which variety of English and perfectly acceptable in which other?

It’s accepted in American English and not in British.

12-What is the difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammars?

Prescriptive give the rules in a narrowing way and doesn’t look the reality, the changes that are happening in the society.

Weinreich, Labov and Herzog’s (1968) empirical foundations of language change:

Constraints: what changes are possible and what are not

Embedding: how change spreads from a central point through a speech community

Evaluation: social responses to language change (prestige overt and covert attitudes to language, linguistic stereotyping and notions on correctness).

Transition: “the intervening stages which can be observed, or which must be posited, between any two forms of a language defined for a language community at different times” Weinreich, Labov and Herzog 1968: 101)

Actuation: Why particular changes take place at a particular time.

13-What do you think the “prestige motivation for change” and the “solidarity constraint” mean? How are they opposed?

The fist one is maintended for speakers that think they are high culturally, the second one aim to the fact of considering his way of speaking like a connection with their own reality, costumes, etc,.

14-Sound change: post-vocalic /r/ in New York/ The change from long āto ōin some dialects of English.

15-Actuation: Why did /k/ palatalize before certain front vowels? PrsE: cheese, German käse English/Norse doublets shirt/skirt?

16-What is the biological metaphor in language change?

17-What is the difference between internal and external histories of a language?

18-Look up Neogrammarians and lexical diffusion. Why are they often found in the same paragraph or chapter?

19-Look up social norm-enforcement, childish errors and slips of the tongue. What have they to do with language change?