Some new perspectives on sound change:
sociolinguistics and the Neogrammarians.
1. 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. Of all the theoretical questions about language variations that we might wish to address, the question of sound change seems to Milroy the weightiest and the greatest challenge to our powers of explanation.
2. What is/are the main difference/s between Milroy’s approach and that of the Neogrammarians (147-148)?
The main differences are: they are non social in character and Neogrammarians recognize the importance of present dialects -by spoken way- although they have written sources.
3. According to Milroy, what is language change dependent on (149)?
The change depends on the degree of internal cohesion of the community, and change from outside. It has to be maintained by social acceptance and social pressure.
4. Why does Milroy say that sound change actually doesn’t exist (150)?
Because we must consider the possibility that sound change is not triggered at this level: a sound change perceived by observes at the segmental level may be secondary phenomenon.
5. Why does Milroy disagree with Neogrammarians when they say that sound change is “blind” (150)?
Because sociolinguistics approaches are not very likely to give support to the idea of "blind necessity". Dichotomies are very important to the sound change.
6. What is meant by “lexical diffusion” (151)?
Lexicaldiffusion 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.
7. What does dialect displacement mean? Give an example. (152)
Dialect displacement is the displacement of one dialect by another which is, for some reason, socially dominant at some particular time in the history.
8. What are “community” or “vernacular” norms? What term that we have used in class is similar (152)?
The norms of language are maintained and enforced by social pressures. It is customary to think of these norms as standardizing norms. These norms manifest themselves at different levels of generality. So that, vernacular language is each one's mother language with its own norms (family language). The term we have used in class is 'non-standard'.
9. What does Milroy mean when he says that h-dropping may not ever reach “completion” (153)?
H-dropping is a colloquial term used to describe the "dropping" of initial "h" in words like "house", "heat", and "hangover" in many dialects of English, particularly in England. It is often regarded as a solecism but occurs in many other languages, such as French, Spanish, and Italian, where initial "h" was lost in standard spoken usage centuries ago.
H-dropping in English is found in all dialects in the weak forms of function words like he, him, her, his, had, and have; and, in most dialects, in all forms of the pronoun it the older form hit survives as the strong form in a few dialects such as Southern American English and also occurs in the Scots language. Because the /h/ of unstressed have is usually dropped, the word is usually pronounced /əv/ in phrases like should have, would have, and could have. These are usually spelled out as "should've", "would've", and "could've".
Even with the time it could only remain as a variable and never reach a complete change.
10. Explain what Milroy means by “speaker innovation” and change in the system. How are they connected (153)?
When a speaker innovates in a language he becomes a new language former. That speaker creates a new language. The innovation of a language is made by the speaker. But this innovation is a linguistic change. Innovation is an act of the speakers whereas a change is manifested within the language system.
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)?
Because borrowing words from another language implies a change of sound as
Neogrammarians say. This change happens but this
is a speaker-based social process rather than an intra-linguistic
one. It must be speakers rather than language who is going to permet the new
variants.
The main thing it needs is to be accepted by speakers and assume a social
pattern in the community.
I think this is a very political and also social thing, how we have to speak,
why and following what norms.
The principles on of historical linguistics have been largely based on the study
of uniform states and standard or near-standard languages. Therefore, changes
have frequently been envisaged as originating in languages or in fairy widely
spoken languages rather than in speech community. Saying so
it’s clear that this lead to believing in “blind necessity” because changes are
believed to be implemented in “languages” rather than speech community which a
sociolinguistic would say.
He says “clean data” to those norms imposed by standard language to follow
certain rules established and depending on powerful ideologies which promote
“correctness” and uniformity of usage. By the other hand, the vernacular
speakers we encounter is to a greater extend “dirty
data” since this data-base presents itself as irregular an chaotic.
