§ 33. Words with ā in Scand.
this is my webpage for introduction of the history of the english language
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Milroy; Linguistic variation and change questions
What is more common in language uniformity or variability?
Variability is more common in language. Because language is not a uniform entity and is not fixed, it is always changing along the time. It is influenced by social aspects as the use that speakers do of it, interference of other languages,etc.
“It is also true that at any given time a language is variable. Languages are never uniform entities.” (James Milroy)
What kinds of variability exist?
Variability in language can depend on different aspects as geographical, historical and social.
How do we decide if a particular group of speakers belong to a particular dialect or language?
Because they should have some common characteristics in the way they speak. We might observe their grammar, their use of vocabulary, their pronunciation and even their register. We can also know if they belong to a particular dialect or language because of the geographic, historical or political aspects in their language.
Saussure emphasized the importance of synchronic descriptions of languages rather than diachronic. He and his disciples (structuralists) focused on language at different periods as finite entities. Is this reasonable?
No, I think it is unreasonable because language is always changing and synchronic descriptions are focused on states of language at certain periods; then language is treated as a finite entitie to be easy to theorize about it; but as a variable entitie as it is diachronic view is most productive, because analizes language comparing the finite states that a it has at different periods.
“we may, of course, choose to ignore this and treat language for descriptive purposes as if it were a uniform and unchanging phenomenon”
“we can liken a synchronic description to a still photograph and a historical description (diachronic) to a comparison of a series of still photographs taken at different times. In reality, however, the history of language is a continuous process: it is not a series of stills, but a moving picture.” ( James Milroy)
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?
No, it is not abnormal, because along the history, language as always been in changing process and it might be a transitional stage between one state and another. This does not make linguistic change look abnormal but a process on which we can find stated periods and other periods that we can call defective, because there is a transition, language progress in order to adapt to the new situations and society.
“a difficulty arises in the (unattested) intervening stage between one state (state A) and another (state B), as it appears that in this transitional stage the cohesiveness of the state A structure has been to some extent violated. From this point of view, therefore, we may be inclined to think of language as being perfectly structured at some times but flawed at other times…”(James Milroy)
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.”
Can you think of any example of non-professional attitudes to your own language?
As in every language, there are non-professional attitudes in Spanish. One good example could be the use of “le” instead of “lo/la” as a O.D and with transitive verbs.
E.g. (Leísmo) Pedro “le” cogió por detrás. (Standard) Pedro “la/lo” cogió por detrás.
Other example can be the use of the stucture “si+condicional” that is commonly used in the nort of Spain, as in :
E.g. “si yo sería alto…” “si tendría una casa…” instead of: “si yo fuera alto/ si tubiera una casa”
Another good example can be the way that in Andalucia do not speak as it is written:
E.g. “esa casa es mui grande” → eza caza e mu grande
Why does Milroy use “scare quotes” around non-standard and errors?
Milroy uses scare quotes around non-standard and errors because he does not accept the term, expressing skepticism that its use is appropiate, suggesting that its use is potentially ironic, or making some other criticism of its use. This serve to distance the writer from the quoted words and indicate that they are someone else’s terminology or to otherwise implicitly disavow them.
Are non-standard dialects “incorrect, irregular, ungrammatical and deviant.”?
Non standard dialects are seen as incorrect variants of language, but they are established languages and the fact that they have their own grammar, syntax and vocabulary structure, that they can show upper or lower level of formality, that they can be involved in one register or another and that they may be spoken with different accents does not mean that they are incorrect, ungrammatical or inferior to those called “standard”.
Which of these systems is more irregular? Why?
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Myself Yourself Himself Herself Ourselves Themselves |
Myself Yourself Hisself Herself Ourselves Theirselves |
The first column is more irregular even being the “standard” form, because for example in ‘himself’ there is a change for the‘s’ of the possesive form of the pronoun to an ‘m’ when in the other column it is just the pronoun itself plus ‘self’ or ‘selves’ being more regular even being non-standard form.
“…much of the change generally accepted body of knowledge on which theories of change are based depends on quite narrow interpretation of written data and econtextualized citation forms (whether written or spoken), rather than on observation of spoken language in context (situated speech). ( Milroy 1992: 5) Why do you think this is so?
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?
Of course descriptions of a language involves norms; but there are not very strict norms that must be followed always, because speakers sometimes decide whether it is apropiate or not in a concrete situation to use one form or another (Idiolects). These norms should be a consensus of the community of speakers.
“ the decisions (or judgements) we are talking about are decisions (or judgements) about the ‘norms’ of the variety concerned, and these norms are social in the sense that they are agreed on socially – they depend on consensus among speakers within the community or communities concerned and will differ from one community to another.”
“It is not a matter of grammaticality or ungrammaticality of the usage for all speakers of English; it is a matter of accurately describing what is agreed on by speakers in the community concerned as the consensus norm of that community” (James Milroy)
Any description of a language needs some series of norms to help to build a well structured language, because without them it would be impossible to communicate among people even being speakers of the same language.
He ate the pie already:
· It is for most speakers of (British) English ‘barely acceptable’; it might be acceptable in colloquial English.
He has eaten the pie already
· It is for (British) English speakers ‘fine’; it should be used in more formal contexts.
What is the difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammars?
Descriptive grammar: a descriptive grammar looks at the way a language is actually used by its speakers and then attempts to analyse it and formulate rules about the structure. Descriptive grammar does not deal with what is good or bad language use; forms and structures that migth not be used by speakers of Standard English would be regarded as valid and included. It is a grammar based on the way a language actually is and not how some think it should be.
Prescriptive grammar: a prescriptive grammar lays out rules about the structure of a language. Unlike a descriptive grammar it deals with what the grammarian believes to be right and wrong, good or bad language use; not following the rules will generate incorrect language. Both types of grammar have their supporters and their detractors, which in all probability suggests that both have their strengths and weaknesses.
http://www.usingenglish.com/glossary/prescriptive-grammar.html
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 can be observed, or which must be posited, between my two forms of a language defined for a language community at different times” Weinreich, Labov and Herzog 1968: 101)
What do you think the “prestige motivation for change and the “solidarity constraint” mean? How are they opposed?
Prestige related Social Identity motivations are evident when people choose to use or acquire a language variety (dialect or language) in order to associate themselves with a prestige group who normally uses that form. They are also present when people choose to not use or to not acquire a language variety (dialect or language) in order to disassociate themselves with a low prestige group who normally uses that form.
Solidarity related Social Identity motivations are evident when people choose to use or acquire a language variety (dialect or language) in order to create or maintain a solidarity bond with an individual, group, culture or sub-culture.
They are opposed because in the first one, the speaker wants to pretend that he/she belongs to an upper group, using forms that his/her own group does not or to pretend not to be associated with his/her own group using forms typical of other dialect or language, to show the social status; and in the second one, the speaker changes his/her own variety to a lower one to create a solidarity with speakers of this one, because we adapt our language depending on the social context.
The first one has to be with individuality whereas the second is a way to unify the society.
Sound change: post-vocalic /r/ in New York. The change from long ā to long ō in some dialects of English.
“Linguistic change is to be understood more broadly as changes in consensus on norms of usage in a speech community”. (James Milroy)
post-vocalic /r/ in New York.
Most speakers of North American English are rhotic, but others are not, as parts of New England, especially Boston, are non-rhotic as well as New York City and surrounding areas. The case of New York is especially interesting because of a classic study in sociolinguistics by William Labov showing that the non-rhotic accent is associated with older and middle- to lower-class speakers, and is being replaced by the rhotic accent.
The change from long ā to long ō in some dialects of English.
The father-bother merger is a merger of the Early Modern English vowels /ɑː/ and /ɒ/ that occurs in almost all varieties of North American English (exceptions are accents in northeastern New England, such as the Boston accent, and in New York City). In those accents with the merger father and bother rhyme, and Kahn and con are homophonous as [kɑn]. Unrounding of EME /ɒ/ is found also in Norwich, the West Country, the West Midlands and in Hiberno-English, but apparently with no phonemic merger
“Traditional codifications of sound-change have generally focused on sound-segments as they ‘change’ across the time. Thus - to simplify – a linguistic change can be described as a change from A to B in some lexical set, such as that of Old English [aː] in stan, ham, which in the course of time ‘becomes’ an [oː] – like vowel in PresE (Present English) stone, home”. (James Milroy)
“There are two kinds of organic change. The first, called Isolative occurs where there is a gradual development from one generation to another, extending sometimes over centuries, and often unnoticed by the speakers of the language or dialect. An Isolative change in any given dialect carries with it the great body of words which have in their initial stage the same accented vowel sound. For instance, in Primitive Old English — i.e. the form of English from which all English dialects, provincial or literary, are derived — the word bān (bone) had the sound of ā as in our Mod.Eng. father. In the North of England and in Scotland at an early period the sound, while still retaining its length, began to approach that of a [a] as in Mod.Eng. (Northern standard) pat; then it became [æ] as in Mod.Sth.Eng. pat [pæt], then e [ɛ] as in Mod.Eng. pet, then [e] as in Mod.Eng. pate. Thus we have our Mod.Sc. bane, stane, with variations in the Scottish dialects. In the Middle and South of England, on the other hand, this Primitive Old English ā sound became deeper and fuller, and at length, by the action of rounding in the lips and in the back-opening of the mouth, developed into a broad o sound [ɔ], so that even before the time of Chaucer bān was pronounced as [bɔ:n]. The difference between this sound and King Alfred’s bān was so marked that Chaucer wrote it always with an o symbol, but in The Reeve’s Tale he represented it, in the mouth of the northern students, by the letter a. Examples; na, ham, swa, gas, fra, for no, home, so, goes, from. The other O.E. long vowels, e, i, y, o, underwent similar isolative changes”
§ 33. Words with ā in Scand.
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§ 34. When O.E. ā was followed by w, ā becomes in Mod. Sc. either [ɑ:] or [o̜:]. The spelling for either is au or, when final, aw, but for [ɑ:] aa is found in some of the dialects.
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§ 34.2. When O.E. āg was followed by a vowel, g was pronounced as a voiced fricative and developed into w — e.g.
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So, late O.E. lāh = low from Scand. lār became law- in oblique cases and gave rise to Mod.Sc. law in lawland(s), shortened into lallan(s). Lāh gave rise to Mod.Sc. laich but we find in O.Sc. forms like lawche where the vowel of the oblique cases has been transferred to the nominative form. See § 30.
§ 35. Words with ō in O.E.
O.E. ō. — m.bk.t.r., Middle Sc. o’ oi, u, u + cons. +e, ui. ō at an early period began to shift forward in the mouth until it became a front vowel like the Fr. eu [ø] = m.fr.t.r. Generally when the vowel was in final position, or occurred before [r, z, ð, v,] it remained [ø], but before other consonants it was raised to or towards the high front position, and became lax, resembling the Ger. ü in hütte. It is a fact that when ui (O.E., Rom., or Scand. in origin) is unrounded in some Mod. dialects — e.g. em.Sc.,wm.Sc. — two distinct vowels are the result — e.g. guid becomes gid, brute becomes brit, shune becomes shin, use (n.) becomes yis, but ruise (= praise) becomes raise [re:z], muir becomes mair [me:r], use (v.) becomes yaise [je:z], shoe becomes shae [ʃe:]. In the dialects of Ags. and the Mearns and of Ork. and Sh. the ui vowel has the same value in all words where it occurs — i.e. m.fr.t.r. = [ø]. When it is unrounded by younger speakers in Ags. and the Mearns the result is the same for a] words — viz. [e1 or e]. Sometimes in other dialects there is a mixing of the two classes, generally by the working of analogy. See § 30.
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§35.5. When followed by w, the diphthong ow [ʌu] is the result.
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§ 35.6. When followed by a back consonant [x] or [k], a diphthong [iu, ju or jʌ] is most common, though some dialects have simple [u] or [ø]
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http://www.dsl.ac.uk/INTRO/intro2.php?num=07
Actuation: Why did /k/ palatalize before certain front vowels? PrsE: cheese, German käse and English/Norse doublets shirt/skirt?
Palatalization or palatalisation generally refers to two phenomena:
Palatalization may be a synchronic phonological process, i.e., some phonemes are palatalized in certain contexts, typically before front vowels or especially high front vowels, and remain non-palatalized elsewhere. This is usually phonetic palatalization, as described above, but need not to be. It is usually allophonic and it may go unnoticed by native speakers. As an example, compare the /k/ of English key with the /k/ of coo, or the /t/ of tea with the /t/ of took. The first word of each pair is palatalized, but few English speakers would perceive them as distinct.
The variation might be seen as allophonic variation as long as the "palatal" sound causing the palatalization is there. However, syncope or elision might delete this sound, and thus only the palatalization remains as a distinct feature.
“Amongst the continental Scandinavian languages Swedish and Norwegian have palatalization of Old Norse /k/, whereas Danish now usually has a velar, Old English underwent palatalization before front vowels whereas Old High German and Old Norse did not: hence PresE cheese for German käse and English/Norse doublets in PresE such as shirt/skirt; what we observe here are conflicting patterns of change and stability in languages and dialects of similar structure. In these examples it seems that the proximity of the velar consonant to a front vowel may be a necessary condition for palatalization, but as it does not happen in every case, it is not a sufficient condition, also social aspects have to do with it”. (James Milroy)
What is the biological metaphor in language change?
“Creativity in language in developing new forms is attributed by Max Müller (1881: 33) not to the creativity of speakers, but to the ‘marvellous power of language’ itself: according to him ‘it is not the power of man either to produce or prevent’ linguistic change. Müller’s adoption of the biological metaphor is so strongly stared that for him it does not seem to have been a metaphor at all: linguistics, according to Müller, is literally a physical science on a par with geology, botany and biology, and not a historical science, such as art, morals or religion.”
“The metaphor has weakened since Müller wrote, but there have been many publications on language history since then that have been based on the idea of the independent ‘life’ of language. Indeed, the metaphor is by no means dead: this is amply demonstrated by continued references in recent work to ‘language birth’, ‘language death’ and the ‘roots’ of language.”
“The metaphor has been largely replaced since the nineteenth century by a new metaphor based on the machine age: language is now more often seen as a self-contained system, like a working machine.”
“Whereas the nineteenth-century metaphor could readily incorporate the idea of change (as language was said to have ‘growth’ within it, like a plant), this system-based approach cannot so easily do so.”
(James Milroy)
What is the difference between internal and external histories of a language?
“Possibly as a result of the emphasis on internal language systems, descriptive accounts (such as histories of English) commonly separate the internal history of a language from its external history (that is, the political, social and attitudinal contexts of language). Thus, some historical accounts of English, such as Wyld (1927), have been mainly internal (typically focusing on sound-change and morphological change), whereas others (such as McKnight, 1928) have been about the external history of the language, discussing, for example, speaker-attitudes to variation as they were expressed by seventeenth – and eighteenth-century commentators. However it is commonly believed that the ‘real’ history of a language is its internal system-based history and that the external history is relatively unimportant.”
“In most respects ‘external’ accounts do not help to explain changes in linguistic structure”.
“He further states that ‘at the structural level there is no connection between language and society’ and that ‘the internal life of language is close to autonomous’. My position, which I shall further develop below, is – on the contrary – that we cannot hope to explain change without inquiring into social factors.”
(James Milroy)
Look up Neogrammarians and lexical diffusion. Why are they often found in the same paragraph or chapter?
They are often found in the same paragraph or chapter because both are hypothesis about sound change; the first ( the Neogrammarian exceptionlessness hypothesis) sais that sound-change operates blindly and without exceptions, that the relevant class of items all undergo the change at the same time, that is, that sound-change is phonetically gradual and lexically sudden whether the lexical diffusion model holds that sound-changes may be lexically gradual.
lexical diffusion: “in a change from /eː/ to /iː/ (such as the Early Modern English change in words of the type meat, peace, leave), items are tranferred to the new class at differential rates, often leaving a residue of items that do not get transferred (in this case such words as great, break, steak).” (James Milroy)
Neogrammarian change = low-level output rules, e.g. /t/ realised as [ts]
Lexical diffusion change = redistribution of abstract word class into other classes
Not necessarily so neat: e.g. social conditioning
The Neogrammarian hypothesis was the first hypothesis of sound change to attempt to follow the principle of falsifiability according to scientific method. Today this hypothesis is considered more of a guiding principle than an exceptionless fact, as numerous examples of lexical diffusion (where a sound change affects only a few words at first and then gradually spreads to other words) have been attested.
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Neogrammarian
The Neogrammarians stated that changes are automatic and mechanical, and therefore cannot be observed or controlled by the speakers of the language. They found that what sounds like a single "sound" to a human ear is actually a collection of very similar sounds. They call these similar sounds "low-level deviation" from an "idealized form". They argue that language change is simply a slow shift of the "idealized form" by small deviations.
The obvious problem here is that without some kind of reinforcement, the deviation might go back and forth and cancel out any change. Then the Neogrammarians patched this theory by adding reasons for reinforcing the deviation such as simplification of sounds, or children imperfectly learning the speech of their parents.
Look up social norm-enforcement, childish errors and slips of the tongue. What have they to do with language change?
Childish errors and slips of the tongue might be causes of innovation and eventually of change. Social norm-enforcement normally makes it less difficult for innovations to take hold.
Indoeuropean Transcription
Radio sunrise serves a West London community of mixed races, Punjabi speakers in the middle of an English suburb. What could these two languages, Punjabi and English, have in common? In fact, English and Punjabi as well as other languages of northern India like Hindi and Gujurati are related; something discovered by chance two hundred years ago by a miltilingual English lawyer, Sir William Jones.
Professor Colin Renfrew: “He was a judge who went out to India in 1783, but he had studied languages, oriental languages, before he went; and when he got to India he became very interested and learned Sanskrit, which is the language of ancient India which was first written about 500 A.D and then he realised, he made this great discovery that Sanskrit resembles in somewhere, has relationships with Greek and Latin and other languages and he gave a very famous discourse in which he said that this was sprang from some common source.
It’s surprising that no one bothered the resemblances earlier. Take the numbers again, for example.
The Sanskrit, on the right, base a strong resemblance to Latin and Greek, on the left. While one, two and three are obvious, four and five need a closer look to spot the connection. Linguists have discovered rules that govern how sounds in different languages are related. Look at the words for four; this is one of many examples where a word beginning with ‘q’ in Latin say, is similar to a Greek word beginning with ‘ t ‘ and a Sanskrit word beginning with ‘k’. These sound correspondences can reveal how apparently unrelated languages are members of the same family.
Don Ringe Jr: “The question is how can you tell that the languages you’re looking at reflect a single original language and therefore form a family. The only way you can do that is by finding sistematic similarities between these languages in every area of their grammar: similarities in sounds, similarities in their inflexions, in the syntax of the language and so forth, and the similarities have to be very precise and they have to be interlocking for the assertion that these languages form a family to be believable. You take a look at an English word like ‘tooth’ and see that in India ‘dant’ and that by itself that doesn’t mean that much. But you take a look at English ‘ten’ and it shows up at Hindi as ‘das’ and you see the same pattern emerging, you’ve got an initial ‘t’ in English and an initial ‘d’ in Hindi; when you find that the word ‘two’ though, the numeral, in English shows up in Hindi as ‘do’ and you’ve got once again an initial ‘t’ in English and an initial ‘d’ in Hindi, you begin to think that perhaps this is not an accident.”
Linguists have now established that a whole range of languages stretching from Iceland to India form one family called indo-European; they can even reconstruct an earlier ancestor of these languages, proto-Indoeuropean.
James Milroy: some new perspectives on sound change: sociolinguistics and the Neogrammarians
Why does Milroy say that sound change appers to have no “obvious function or rational motivation”?
Milroy says that sound change appers to have no obvious function or rational motivation because some changes are not cause for necesity or for benefit to the language or the speakers at all.
“ in a change from [e:] to [i:], for example ( as meet, need, keen) 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, there is apparently no profit and no loss.” (James Milroy)
What is/are the main difference/s between Milroy’s approach and that of the Neogrammarians?
One difference between Milroy and the Neogrammarians is that Neogrammarians think that sound change is ‘regular, that is, that sound ‘laws’ have no exceptions whether Milroy says “there is no evidence to support the Neogrammarian assumption that in regular sound change all items in the affected set change at the same time. On the contrary, sound changes have normally been observed to spread gradually through the lexicon”.
Other main difference between Milroy’s approach and that of the Neogrammarians is that for the Neogrammarians regular sound change is phonetically gradual but lexically abrupt.
“ The change from Middle English /e:/ to later English /i:/ is assumed not to have been sudden: according to this view, speakers pronouncing these words did not make a sudden leap across phonetic space from [e:] to [i:], the change was so slow and so slight at any given time that it was not noticed by speakers. It is also assumed to have affected all relevant items in the same way at the same time: they all start off from [e:] and, after a slow progress, all reach [i:] at the same time” “I do not think that this is a plausible scenario for sound change”
Other main difference is that Neogrammarians are non-social in character and, although they recognized the importance of listening to present-day dialects, their main sources are written whether Milroy believes that it is in the localized variety, rather than in the ‘language’ that can be identify change in progress.
“As for example, scholars now have access to bilingual and multilingual speech communities, in which cross-language patterns of variation can be studied. These approaches strongly question the principle that linguistic change is best studied by reference to monolingual states as the Neogrammarians and others have assumed.”
According to Milroy, what is language change dependent on?
“It is assumed that a linguistic change is embedded in a context of language (or dialect) maintenance. The degree to which change is admitted will depend on the degree of internal cohesion of the community.”
“It also follows that if a change persists in the system, it has again to be maintained by social acceptance and social pressure.”
Why does Milroy say that sound change actually doesn’t exist?
Milroy says that 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 enviroments where speakers formerly used sound Y. Historical linguistic scholars then observe the result of this essentially social process and apply the term sound change to the phenomenon.
“what historical linguists actually observe in data from the past is not a sound change but a diachronic correspondence”
Why does Milroy disagree with the Neogrammarians when they say that sound change is “blind”?
Because ir isn’t languages that change -it is speakers who change languages. Such view is obviously a very long distance away from the Neogrammarian notion that sound change is “blind”. It does not make sense, from this perspective, to say that sound change is phonetically gradual either.
What is meant by “lexical diffusion”?
The principle of social gradualness supersedes the binary division between ‘regular’ sound change and lexical diffusion. Both processes are socially gradual, both are abrupt replacement patterns, and both can be shown to be regular in some sense. The difference between them in terms of phonetic change now becomes one of greater or lesser phonetic distance between State A (before the change) and State B (after the change). What we have traditionally called gradual phonetic change differs from lexical diffusion in that the new form differs only slightly from the older one, whereas in lexical diffusion it differs markedly.
What does dialect displacement mean? Give an example.
Dialect displacement means displacement of one dialect by another which is, for some reason, socially dominant at some particular time.
E.g
What are “community” or “vernacular” norms? What term that we have used in class is similar?
There are other norms that exist apart from the standard ones, and these norms are observed by speakers and maintained by communities often in opposition to standarizing norms. These norms are what we call “community norms or vernacular norms”.
These norms manifest themselves at different levels of generality.Some of them, for example, characterize the dialect as a whole and are recognized by outsiders as markers of that dialect. Others, however, are hardly accessible except by quantitative methods and may function within the community as makers of internal social differences, for example, gender-difference.
Another way of putting it is to say that Community norms can be variable norms -in contrast to standard norms, which are invariant.
What does Milroy mean when he says that h-dropping may not ever reach “completion”?
Milroy means here that there’s not going to be a fixed norm for everybody respect to /h/ dropping, because even with an establishment of the social norm there will always be some people who would drop the /h/ and some who would not.
Explain what Milroy means by “speaker innovation” and change in the system. How are they connected?
To Milroy speaker innovation is an act of the speaker, and that this innovation is unstructured and irregular and not describable by quantitive or statistical methods; whereas change in the system is manifested within the language system.
It is speakers and not languages that innovate, and that’s why for a speaker-innovation to become a change, it must be adopted by some community.
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?
In order to specify the conditions under which some innovations, and not others, are admitted into linguistic systems as linguistic changes we must take into account that a linguistic change is by definition a sociolinguistic phenomenon: it occurs for reasons of marking social identity, stylistic difference and so on. Now, if we think in Neogrammarian terms about sound change and borrowing, we must accept that all sound change depends on a process of borrowing. Change is negotiated between speakers, who borrow new forms from one another. The main implication of the innovation/change distinction is what an innovation is accepted by a speech community, the process involved is a borrowing one: all sound change is implemented by being passed-borrowed- from speaker to speaker
What is necessary for a sound to spread?
All sound change is implemented by being passed from speaker to speaker, and it is not a linguistic change until it has assumed a social pattern of some kind in a speech community. Also we must accept that all sound change depends on a process of borrowing; as close social ties tend to maintain stability, a large number of weak ties must be present for linguistic changes to be communicated between people.
A linguistic change is a change in linguistic structure which necessarily has a social distribution, if it does not manifest such a distribution, it should not be counted as a linguistic change.
Why does believing in the ideology of standardization lead to believing in “blind necessity”?
If you believe in blind necessity you must believe that there is an entity –the standard- that is changing through internal forces that have nothing to do with speakers.
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) whereas dialects and not standardized languages have fuzzy boundaries and are indeterminate. The idea that the sound changes differentiating these well-defined socially-constructed entities must always happen blindly and independently of sociall-based human interventions is consequences of believing in the ideology of standardization. It means that language evolves for itself
What does Milroy mean by “clean” and “dirty” data?
Clean data is offered by standard languages; data which have already been largely normalized.
Dirty data is data offered by vernaculars; it is irregular and chaotic.
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