James Milroy: Some new perspectives on sound change: sociolinguistics and the Neogrammarians. 146-160.

Answer the following quiestions using the book and other sources.

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

Because he says that the sound change is probably the most mysterious aspect of change in language.

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

The main differences between Milroy’s approach and that of the Neogrammarians are that they tend to be dichotomous and they are non-social in character.

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) ?

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

Because it is obvious that sociolinguistics approaches, which necessarily deal with speakers, are not very likely to give support to the idea of "blind necessity".

6.- What is meant by “lexical diffusion” ?

Is that all sound changes originate in a single word or a small group of words and then spread to other words with a similar phonological make-up, but may not spread to all words in which they potentially could apply. The theory of lexical diffusion stands in contrast to the Neogrammarian hypothesis that a given sound change applies simultaneously to all words in which its context is found.

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

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

In a paper on /h/ - dropping a change can persist as a variable state for seven or eight centuries without ever going to ‘completion’ in the traditional sense.

9.- Why isn’t borrowing from one language to another and the replacement of one sound by another through spearket innovation with a language as radically different as the Neogrammarians posited (154-6) ?

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

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

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

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