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

Answer the following questions using the book and other sources.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)?

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

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

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