Answer the following questions using the book and other sources.
*Why does Milroy say that sound change appers to have no “obvious function or rational motivation” (146)?
Replacement of one vowel sound for another is arbitrary and there is no apparent profit or loss. There is no motivation for sound change even though they happen often.
Ex: me:t --> mi:t
*What is/are the main difference/s between Milroy’s approach and that of the Neogrammarians (147-148)?
Neogrammarias detach society from language, believing it is divorced from people. To them language is an autonomous organism. (it is a romantic, nationalist view of the language, making language have a destiny) For Milroy, language is changed by people. Human beings are related to language, thus making people change the language. This makes language a series of accidents.
*According to Milroy, what is language change dependent on? (149?)
Language changes consist in both the speakers and the acceptance in their communities
*Why does Milroy say that sound change actually doesn’t exist (150)?
Milroy states that speech sounds have no physically change; but one sound is replaced by another making speakers use the new sound. Thus, sound change does not exist because what happens is a result of social process.
*Why does Milroy disagree with the Neogrammarians when they say that sound change is “blind” (150)?
You cannot explain language by only reading linguistic. Sound change is not explainable as wholly linguistic phenomenon
*What is meant by “lexical diffusion” (151)?
Sound change spreads to certain groups of words with that sound. Some words change, but others remain the same. The new pronounciation is spread from one word to another.
*What does dialect displacement mean? Give an example. (152)
It is the displacement of one dialect by another that is socially dominant at some particular time. (For example the displacement of arabic in favour of valencian)
*What are “community” or “vernacular” norms? What term that we have used in class is similar (152)?
They are not imposed by politics but by people. Norms are maintained or imposed by social pressure. Sometimes they can imposed by the insitutions of society but we can recognize different dialects of a language, meaning that other norms exist appart from the orthodox norms, opposing to the standard language.
(term in class: non-standard)
*What does Milroy mean when he says that h-dropping may not ever reach “completion” (153)?
H-dropping (unacceptable). This phenomenon may not reach a consensus in the social norm when deciding whether to drop the age or not ( hello how are you?--> `ello `ow are you?) The influence of standard English makes be looked down on.
Completion: uncertain circumstances because of constraints and pressure.
*Explain what Milroy means by “speaker innovation” and change in the system. How are they connected (153)?
Milroy states that each single event of borrowing into a new speech community is just as much innnovation as the presumed original event in the original speech community. By accepting
*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)?
All sound change is implemented by being passed from speaker to speaker.
*Why does believing in the ideology of standardization lead to believing in “blind necessity” (158)?
The historical linguistic tradition has been influenced by the consequences of living in a standard language culture, affecting the judgements on the implementation and diffucion of sound change. Standard languages are not normal languages. Sound patterns in them and the changes that come about in these sound patterns do not come about through blind necessity, these language states are planned by human beings and maintained through prescription. The ideao that the sound changes differentiating these well-defines socially-constructed entities must always come about blindly and independent of socially based human interventions is absurd: it is another consequience of believing in the ideology of standarization
What does Milroy mean by “clean” and “dirty” data (158)?
Clean data comes from standard languages (although this is an idealization). Vernaculars encountered in speech communities provide dirty data, in other words, non-orthodox.