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

When the word meet changed from /me:t/ to /mi:t/ in English there did not seem to be any advantage in the fact that one sound was replaced by another. On the other hand, when the word them replaced hem it disambiguated the system. So, instead of having a lot of similar sounds like him, her hem, for example, we have him, her, them.

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

The difference is that the Neogrammarians focus on language as an object and do not take into consideration its speakers, while Milroy´s approach focuses on analysing speech and language.

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

Language change is dependent on the norms of usage in speech communities.He says that "it isn´t languages that change- it is speakers who change languages".

Why does Milroy say that sound change actually doesn´t exist (150)?

Because speech sounds do not physically change, what happens is that in the course of time one sound is substituted by another.

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

I think Milroy disagree with with the Neogrammarians when they say that sound change is blind because the speakers change the languages.

What is meant by lexical diffusion (151)?

Lexical diffusion is a socially gradual process and abrupt replacement pattern, by which a form changes and the new form is different from the older one.

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

When one particular variety of a language is displaced by another. He gives the example of New Zealand English which used to be very much like Southern British English but is now more like Australian English.

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

"Community" or "vernacular" norms are norms observed by speakers and maintained by communities often in opposition to standardizing norms which manifest themselves at different levels of generality.

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

H-dropping is common in Cockney. One might say it is the norm. However, throughout England /h/ is the norm. In other places, people use /h/ in certain contexts and not in others. Any change might stop or there may be a change back to a former system.

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

An innovation is an act of the speaker, whereas a change is manifested within the language system. A change in the system is originated by a speaker innovation.For a speaker innovation to become a change, it must be adopted by a speech 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 (154-6)?

The most predictable method for sound change is the contact between dialects. Bloomfield and the Neogrammarians think this is not sound- change proper because they tended equalize sound-change with internal innovation to the dialect concerned.

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

The spread of sounds can result from borrowing or a sudden replacement of one trill by another.

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

Because 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.

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

Standard varieties are engineered varieties of a language. In other words, the guardians of the language (for example, la RAE) dictate which words are allowed into a dictionary and which structures are permitted or not. This is clean data –it has been cleaned up. Dirty data, on the other hand, is when we describe a variety of a language –its inconsistencies such as, for instance, the examples we have seen in class in which both questions with and without do are found in the same variety. A diachronic example is John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress in which two ways of forming the interrogative exist: But why did not you look for the steps?/ How camest thou by the burden at first? Think of the pronunciations of dado /daðo/ and /dao/. Only one is standard but we all know that both coexist.