Leti's Castle

Nombre: Leticia Badía Torrente

Edad: 21 años

Carrera: Filología Inglesa, 4º año

E-mail: lele@alumni.uv.es

Exercise 1

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 appers to have no 'obvious function or rational motivation' (146)?

Because it doesn't seem to bring any progress or benefit to a language or its speakers, it's purely arbitrary.

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

Neogrammarians considered sound change to be regular and applicable to other similar items. Milroy considers that sound changes have normally been observed to spread gradually through the lexicon.

They also claim that regular sound change is phonetically gradual but lexically abrupt, that is, it proceeds by 'imperceptible degree'. Changes in pronunciation are not sudden, but too slow and slight to be noticed. This applies to all relevant items. Milroy says, following Ohala, that sound change is implemented in phonetic steps that are large enough to be detected or otherwise we couldn't detect it in progress.

Languages and speakers are separated. Changes are thus language internal. Milroy thinks it isn't languages that change, it is speakers who change languages.

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

Language changes depends on the degree of internal cohesion of the community (those bound by 'strong ties' will resist change). 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 (150)?

Because speech sounds do not physically change: they are subtituted for another sound. It's a social change which historical linguistics called sound change.

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

From a sociolinguistic perspective, standard languages are not 'normal' languages. These languages are planned by human beings and maintained through prescription, thus, the idea that sounds changes come about blindly and independently of socially-based human interevention is absurd.

What is meant by 'lexical diffusion' (151)?

In historical linguistics, lexical diffusion is both a phenomenon and a theory. The phenomenon is that by which a phoneme is modified in a subset of the lexicon, and spreads gradually to other lexical items. For example, in English, /uː/ has changed to /ʊ/ in good and hood but not in food; some dialects have it in hoof and roof but others do not; in flood and blood it happened early enough that the words were affected by the change of /ʊ/ to /ʌ/, which is now no longer productive. (from: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Lexical+diffusion)

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

Displacement of one dialect by another which is socially dominant at some particular time. E.g. West Midland dialects of Middle English were displaced by East Midland dialects.

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

Other norms apart from the standard ones, observed by speakers and maintained by communities often in opposition to standardizing norms.

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

Milroy notes that the starting point and the end-point of change are not necessarily uniform states: a change can persist as a variable state for several centuries without ever going to 'completion' in the traditional sense.

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. Changes in the system are produced by speakers innovations. Innovations are unstructured and irregular, not describable by quantitative os statistical methods. They might be observable, but it is not known that it will lead to a change and is probably thought to be an error or defective usage of some kind.

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 sound/change borrowing distinction is sometimes formulated as a distinction between 'internally' and 'externally' motivated change. It is a well motivated distinction in certain respects (vocabulary replacement), but it can be problematic at the level of phonological/morphological structure. Drawing the distinction between sound change and borrowing is difficult, as it relates to gradual and abrupt change.

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

For a change to take place it is necessary that the social conditions are favourable. A large number of weak ties must be present for linguistic changes to be communicated between people.

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

The principles of historical linguistics have been largely based on the study of uniform states and standard or near-standard languages. Therefore, changes have frequently been envisaged as originating in 'languages'. Standard languages are socio-political entities dependent on powerful ideologies which promote 'correctness' and uniformity of usage. They're not merely structural, physical entities, so the idea that sound changes come about independently of socially-based human definition is false.

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

Clean data refers to largely normalized data, wheres dirty data refers to raw data.