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)?
Milroy refers to sound change as probably the
most mysterious change in language, as it appears to have no obvious function
or rational motivation. He then says that certain changes, for example from
[e:] to [i:], do not benefit the language or its speakers.
What is/are the
main difference/s between Milroy’s approach and that of the Neogrammarians
(147-148)?
The Neogrammarian movement is based on the idea
that sound change is regular and therefore, that sound laws have no exceptions.
They also think that regular sound change is phonetically gradual but lexically
abrupt. Milroy does not agree with these ideas because he defends that linguistics must use some rules. He also says that the
Neogrammarian axioms are still very much to the fore in several branches of
linguistic inquiry.
According to
Milroy, what is language change dependent on? (149?)
A linguistic change is
situated in a context of language “maintenance”. The degree to which
change is admitted will depend on the degree of internal cohesion of the
community.
Why
does Milroy say that sound change actually does not exist (150)?
Milroy says that sound change
actually does not exist because one sound does not change physically. The only
thing that happens is that this sound is substituted by another sound in the
course of time.
Why does Milroy
disagree with the Neogrammarians when they say that sound change is “blind”
(150)?
Milroy does not conceive the change sound without the intervention of the speakers
and ‘’blind’’ sound change is produced for internal language processes which are
independent with respect to the speakers.
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.
http://www.answers.com/topic/lexical-diffusion
Milroy distinguishes between phonetic change in a word and lexical
diffusion, which differs from the first one.
What does dialect
displacement mean? Give an example. (152)
Dialect displacement is a
displacement of one dialect by another which is, for some reason, socially
dominant at some particular time. In the text, Milroy gives the example of the
gradual displacement of heavily
What are
“community” or “vernacular” norms? What term that we have used in class is
similar (152)?
Community norms are norms that exist apart from the standard ones, and
are also 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)?
He is referring to the fact that while the practise of “h-dropping” is
commonly used, it is possible that speakers will never find this usage as
normative.
Explain what
Milroy means by “speaker innovation” and change in the system. How are they
connected (153)?
The distinction between innovation and change is the distinction between
speaker innovation and linguistic change. But for a speaker innovation to
become a change, must be adopted by some community. It must pass from one
speaker to others. The adoption of the linguistic change depends at the
speaker-level on a process of borrowing.
Therefore, the implantation of a sound change depends on the borrowing
of an innovation.
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)?
Because both processes are patterns of linguistic change.
What is necessary
for a sound to spread (157)?
All sound change is implemented by being passed from speaker to speaker
and through the lexicon; but it is not a linguistic change until more than one
speaker has adopted it. The spread of the change is by borrowing and implied
that the spread therefore does not involve sudden replacement.
Why does believing
in the ideology of standardization lead to believing in “blind necessity”
(158)?
Standard languages are not “normal” languages and 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)?
Milroy refers to
clean data what is exposed in a standard style and is normalized while dirty
data refers to abnormal languages, as vernacular languages.