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

Answer the following questions using the book and other sources.

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

Because it is impossible to find any progress or benefit to the language or to the speaker in sound changes.In other words,for him,there isn’t any important function in these changes,the use of a vowel instead of another one is something arbitrary.

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

One difference is that for the Neogrammarians,contrary to Milroy, sound change is regular and it follows sound “laws”.And another difference is that the neogrammarians think that these sound changes aren’t noticed by the speakers because the change is very slow.

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

Language change is dependent on the degree of internal cohesion of the community(the extent to which it is bound by “strong ties”,wich resist change).

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

Milroy says that “speech sounds don’t physically change because what happens isn’t a change, but a substitution. In other words, speaker of a given dialect gradually starts to use the sound X in environment where they used to use the sound Y.

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

Because for Milroy the sound change is a social phenomenon, it comes out because of the speakers, in this way, it isn’t the language that change, but the speaker changes it. So, sound change is something socially gradual: from person to person, from community to community…

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

Lexical diffusion is a process that is socially gradual,it is abrupt replacement patterns ,it can be shown to be regular in some sense and in lexical diffusion the new form of a language (state B,after the change)differs from the older one (state A,before the change) markedly.

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

Dialect displacement is that a dialect is displaced by another one because for some reason it is socially more dominant at some particular time.

One example of a dialect displacement is the gradual displacement inflected West Midland dialects of Middle English by weakly inflected East Midland.

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

Language is, without any doubt, a normative phenomenon ,so, language has got norms that are codified and and legislated by the society.However,the existence of dialects of a language has provoke another norms: community or vernacular norms, that are maintained by communities often in opposition to standardizing norms.

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

What Milroy wants to say with h- h-dropping may not ever reach

“completion” is that there are sometimes where the direction of a change has not been determined ,this pattern of change is so, inconsistent and unpredictable ,in this way,for example,the h-dropping is a change that for this reason could persist as a variable state for 7 or 8 centuries without ever going to completion.

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

A speaker innovation is an act of the speaker, however, the change is manifested within the language system. For this reason, it is the speaker who innovates, not the language.In this way,it can be said that sound change moves gradually through a community,assuming a regular sociolinguistic pattern,instead of postulating gradual movement within the language system.However,they are connected because a speaker innovation leads a change that will be very noticeable in our language system.

11.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)?

We can say that with a sound change we don’t know if we are leading with some original event or with borrowings,each single event is equally abrupt.In this way,it is possible to affirm that each event of borrowing into a new speech community is just as much innovation as the presumed original event in the original speech community.

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

Sound changes have normally observed to spread gradually through the lexicon, due to borrowing or a sudden replacement of one trill by another. So,we must point out that what is necessary for a sound to spread is the society, because it is a social process.

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

From a sociolinguistic perspective, standard languages are not “normal” languages,because they are created by the imposition of political and military power, hence, the sound-patterns in them and the changes that come about in these sound patterns do not come about through blind necessity.

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

For Milroy “clean data” is the data which have already been largely normalized,and the “dirty data” is the result of sociolinguistics investigations and it is irregular and chaotic.

Go back