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 he says that sound change is arbitrary and not obey any logical reason or rule.

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

The main difference between the approach of the Neogrammarians and Milroy is that the first focuses on language as an object, and do not take into consideration the speakers of the language. Milroy  thinks that is important to analise speech and language in social contexts.

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

Language change depends on the localized variety of the language.

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

Because he says that sound change doesn´t occur in a literal sense or physical way.

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

Because Neogrammarians not take into consideration the social dimension of language into the internal processes of change.

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

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

Lexican diffusion explains the manner in which a phoneme variation can affect all the language system.

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

di·a·lect  

n.
1.
a. A regional or social variety of a language distinguished by pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, especially a variety of speech differing from the standard literary language or speech pattern of the culture in which it exists: Cockney is a dialect of English.
b. A variety of language that with other varieties constitutes a single language of which no single variety is standard: the dialects of Ancient Greek.
2. The language peculiar to the members of a group, especially in an occupation; jargon: the dialect of science.
3. The manner or style of expressing oneself in language or the arts.
4. A language considered as part of a larger family of languages or a linguistic branch. Not in scientific use: Spanish and French are Romance dialects.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dialect

Dialect displacement is the displacement of one dialect by another which is, for one or other reason, socially dominant at some particular time. In the text, Milroy refers to the gradual displacement of heavily inflected West Midland dialects of Middle English by weakly inflected East Midland dialects.

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

ver·nac·u·lar

n.
1. The standard native language of a country or locality.
2.
a. The everyday language spoken by a people as distinguished from the literary language. See Synonyms at dialect.
b. A variety of such everyday language specific to a social group or region: the vernaculars of New York City.
3. The idiom of a particular trade or profession: in the legal vernacular.
4. An idiomatic word, phrase, or expression.
5. The common, nonscientific name of a plant or animal.
adj.
1. Native to or commonly spoken by the members of a particular country or region.
2. Using the native language of a region, especially as distinct from the literary language: a vernacular poet.
3. Relating to or expressed in the native language or dialect.
4. Of or being an indigenous building style using local materials and traditional methods of construction and ornament, especially as distinguished from academic or historical architectural styles.
5. Occurring or existing in a particular locality; endemic: a vernacular disease.
6. Relating to or designating the common, nonscientific name of a plant or animal.
 
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/vernacular
Vernacular norms can be identified as the local norms agreed on socially by the members of a particular speech community.

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

Maybe he want to say that this sound-change can´t be adopted by all the members of a speech community and in fact of this can´t be considered as standar.

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

This innovation is the participation in an active way from the speaker in the language.

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)?

Milroy says that the process of a community of speakers accepting the replacement of one sound by another through speaker innovation is based on a borrowing in the speaker level. The innovation spreads through the borrowing from one speaker to another.

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

That all sound change must be socially conditioned because we can´t consider that a linguistic change in a sound  occurs until this sound is addopted by one than more speaker.

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

Standardization is the process of establishing a technical standard, which could be a standard specification, standard test method, standard definition, standard procedure (or practice), etc.

The existence of a published standard does not necessarily imply that it is useful or correct. Just because an item is stamped with a standard number does not, by itself, indicate that the item is fit for any particular use. The people who use the item or service (engineers, trade unions, etc) or specify it (building codes, government, industry, etc) have the responsibility to consider the available standards, specify the correct one, enforce compliance, and use the item correctly. Validation of suitability is necessary.

In the context of social criticism and social sciences, standardization often means the process of establishing standards of various kinds and improving efficiency to handle people, their interactions, cases, and so forth. Examples include formalization of judicial procedure in court, and establishing uniform criteria for diagnosing mental disease. Standardization in this sense is often discussed along with (or synonymously to) such large-scale social changes as modernization, bureaucratization, homogenization, and centralization of society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization

Standar languages are not normal languages because they are created by the imposition of  strong powers like the militar or political power. So, the sound-patterns in them and the changes that come about in these sound patterns do not come about through blind necessity.

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

Whereas standard languages provide us with relatively ‘clean’ data which have already been normalized, the vernaculars that we can find in speech communities are intractable: the data we find is  a extent ‘dirty’ data.