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

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

-Because sound change is arbitrary and does not obey to any logical reason or rule.He believes that change in language appears to have no obvious function or rational motivation since it’s impossible to see any progress or benefit to the language or it’s speakers, so to say, there is no profit and no loss.He gives us an example of the change from [e:] to [i:] (as in such items as meet, keen, need).

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

-The Neogrammararians didn't take into account the language embedded into a social context. Their approach was to explain the sound change analizing the language as an object. Instead, Milroy's approach was to explain how linguistic change is performed by social communities which interact with the language as a single element.The second difference consists on the sources they lay on. While the grammarians used mainly written sources, Milroy prefers to consider records and listening.

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

-Milroy insist on the methodological priority of the study of language maintenance over the study of language change. It’s assumed that linguistic change is embedded in a context of language (or dialect)maintenance. The degree to which change is admitted will depend on the degree of internal cohesion of the community (the extend to which it’s bound by “strong tie” which resist change.

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

-Becuase "speech sounds" do not physically change: what happens is that in the course of time one sound is substituted for another; speakers of a given dialect gradually and variable begin to use one new sound in environments where speakers formerly used an old sound instead. Historical linguistic scholar then observe the result of this essentially social process and apply the term sound change to the phenomenon

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

-Milroy disagrees with Neogrammarians in the way they believe that linguistic change is language-internal, independent of speakers. Sociolinguistic deals necessarily with speakers of a community.

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

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

-There are patterns of dialect displacement – displacement of one dialect by another which is socially dominant at some particular time. For example, the gradual displacement of heavily inflected West Midland dialects of Middle English by weakly inflected West Midland dialects

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

-The OED (Oxford English Dictionary) gives the following definition of the term “vernacular”: “that writes, uses, or speaks the native or indigenous language of a country or district” and Community: a group of people living together in one place, especially one practicing common ownership “for example the language).Therefore, vernacular norms can be identified as the local norms agreed on socially by the members of a particular speech community, which typically differ from other norms belonging to other communities and thus give rise to the coexistence of several varieties (dialects) within the same language. The term that we have used in class that is similar is "dialect" or “accents”

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

-In this paragraph Milroy intended to say that the linguistic change always follow a pattern according to the social status of people (age, sex, social status, job…). But all this linguistic changes can end up becoming standard or not. For example, the h-dropping has been a variable state for centuries without succeeding to become a regular state.

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

-When a speaker innovates in a language he develops the former, he enlarges its boundaries , he feeds a language.The innovation of a language is carried out by the speaker. But this innovation lead us into a linguistic change. However, we need the speech community to accept the innovation in order to success in the linguistic change.Milroy call “speaker innovation, instead of to adopt the new sound change by the community.

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)?

-Because borrowing implies an abrupt change of sound and that's what the Neogramarrians postulated. In borrowing a sound is "installed" in a language suddenly.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.

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

-All sound change needs being passed from speaker to speaker, and is not considered as a linguistic change until this new change is adopted by the majority of speakers, and to became a social pattern assumed by the community.

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

-Milroy claims that standardization is not a natural fact inherent to the languages: they are imposed by the institutions of a country such as politics, military institutions in order to adapt the language to an ideology. As a result, dialect forms are seen as “indeterminate” forms whereas languages are naturally “indiscrete”. Consequently, people tend to think that they have to speak the standard language because it’s “correct”,interrelated to uniformity and regularity, whereas dialects and other languages, as vernaculars are linked to irregularity. Milroy qualifies it as an “absurd” trend. In order to communicate, it’s better to apply standardization but it’s unnatural and can erase some cultural aspects of a country.

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

-He refers with “clean data” to those norms imposed to a standard language to follow certain rules established and depending on powerful ideologies which promote “correctness” and uniformity of usage. On the contrary, the vernaculars that we encounter is to a greater extend “dirty data” since this data-base presents itself as irregular an chaotic.