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

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

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.

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

The main difference is that Neogrammarians take the language change as an internal change, I mean, independents from speakers . They take language as an object and do not take into account the speaker’s presence in contraposition to sociolinguistics which necessarily deals with speakers, as it’s name refers to (“socio-”society)

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.

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

Sociolinguistic affirms that 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 begin to use sound X in environments where speakers formerly use sound Y.

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

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

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.

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.

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

As soon as we recognize a different dialect, and so it’s not considered any more as a standard language, these kind of norms are the ones which rule those dialect. Thus these norms are maintained by communities often in opposition to standardizing norms. Some of them, for example, characterize the dialect as a whole and are recognize by outsiders as markers of that dialect.

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

In the discussion on /h/ - dropping a change can persist as a variable state for seven or eight 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)?

Innovation is an act of the speakers whereas a change is manifested within the language system.

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 it’s said to be a gradual favouring of new variants to this change to happen but this is a speaker-based social process rather than an intra-linguistic one. It must be speakers rather than language who favour the new variants.

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

To be accepted by speakers and assumed a social pattern in the community.

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

The principles on 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 or in fairy widely spoken languages rather than in speech community. Saying so it’s clear that this lead to believing in “blind necessity” because changes are believed to be implemented in “languages” rather than speech community which a sociolinguistic would say.

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.

What is more common in language uniformity or variability?

Variability .There is a lot of influence of a variety of circumstances and aspects in a language when using it. Since uniformity is not considered a real purpose, somehow language is related to some kind of nationalism or politics it’s role is crucial. In some case we would also think

What kinds of variability exist?

Geographical and contextual ways of talking and writing are crucial is this situation, also accents of a determined areas has it’s role in here, in Ireland for instance, there is a very strong irish accent, a strong pronunciation of some vowels, and there is another one called “posh accent” which is the language for “high standing communities”.

How do we decide if a particular group of speakers belong to a particular dialect or language?

By listening carefully to his accent and way of saying words, so to speak, the way of using some kind of change

Saussure emphasized the importance of synchronic descriptions of languages rather than diachronic. He and is disciples (structuralists) focused on language at different periods as finite entities. Is this reasonable?

The unattested states of language were seen as transitional stages in which the structure of a language was, as it were, disturbed. This made linguistic change look abnormal. Is it abnormal?

Milroy (1992: 3) says “the equation of uniformity with structuredness or regularity is most evident in popular (non-professional) attitudes to language: one variety –usually a standard language – is considered to be correct and regular, and others –usually ‘non-standard’ dialects – are thought to be incorrect, irregular, ungrammatical and deviant. Furthermore, linguistic changes in progress are commonly perceived as ‘errors’. Thus although everyone knows that language is variable, many people believe that invariance is nonetheless to be desired, and professional scholars of language have not been immune to the consequences of these same beliefs.”

Can you think of any example of non-professional attitudes to your own language?

Why does Milroy use “scare quotes” around non-standard and errors?

Are non-standard dialects “incorrect, irregular, ungrammatical and deviant.”?

No, Milroy’s says that the equation of uniformity with structuredness or regularity is most evident in popular (non-professional)attitudes to language : one variety- usually a standard language- is considered to be correct and regular, and others- usually ‘non-standard’ dialects- are thought to be incorrect, irregular, ungrammatical and deviant. Furthermore, limguistic changes in progress are commonly perceived as “errors”.

Which of these systems is more irregular? Why?

I think the first row of words are more irregular although is it grammatical correct. We have in the first column the pronoun him, her, our..followed by the stem self, on the other hand, the possessive form in the second column is not acceptable, his and their.

Myself Yourself Himself Herself Ourselves Themselves

Myself Yourself Hisself Herself Ourselves Theirselves

“… much of the change generally accepted body of knowledge on which theories of change are based depends on quite narrow interpretations of written data and econtexutalized citation forms (whether written or spoken), rather than on observation of spoken language in context (situated speech). (Milroy 1992: 5) Why do you think this is so?

Any description of a language involves norms? Think of the descriptions of your own language. Why is this so? For example: He ate the pie already is considered to be non-standard in which variety of English and perfectly acceptable in which other?

Yes, it must involve norms. Any description of a language needs a full description of writing properly. My own language, which is Valencià, has well established rules that are used generally in written media but on the other side, there is a huge variety of accents depending on the locality the accent or the words are slightly different form the standard one, when I say slightly I’m saying that is not difficult to reveal the meaning of a different way of talking valencià according to geographical areas.

He ate the pie already is not very accepted Uk but it is in America, like for example some word that are accepted for Americans like “elevator” and in UK “lift”.

What is the difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammars?

Prescriptive grammars say what we are not allow to do with language it’s ruled by some kind of authority and must be know and understood by everyone. It refers to the structure of a language as certain people think it should be used, on the other side, descriptive grammars deals with the usage of language of people, how our language works, and it is part of ‘our’ natural language. It refers to the structure of a language as it is actually used by speakers and writers.

Weinreich, Labov and Herzog’s (1968) empirical foundations of language change:

Constraints: what changes are possible and what are not

Embedding: how change spreads from a central point through a speech community

Evaluation: social responses to language change (prestige overt and covert attitudes to language, linguistic stereotyping and notions on correctness).

Transition: “the intervening stages which can be observed, or which must be posited, between any two forms of a language defined for a language community at different times” Weinreich, Labov and Herzog 1968: 101)

Actuation: Why particular changes take place at a particular time.

What do you think the “prestige motivation for change” and the “solidarity constraint” mean? How are they opposed?

I think that prestige motivation referrers the fact that people understand, for example, the language of television but they do not use it when talking avery day, they prefer using their own language instead of it.

Sound change: post-vocalic /r/ in New York/ The change from long āto ōin some dialects of English.

Actuation: Why did /k/ palatalize before certain front vowels? PrsE: cheese, German käse English/Norse doublets shirt/skirt?

Palatalization may be a diachronic phonemic split, that is, a historical change by which a phoneme becomes two new phonemes over time through phonetic palatalization. Old historical splits have frequently drifted since the time they occurred, and may be independent of current phonetic palatalization. Palatalization is not distinctive in the obstruents /k, g,x/, which are systematically soft before front vowels but hard before back ones , in this like “kase” in german and PrsE “cheese”.

What is the biological metaphor in language change?

What is the difference between internal and external histories of a language?

I think that internal and external histories deals with the process of changing taking from inside or outside of a concrete language.

Look up Neogrammarians and lexical diffusion. Why are they often found in the same paragraph or chapter?

The theory of lexical diffusion stands in contrast to the Neogrammarian hypothesis that a given sound change applies simultaneously to all words in which its context is found.

Look up social norm-enforcement, childish errors and slips of the tongue. What have they to do with language change?

BLIBLIOGRAPHY CONSULTED

C. Baugh, Albert and  Cable, Thomas. a History of the English Language. 5th ed. Britain: Routledge, 2002.

Milroy’s articles handed in class.

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