James Milroy

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

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

Milroy says that this kind of change of language have no obvious function because it doesn’t give it benefit or loss. The fact that the use of one vowel rather than another is arbitrary, for example, brings us to this conclusion.

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

The basic axiom of the Neogrammarian theory is that the sound change is regular and consequently, sound laws have no exceptions.Another important claim of the Neogrammarians is is that regular sound change is phonetically gradual but lexically abrupt. This means that the change of the sound affects to the other aspects off the language. Milroy is not agreeing with this theory. Another difference is that Milroy and the sociolinguistic approaches deal with speakers in the sound change while the second ones focus on language as an object and that linguistic change is independent of speakers.

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

It is assumed that a linguistic change is embedded in a context of language “maintenance”. The degree to which change  is admitted will depend on the degree of internal cohesion of the community, and change from outside will be admitted to the extent that there are large numbers of “weak ties” with outsiders.

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

Milroy approaches that speech sounds do not physically change: what happens is that in the course of time one sound is substituted for another.

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

“Blind” sound changes are based on the process of change independently from the social aspect, and Milroy says that this view doesn´t make sense. He doesn’t conceive the change sound without the intervention of the speakers.

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

It is a socially gradual process and abrupt replacement pattern, and can be shown to be regular in some sense. In this process the new form differs markedly from the older 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 inflected West Midland dialects of Middle English by weakly inflected East Middle dialects, which led to morphological simplification of the grammar of English more generally.

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

Taking into account that the norms of language are maintained and enforced by social pressures, there are norms that are observed by speakers and maintained by communities often in opposition to standardizing norms. These norms manifest themselves at different levels of generality. These norms can be related to the term “wave” that refers to the process spread to different groups until they are used to deal with the changes.

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

He refers with this to the fact that it is not necessary that all the speakers of the language come to consider the usage of the normative although the practice of h-dropping is commonly used.

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

A speaker innovation, as the word form says is a change made by the speaker, and the chane in the system is the consequence of this 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)?

It is not as different as the Neogrammarians posited because it is possible to argue that each single event of borrowing into a new speech community is just as much an innovation as the presumed original event in the original speech community.

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

All sound change is implemented by being passed from speaker to speaker, and it is not a linguistic change until it has been adopted by more than one speaker. A change is not a change until it has assumed a social pattern of any kind in a speech community. All sound change must be socially conditioned.

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

Standard languages are not “normal” languages. 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. Standard languages 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

Because the standardization, what does Milroy mean by “clean” and “dirty” data (158)?

Milroy refers to “clean” data at that which is uniform and “dirty” are that one which is considered by sociolinguistics as irregular and chaotic.