1 - Why does Milroy say that sound change appears to have
no “obvious
function or rational motivation” (146)?
Because it’s impossible it
is impossible to see any progress or benefit to the language or its
speakers
-the use of one vowel-sound or another is purely arbitrary; there is
apparently
no profit and no loss.
2.-What is/are the main
difference/s
between Milroy’s approach and that of the Neogrammarians (147-148)?
The main difference is that Neogranmarians separate languages from
their
speakers and focus on language as an object and on the other hand,
Milroy’s
focus on speakers in order to the language change.
3.-According to Milroy, what is language change dependent on? (149?)
Depends on the community of
speakers.
4.-Why does Milroy say that
sound change
actually doesn’t exist (150)?
Because
speech ‘sounds’ do not physically change, what happens is that in the
course
of time one sound is substituted by another.
5.-Why does Milroy disagree
with the
Neogrammarians when they say that sound change is “blind” (150)?
He says that sound change is not blind because the speakers are the
reason
of that change.
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. The theory, proposed by William Wang in 1969 is that all sound
changes originate in a single word or a small group of words
and then
spread to other words with a similar phonological make-up, but may not
spread to
all words in which they potentially could apply.
7.-What does dialect
displacement mean?
Give an example. (152)
Is
when a whole dialect can die out as another “dialect” replaces it,
leaving
only a few traces behind.
For
instance, New Zealand English in the nineteenth century was southern
British in
type, and that it was displaced by an Australian type with some effects
of
mixing and residue.
8.-What are “community” or “vernacular” norms? What term that we have
used in class is similar (152)?
Are the
norms observed by speakers and 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)?
A change can persist as a variable state for
seven or
eight centuries without ever going to completion in the traditional
sense.
10.-Explain what Milroy means by
“speaker innovation” and change in the system. How are they connected
(153)?
The distinction between innovation and
change leads
to an associated distinction – the distinction between the speaker
innovation,
on the one hand, and linguistic change, on the other.
An innovation is an act of the speaker,
whereas a
change is manifested within the language system. It’s speakers, and not
languages, that innovate.
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)?
12.-What is necessary for a
sound to
spread (157)?
The acceptation of the community
13.-Why does believing in the
ideology
of standardization lead to believing in “blind necessity” (158)?
Because
standard languages are constructed in order to appear as if they
discrete
linguistic entities – and the ideology of standardization causes people
to
believe that they are indeed discrete physical entities
14.-What does Milroy mean
by “clean”
and “dirty” data (158)?
Clean data have already been normalized whereas the dirty data is
irregular
and chaotic.