When cultural maintenance means linguistic convergence: Pennsylvania German evidence for the Matrix Language Turnover hypothesis

1996 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 493-514 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet M. Fuller
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Pennsylvania German ◽  
Model Code ◽  
Languages In Contact ◽  
Conceptual Structures ◽  
Weak Evidence ◽  
Verb Phrases ◽  
The Matrix

ABSTRACTResearch on languages in contact has shown evidence of structural convergence, as well as internally motivated language change; one language which has been frequently studied in this light is Pennsylvania German (PG). Myers-Scotton 1993 posits that convergence involves a change in the selection of the language which sets the morpho-syntactic frame involved in language production. This is called a turnover in the Matrix Language (ML). Data from PG collected in the 1940s, as compared with data collected in the late 1970s and 1980s, indicate that an ML turnover is underway in the sectarian communities; the language can be characterized as having a composite ML. The primary features of convergence in these data are English lexical-conceptual structures in the tense system, English morphological realization patterns in verb phrases, and the increased syntactization of word order in PG. There is only weak evidence for the introduction of English system morphemes at this stage. The loss of case-marking does not conform to English patterns; this indicates that much of the influence of language contact occurs at the lexical-conceptual level. (Pennsylvania German, convergence, Matrix Language Frame Model, code-switching, borrowing, language contact)

A Comparative Study of Bilingual Verb Phrases in Ewe-English and Gengbe-French Codeswitching

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 250-287
Author(s):  
Evershed Kwasi Amuzu
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Surface Structure ◽  
Language Production ◽  
West African ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Romance Language ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Frame Model ◽  
Verb Phrases ◽  
The Matrix

This article describes contact phenomena between two closely related varieties of the Gbe language cluster Ewe and Gengbe each with a Germanic and a Romance language. The focus is on a comparison of verb phrases in Ewe-English codeswitching, spoken in Ghana, and Gengbe-French codeswitching, spoken in Togo. It is the first qualitative comparative study of this kind although quite a number of local (West African) languages are in contact with English and French. It finds that because the two varieties of Gbe are morphosyntactically similar, there are remarkable morphosyntactic similarities between bilingual clauses containing English verbs and those containing French verbs. English/French verbs with the same transitivity value which assign the same set of thematic roles to their arguments occur in slots in Ewe/Gengbe-based clauses where Ewe/Gengbe verbs with those subcategorization features also occur. The explanation for this pattern, from the perspective of the Matrix Language Frame model, is that during codeswitching English and French verbs are treated as if they belong to the class of Ewe and Gengbe verbs which share their subcategorization features. Assuming language production to be modular (in the sense of Myers-Scotton 1993, 2002), it is argued that the pattern is illustrative of a kind of composite codeswitching (Amuzu 2005a, 2010, and in print) by which abstract grammatical information from one language about verbs from that language—here English or French—is consistently mapped onto surface structure through the grammatical resources of another language, here Ewe or Gengbe.

Syntactic Change in Contact: Romance

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta D'Alessandro
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Differential Object Marking ◽  
Languages In Contact ◽  
Syntactic Change ◽  
Object Marking ◽  
Selection Of

Language change as a result of language contact is studied in many different ways using a number of different methodologies. This article provides an overview of the main approaches to syntactic change in contact (CIC), focusing on the Romance language group. Romance languages are widely documented both synchronically and diachronically. They have been in extensive contact with other language families both in bilingual contexts and in creolization contexts. Furthermore, they present great microvariation. They are therefore ideal to tackle language change in contact. Given the breadth of studies targeting Romance languages in contact, only a selection of facts is considered here, namely pro-drop, differential object marking (DOM), and deixis. The article shows that microcontact, i.e., contact between minimally different grammars, is a necessary dimension to be considered within contact studies, as it provides insights that are often radically different from those provided by the observation of contact between maximally different languages. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Linguistics, Volume 7 is January 14, 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

The visual-gestural modality and beyond

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Mohr
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Main Part ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Fully Integrated ◽  
Modal Language ◽  
Personal Stories ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Native Signers

The article analyses cross-modal language contact between signed and spoken languages with special reference to the Irish Deaf community. This is exemplified by an examination of the phenomenon of mouthings in Irish Sign Language including its origins, dynamics, forms and functions. Initially, the setup of language contact with respect to Deaf communities and the sociolinguistics of the Irish Deaf community are discussed, and in the main part the article analyses elicited data in the form of personal stories by twelve native signers from the Republic of Ireland. The major aim of the investigation is to determine whether mouthings are yet fully integrated into ISL and if so, whether this integration has ultimately caused language change. Finally, it is asked whether traditional sociolinguistic frameworks of language contact can actually tackle issues of cross-modal language contact occurring between signed and spoken languages.

scholarly journals Introduction to language acquisition, bilingualism and copula choice in Spanish

2008 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
PEDRO GUIJARRO-FUENTES ◽  
KIMBERLY L. GEESLIN
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Language Attrition ◽  
Areas Of Interest

In several of the most widely read Spanish grammars an entire chapter is devoted to the two copular verbs in Spanish, ser “to be” and estar “to be”, and their many contexts of use (Bull, 1965; Solé and Solé, 1977; Whitley, 1986; Bosque and Demonte, 1999; King and Suñer, 1999; Butt and Benjamin, 2000). For some, the interest in this structure stems from the range of meanings that can be expressed with these two forms, whereas for others it is the variability in the use of these verbs with adjectives, existing between groups, individuals and particular social contexts, that generates inquiry. The combination of these two traits makes the contrast difficult to acquire and likely to be lost or weakened in contexts of language attrition or language contact (Silva-Corvalán, 1986; Geeslin, 2002) and this complexity makes the copula contrast in Spanish an excellent mechanism for exploring broader issues such as theories of acquisition and language change, which are of value to a readership well beyond those working directly on Spanish. After a brief description of the distribution of ser and estar, we provide an overview of the various theoretical descriptions of the copula contrast that exist and their implications for research on bilingualism. Next, we provide a description of the papers in this volume, and outline the areas of interest for readers whose research extends beyond Spanish grammar.

Introduction: Multicultural youth vernaculars in Paris and urban France

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
JENNY CHESHIRE ◽  
PENELOPE GARDNER-CHLOROS
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Nursery School ◽  
Peer Groups ◽  
Recent Immigrant ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Linguistic Backgrounds

The papers in this Special Issue present some of the results of theMulticultural London English/Multicultural Paris Frenchproject, supported by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) from October 2010 to December 2014 and by the FrenchAgence Nationale de la Recherche(ANR) from 2010–2012. The project compared language variation and change in multilingual areas of London and Paris, focusing on the language of young people of recent immigrant origin as well as that of young people whose families had lived in London or Paris for many generations. Similar projects in other European cities have documented the emergence of new ways of speaking and rapid language change in the dominant ‘host’ language, which are attributed to the direct and indirect effects of language contact; see, for example, Wiese 2009 on young people's language in Berlin, Quist 2008 on youth language in Copenhagen, and Svendsen and Røyneland 2008 on Norwegian). In London, young children from diverse linguistic backgrounds tend to acquire English in their peer groups at nursery school rather than from their parents, many of whom do not speak English or are in the early stages of learning English. Since their peers speak a wide range of different languages, the only language the young children have in common is English; and since many of their friends are also acquiring English, there is no clear target model, a high tolerance of linguistic variation, and plenty of scope for linguistic innovation. By the time they reach adolescence, young people's English has stabilized, and many innovations have become part of a new London dialect, now known as Multicultural London English (Cheshire et al., 2013). New urban dialects and language practices such as these have been termed ‘multiethnolects’: they contain a variable repertoire of innovative phonetic, grammatical, and discourse-pragmatic features. In multiethnic peer groups, where local children from many different linguistic backgrounds grow up together, the innovative features are used by speakers of all ethnicities, including those of local descent such as, in London, young monolingual English speakers from Cockney families. Nevertheless they tend to be more frequent in the speech of bilingual young people of recent immigrant origin, and by young speakers with highly multiethnic friendship groups (see further Quist 2008 for an account of the use of features associated with a multiethnolect in conjunction with nonlinguistic ‘markers’ of style, such as tastes in music and preferred ways of dressing). Our project aimed to determine whether a similar outcome had occurred in multicultural areas of Paris.

Sources of auxiliation in the perfects of Europe

2013 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 599-644 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bridget Drinka
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Peripheral Areas ◽  
Explanatory Mechanism ◽  
Scribal Tradition

This paper explores the complex role of language contact in the development of be and have auxiliation in the periphrastic perfects of Europe. Beginning with the influence of Ancient Greek on Latin, it traces the spread of the category across western Europe and identifies the Carolingian scribal tradition as largely responsible for extending the use of the be perfect alongside the have perfect across Charlemagne’s realm. Outside that territory, by contrast, in “peripheral” areas like Iberia, Southern Italy, and England, have came to be used as the only perfect auxiliary. Within the innovating core area, a further innovation began in Paris in the 12th century and spread to contiguous areas in France, Southern Germany, and northern Italy: the semantic shift in the perfects from anterior to preterital meaning. What can be concluded from these three successive instances of diffusion in the history of the perfect is that contact should be regarded as one of the essential “multiple sources” of innovation, and as a fundamental explanatory mechanism for language change.

Some properties of texts in terms of ‘information distribution’ across languages

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erich Steiner
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Global Level ◽  
Information Distribution ◽  
Intuitive Notion ◽  
Micro Level

On a global level, an attempt will be made to relate relatively macro-level intuitions about properties of texts to more micro-level notions and to empirically testable lexicogrammatical properties. The strategy will be to (a) partly reduce an intuitive notion of ‘information distribution’ in texts and sentences to more technical and better understood notions of ‘information structure’, ‘informational density’ and ‘grammatical metaphoricity’, and (b) operationalize these latter notions in such a way as to make them empirically testable on electronic corpora, using the ‘shallow’ concepts of ‘explicitness, density, and directness’ as properties of semantics-to-grammar mapping in sentences. It will furthermore be suggested that aspects of intuitive qualities of texts, such as ‘content orientation’ vs. ‘interactant orientation’ and others can be partly modelled in terms of (a) and (b). The argumentation in this paper thus proceeds from intuitive text-level notions to more technical and clause-based concepts, and from these concepts to operationalizations. It then moves ‘upwards’ again to text-level properties, exploring the relationships between the two levels. Finally, an outline is attempted of some implications for studies of language contact and language change.

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