Taking it up a level: Copy-raising and cascaded tiers of morphosyntactic change

AbstractThis paper uncovers evidence for two linked levels of morphosyntactic change occurring in Canadian English. The more ordinary is a lexical replacement: with finite subordination after seem, the complementizer like has been overtaking all the alternatives (as if, as though, that, and Ø). On top of this, there is a broader syntactic change whereby the entire finite structure (now represented primarily by like) is beginning to catch on at the expense of infinitival subordination after seem. Drawing on complementary evidence from British English and several partial precedents in the historical linguistics literature, I take this correlation to mean that like has reached sufficient rates among the finite strategy to have instigated the second level of change, to the point that it has ramifications for epistemic and evidential marking with the verb seem. I propose that the best model of these trajectories is a set of increasingly large envelopes of variation, one inside the next, and argue that the envelope might itself be an entity susceptible to change over time.

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Language Change and Movement as Seen by Historical Linguistics

10.1093/oso/9780190657543.003.0002 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Derek Nurse

Keyword(s):

West Africa ◽

20Th Century ◽

Language Change ◽

Historical Linguistics ◽

Linguistic Features ◽

Time And Space ◽

Change Over Time ◽

Comparative Linguistics ◽

Language Boundaries ◽

Over Time

The focus of this chapter is on how languages move and change over time and space. The perceptions of historical linguists have been shaped by what they were observing. During the flowering of comparative linguistics, from the late 19th into the 20th century, the dominant view was that in earlier times when people moved, their languages moved with them, often over long distances, sometimes fast, and that language change was largely internal. That changed in the second half of the 20th century. We now recognize that in recent centuries and millennia, most movements of communities and individuals have been local and shorter. Constant contact between communities resulted in features flowing across language boundaries, especially in crowded and long-settled locations such as most of Central and West Africa. Although communities did mix and people did cross borders, it became clear that language and linguistic features could also move without communities moving.

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TOPICS AND TANGENTS FOR MUTUAL HELP IN UNCERTAINTY

Africa ◽

10.1017/s0001972014000473 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 84 (4) ◽

pp. 510-529 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Parker Shipton

Keyword(s):

Change Over Time ◽

Trade Off ◽

Mutual Help ◽

Self Help ◽

Generalize Input ◽

Self Help Groups ◽

Over Time ◽

As If

ABSTRACTSelf-help groups of varied kinds emerge when kinship, territorial governance or other accustomed associations prove unreliable. Interactions that appear helpful and mutual to one party need not always seem so to another. Shaping their character are not just reason and economic or political necessity, but also feelings, some of which humans share with other animals. These feelings often depend, however, on distinctly human symbolic and linguistic contrivances, sometimes of ironic kinds. Mutual help in Africa often spans generations, and by some interpretations both the living and the non-living. Rites and ceremonies can change over time in relation to other ones performed. Whether these conventions strengthen each other, as if by exercise, or substitute for each other in a more hydraulic way as a trade-off is hard to predict or generalize. Input from several sciences, once integrated with humanistic inquiry, may further enrich our understanding.

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