scholarly journals Special issue on mechanisms of French contact influence in Middle English: diffusion and maintenance

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-205
Author(s):  
OLGA TIMOFEEVA ◽  
RICHARD INGHAM
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The World ◽  
Contact Language ◽  
History Of

Recent years have seen a spate of publications that attempt to recontextualise the history of English in contact-linguistic (Miller 2012; Lutz 2013; Durkin 2014) and sociolinguistic terms (Millar 2012), and conversely to confront previous descriptions of contact phenomena with new data and theoretical insights available from situations of language shift and substratum influence (Filppula, Klemola & Paulasto 2008; Vennemann 2011), extensive bilingualism (Schendl & Wright 2011), language acquisition (Ingham 2012) and contact-induced grammaticalisation (Timofeeva 2010). Coupled with advances in our understanding of contact- and acquisition-induced language change (Heine & Kuteva 2005; Jarvis & Pavlenko 2008), and of the role of contact in the varieties of English around the world (Schreier & Hundt 2013), there is a clear need in this area of historical research for scholars to reinvestigate earlier stages of English as a contact language.

Ambiguity avoidance as a factor in the rise of the English dative alternation

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Zehentner
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Cognitive Factors ◽  
Case Marking ◽  
Dative Alternation ◽  
Cue Reliability ◽  
History Of ◽  
Potential Impact

Abstract This paper discusses the role of cognitive factors in language change; specifically, it investigates the potential impact of argument ambiguity avoidance on the emergence of one of the most well-studied syntactic alternations in English, viz. the dative alternation (We gave them cake vs We gave cake to them). Linking this development to other major changes in the history of English like the loss of case marking, I propose that morphological as well as semantic-pragmatic ambiguity between prototypical agents (subjects) and prototypical recipients (indirect objects) in ditransitive clauses plausibly gave a processing advantage to patterns with higher cue reliability such as prepositional marking, but also fixed clause-level (SVO) order. The main hypotheses are tested through a quantitative analysis of ditransitives in a corpus of Middle English, which (i) confirms that the spread of the PP-construction is impacted by argument ambiguity and (ii) demonstrates that this change reflects a complex restructuring of disambiguation strategies.

scholarly journals The Hypothesis of Change from Above in the History of English: State of the Art and Perspectives

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (s1) ◽  
pp. 251-266
Author(s):  
Nikolaos Lavidas
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
The State ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Linguistic Ideology ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
New Directions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractThe present paper presents the state of the art of research related to hypothesized changes from above in the diachrony of English. A main aim of the paper is to show how the cooperation of various perspectives can open new directions in the research of language change. We examine the main aspects of a definition of the change from above. We investigate the various perspectives through which the concept of change from above, as an “importation of elements from other systems” (Labov 2007), has been considered a significant factor for the development of English. We show that any attempt to investigate the presence or role of change from above includes the parameters of prestige, distribution of old and new forms, diffusion, gender, and linguistic ideology. Finally, we discuss typical examples of development of patterns and characteristics of English that have been analyzed as influenced by change from above, as well as the prestige dialects / languages and contexts that have been regarded as facilitating a hypothesized change from above (Latin, Anglo-Norman, standardization, prescriptivism, networks and individuals). We argue that the articles of the present special issue provide stable criteria that are required in any attempt to test the hypothesis of change from above in the development of English.

An Ecological Account of the Emergence and Evolution of English

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salikoko S. Mufwene
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
English Language ◽  
Ecological Model ◽  
World Englishes ◽  
The World ◽  
Population Structures ◽  
History Of

What follows is a contact-based account of the emergence of English. Though the role of language contact in the development of World Englishes is often addressed as a coda within History of the English Language (HEL) courses, this chapter presents an alternative story, highlighting contact situations in Old English, Middle English, and Early Modern English. The creolist perspective offered here suggests that History of English instructors should look closer at the received doctrine of HEL and consider whether an ecological model should not be used to make sense of the story of Englishes. A periodized history of colonization and of the ensuing population structures that influence language contact appears to explain a great deal about the differential evolution of English in various parts of the world, including what distinguishes colonial English dialects from their creole counterparts.

scholarly journals Problems with variable properties in syntax

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 01-19
Author(s):  
David Lightfoot
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Logical Form ◽  
Variable Properties ◽  
Generative Capacity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Evaluation Metric

Like those birds born to chirp, humans are born to parse; children are predisposed to assign linguistic structures to the amorphous externalization of the thoughts that we encounter. This yields a view of variable properties quite different from one based on parameters defined at Universal Grammar (UG). Our approach to language acquisition makes two contributions to Minimalist thinking. First, in accordance with general Minimalist goals, we minimize the pre-wired components of internal languages, dispensing with three separate, central entities: parameters, an evaluation metric for rating the generative capacity of grammars, and any independent parsing mechanism. Instead, children use their internal grammar to parse the ambient external language they experience. UG is “open,” consistent with what children learn through parsing. Second, our understanding of language acquisition yields a new view of variable properties, properties that occur only in certain languages. Under this open UG vision, specific elements of I-languages arise in response to new parses. Both external and internal languages play crucial, interacting roles:  unstructured, amorphous external language is parsed and a structured internal language system results. My Born to parse (Lightfoot 2020) explores case studies that show innovative parses of external language shaping the history of languages. I discuss 1) how children learn through parsing, 2) the role of parsing at the two interfaces between syntactic structure and the externalization system (sound or sign) and logical form, 3) language change, and 4) variable linguistic properties seen through the lens of an open UG. This, in turn, yields a view of variable properties akin to that of evolutionary biologists working on Darwin’s finches; see section 7.

The problem of periodization of the history of religion

1997 ◽  
pp. 3-8
Author(s):  
Borys Lobovyk
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Religious Development ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Role Of Religion

An important problem of religious studies, the history of religion as a branch of knowledge is the periodization process of the development of religious phenomenon. It is precisely here, as in focus, that the question of the essence and meaning of the religious development of the human being of the world, the origin of beliefs and cult, the reasons for the changes in them, the place and role of religion in the social and spiritual process, etc., are converging.

Moment's Monument

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Hecker
Keyword(s):  
Art World ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Single Culture ◽  
Modern Sculpture ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Critical Account ◽  
Modern Experience ◽  
Artistic Heritage

Medardo Rosso (1858–1928) is one of the most original and influential figures in the history of modern art, and this book is the first historically substantiated critical account of his life and work. An innovative sculptor, photographer, and draftsman, Rosso was vital in paving the way for the transition from the academic forms of sculpture that persisted in the nineteenth century to the development of new and experimental forms in the twentieth century. His antimonumental, antiheroic work reflected alienation in the modern experience yet showed deep feeling for interactions between self and other. Rosso's art was transnational: he refused allegiance to a single culture or artistic heritage and declared himself both a citizen of the world and a maker of art without national limits. This book develops a narrative that is an alternative to the dominant Franco-centered perspective on the origin of modern sculpture in which Rodin plays the role of lone heroic innovator. Offering an original way to comprehend Rosso, the book negotiates the competing cultural imperatives of nationalism and internationalism that shaped the European art world at the fin de siècle.

THE ROLE AND ROLE OF OIL POLICY IN SAUDI ARABIA IN POST WORLD WAR II ECONOMIC LIFE

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-41
Author(s):  
Maftuna Sanoqulova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
World War ◽  
Post World War Ii ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Oil Policy

This article consists of the politics which connected with oil in Saudi Arabia after the World war II , the relations of economical cooperations on this matter and the place of oil in the history of world economics

The National and the Universal

2020 ◽  
pp. 368-386
Author(s):  
Sarah Collins
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Johann Gottfried Herder ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The World ◽  
Respective Treatment ◽  
History Of

This chapter examines the continuities between the categories of the “national” and the “universal” in the nineteenth century. It construes these categories as interrelated efforts to create a “world” on various scales. The chapter explores the perceived role of music as a world-making medium within these discourses. It argues that the increased exposure to cultural difference and the interpretation of that cultural difference as distant in time and space shaped a conception of “humanity” in terms of a universal history of world cultures. The chapter reexamines those early nineteenth-century thinkers whose work became inextricably linked with the rise of exclusivist notions of nationalism in the late nineteenth century, such as Johann Gottfried Herder and John Stuart Mill. It draws from their respective treatment of music to recover their early commitment to universalizable principles and their view that the “world” is something that must be actively created rather than empirically observed.

scholarly journals Plato on Natural Kinds: The Promethean Method of the Philebus

Apeiron ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
John D. Proios
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Natural Kind ◽  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Natural World ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

Abstract Plato’s invention of the metaphor of carving the world by the joints (Phaedrus 265d–66c) gives him a privileged place in the history of natural kind theory in philosophy and science; he is often understood to present a paradigmatic but antiquated view of natural kinds as possessing eternal, immutable, necessary essences. Yet, I highlight that, as a point of distinction from contemporary views about natural kinds, Plato subscribes to an intelligent-design, teleological framework, in which the natural world is the product of craft and, as a result, is structured such that it is good for it to be that way. In Plato’s Philebus, the character Socrates introduces a method of inquiry whose articulation of natural kinds enables it to confer expert knowledge, such as literacy. My paper contributes to an understanding of Plato’s view of natural kinds by interpreting this method in light of Plato’s teleological conception of nature. I argue that a human inquirer who uses the method identifies kinds with relational essences within a system causally related to the production of some unique craft-object, such as writing. As a result, I recast Plato’s place in the history of philosophy, including Plato’s view of the relation between the kinds according to the natural and social sciences. Whereas some are inclined to separate natural from social kinds, Plato holds the unique view that all naturalness is a social feature of kinds reflecting the role of intelligent agency.

The Role of Religious Force in the Wukan Incident

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hou Yuxin
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
The Political ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media ◽  
Social Management ◽  
The Village

Abstract The Wukan Incident attracted extensive attention both in China and around the world, and has been interpreted from many different perspectives. In both the media and academia, the focus has very much been on the temporal level of the Incident. The political and legal dimensions, as well as the implications of the Incident in terms of human rights have all been pored over. However, what all of these discussions have overlooked is the role played by religious force during the Incident. The village of Wukan has a history of over four hundred years, and is deeply influenced by the religious beliefs of its people. Within both the system of religious beliefs and in everyday life in the village, the divine immortal Zhenxiu Xianweng and the religious rite of casting shengbei have a powerful influence. In times of peace, Xianweng and casting shengbei work to bestow good fortune, wealth and longevity on both the village itself, and the individuals who live there. During the Wukan Incident, they had a harmonizing influence, and helped to unify and protect the people. Looking at the specific roles played by religion throughout the Wukan Incident will not only enable us to develop a more meaningful understanding of the cultural nature and the complexity of the Incident itself, it will also enrich our understanding, on a divine level, of innovations in social management.

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