Understanding diachronic change in Cappadocian Greek

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petros Karatsareas
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
The Other ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Diachronic Change ◽  
Surface Similarity ◽  
Modern Form

This article challenges the widely held view that a series of pervasive diachronic innovations in Cappadocian Greek owe their development to language contact with Turkish. Placing particular emphasis on its genealogical relationships with the other dialects of Asia Minor, the claim is that language change in Cappadocian is best understood when considered within a larger dialectological context. Examining the limited use of the definite article as a case in point and in comparison with parallel developments attested in Pontic and Silliot Greek, it is shown in detail that the surface similarity of the outcomes of Cappadocian innovations to their Turkish structural equivalents represents the final stages in long series of language-internal developments whose origins predate the intensification of Cappadocian–Turkish contact. The article thus offers an alternative to contact-oriented approaches and calls for a revision of accepted views on the language-internal and -external dynamics that shaped Cappadocian into its modern form.

Code-Switching as a Reflection of Contact-Induced Change

2020 ◽  
pp. 192-214
Author(s):  
Ad Backus
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
The Other ◽  
Code Mixing ◽  
Language Mixing ◽  
Lexical Change ◽  
Theory Of Language

Code-switching is often studied in purely synchronic terms, as recorded speech is analyzed for patterns of language mixing. Though this has yielded numerous useful theoretical advances, it has also shielded the code-switching literature from serious engagement with the phenomenon of language change, even from the subtype of change caused by language contact. There is also the additional practice of limiting the study of code-mixing and code-switching to lexical mixing. On the other side of the fence, meanwhile, discussions of contact-induced language change tend to be limited to morphological and syntactic phenomena. This chapter breaks through this stalemate, and argues that a usage-based approach to language change actually demands integration of these perspectives. Code-switching should be seen as a reflection of lexical change. It is for this reason that a synchronic distinction between loanwords and code-switching makes no sense, since the terms refer to the diachronic and synchronic planes, respectively, of the same phenomenon. In the chapter, the author interprets the code-switching literature from this theoretical viewpoint, and explores what both the literature on code-switching and that on contact-induced change stand to gain from linking their empirical findings to a usage-based theory of language change that allocates proper attention to synchrony and diachrony, and unites lexical and structural change in the same framework.

Bilingual intonation patterns: Evidence of language change from Turkish-German bilingual children

2001 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin M. Queen
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
The Other ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Contact Fusion ◽  
Turkish German

This article discusses Turkish-German bilingual children's intonation patterns as they relate to processes of contact-induced language change. Bilingual speakers use two distinct rises in both Turkish and German. One rise (L*HH%) resembles a characteristic German rise, while the other (L%H%) resembles a characteristic Turkish rise. The rises pattern pragmatically in ways that are non-normative for both Turkish and German. Although this pattern is not clearly attributable to language interference (either borrowing or shift-induced language change), it is certainly the result of language contact. Fusion is proposed to account for the two-way influence between the two languages.

scholarly journals Onomastic interferences in Lycia: Greek reinterpretation of Lycian personal names

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Réveilhac
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
The Other ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Western Coast ◽  
The South ◽  
Personal Names

As is well known, Lycia, located on the south-western coast of Asia Minor, was a multicultural and polyglossian area, especially during the second half of the Ist millennium B.C. From the 4th century B.C. onwards — that is before Alexander’s conquests — Greek writing and language became more and more predominant in that region, as a language of prestige, to the detriment of Lycian, which is an Anatolian language related to Luwian and Hittite. Although most of the indigenous personal names persisted in Lycia until the first centuries A.D., as evidenced by their large number found in Greek inscriptions from the Hellenistic and Roman periods, some of them underwent a little transformation in order to look like Greek names. This process, which is common in a context of language contact, consists in adopting a homophonic or phonetically similar name or element of the name, called “cover name” or, in French, “nom d’assonance” (see Dondin-Payre and Raepsaet-Charlier 2001; Coşkun and Zeidler 2005). One famous example of this type of onomastic adaptation from one language to another is the name of the Mede general who invaded Asia Minor, known in the Greek sources as Ἅρπαγος (Harpagos): the underlying Iranian name is derived from the adjective arba- “small, young” (cf. Sanskrit arbha-) with the hypocoristic suffix -ka-, but it has been slightly modified in its Greek adaptation in order to get it closer to the Greek substantive ἁρπαγή (harpagē) “pillaging”, so the enemy conqueror is reduced to a simple plunderer. I intend to present and discuss some Lycian names adapted as cover names in Greek, like Purihimeti ⁓ Πυριβάτης, with a second element -βάτης (-batēs), cf. verb βαίνω (bainō) “to walk”, and well attested in typical Greek personal names (Bechtel 1917: 92). The other names that will be interpreted are Kuprlle/i- ⁓ Κοπριλις (Koprilis), cf. Κοπρύλος (Koprulos), but also Κύβερνις (Kubernis), Mizu- ⁓ Μεσος (Mesos), cf. μέσος (mesos) “middle”, and Xddazada- ⁓ Κτασασας (Ktasadas), cf. Κτᾱσι- / Κτησι- (Ktāsi- / Ktēsi-).

scholarly journals THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marissa M. Furaha ◽  
Eunice Nyamasyo ◽  
Joyce I. Wangia
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
The Other ◽  
African Language ◽  
Language Death ◽  
Cultural Contact ◽  
Code Mixing ◽  
Resultant Effect

When languages come into contact, there is some degree of cultural contact, however limited. As a result, there is bound to be some negative as well as positive language change. Borrowing, bilingualism, code switching, code mixing, pidgins, creoles, language shift and language death are some of the products of language contact. The focus of this paper is linguistic borrowing as a result of contact between two languages: Lubukusu, an African language spoken by the Babukusu, a sub-tribe of the Luhya ethnic group of Bungoma County, Kenya and English, a foreign language in Kenya, first introduced through European explorers, Christian missionaries, traders and the British colonialist and its resultant effect on the borrowing language.

Talking about MOTION in Middle English

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Huber
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The Other ◽  
Motion Verbs ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Contact Situation ◽  
Analysis Of Motion

Chapter 6 begins with an overview of the language contact situation with (Anglo-) French and Latin, resulting in large-scale borrowing in the Middle English period. The analysis of 465 Middle English verbs used to express intransitive motion shows that there are far more French/Latin loans in the path verbs than in the other motion verbs. The range of (new) manner of motion verbs testifies to the manner salience of Middle English: caused motion verbs are also found in intransitive motion meanings, as are French loans which do not have motion uses in continental French. Their motion uses in Anglo-Norman are discussed in terms of contact influence of Middle English. The analysis of motion expression in different texts yields a picture similar to the situation in Old English, with path typically expressed in satellites, and neutral as well as manner of motion verbs being most frequent, depending on text type.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuhui Hu
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
The Other ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Diachronic Change ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Motion Event ◽  
Applicative Constructions ◽  
The One ◽  
Chinese And English

This chapter summarizes the major points developed throughout the book. The theoretical points of the syntax of events proposed in Chapter 2 are listed. The conclusions on the syntax of English and Chinese resultatives, applicative constructions in various languages, and Chinese non-canonical object and motion event constructions are presented, together with the implications for the verb/satellite-framed typology. The explanation of diachronic change and cross-linguistic variation is summarized, including both the historical development of Chinese resultatives, the variation of resultatives between Chinese and English on the one hand, and English and Romance on the other hand. The Synchronic Grammaticalisation Hypothesis is also summarized.

Isoglosses and language change: Evidence of the rise and loss of isoglosses from a comparison of early Greek and early English

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 553-575
Author(s):  
Nikolaos Lavidas
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
The Other ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Considerable Distance ◽  
Causative Constructions ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Structural Ambiguity ◽  
Early English ◽  
Aspectual Verbs

Abstract We analyze the rise and loss of isoglosses in two Indo-European languages, early Greek and early English, which, however, show considerable distance between their structures in many other domains. We follow Keidan’s approach (2013), that has drawn the attention on the fact that the study of isoglosses (i.e., linguistic features common to two or more languages) is connected with common innovations of particular languages after the split into sub-groups of Indo-European: this type of approach aims at collecting isoglosses that appear across the branches of Indo-European. We examine the rise of the isogloss of labile verbs and the loss of the isogloss of the two classes of aspectual verbs in early Greek and early English. Our study shows that the rise of labile verbs in both languages is related to the innovative use of intransitives in causative constructions. On the other hand, the innovations in voice morphology follow different directions in Greek and English and are unrelated to the rise of labile verbs. In contrast to labile verbs, which are still predominant for causative-anticausative constructions in both languages, the two classes of aspectual verbs are lost in the later stages of Greek but are predominant even in Present-day English. Again, a “prerequisite” change for the isogloss can be easily located in a structural ambiguity that is relevant for aspectual verbs in early Greek and early English. However, another independent development, the changes in verbal complementation (the development of infinitival and participial complements) in Greek and English, determined the loss of this isogloss.

Progressive periphrases in language contact

2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-127
Author(s):  
Rossella Maraffino
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
The Other ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Internal Development ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Alpine Area ◽  
Diffusion Pattern ◽  
The One

Abstract In this paper, I will deal with the diffusion pattern of the progressive periphrases (PROGPER) attested in the minority languages that are present in the areas of Swiss Grisons, Trentino-Alto Adige and Friulian Carnia. I will individualize on the one hand the vectors of diffusion between the standard languages and the minority varieties; on the other hand, I will explain the mechanism of adaptation or re-elaboration of the borrowed structure in the replica language. Finally, I will pinpoint which of this structure replication seems to be the result of an internal development witnessed in the Alpine area.

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.

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