Language Change and Movement as Seen by Historical Linguistics

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.

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

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marisa Brook
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Canadian English ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
British English ◽  
Finite Structure ◽  
Syntactic Change ◽  
Copy Raising ◽  
Over Time ◽  
As If

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.

A method for estimating vegetation change over time and space

2003 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 447-454
Author(s):  
Li Maihe ◽  
Norbert Kräuchi
Keyword(s):  
Vegetation Change ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Over Time

Commons Governance, Normative Pluralism and the Enduring Role of Custom

2018 ◽  
pp. 15-37
Author(s):  
Christopher Rodgers
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Normative Pluralism ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Legal Pluralist

The governance of common land in England and Wales is shaped by a mixture of customary and legal norms that can shift and change. Notwithstanding the introduction of legislation for the registration of common land and common rights, custom retains an important role in the governance of common land. This chapter situates custom alongside the other normative rules used to structure the governance of common land. It considers reforms introduced by the Commons Act 2006, including provision for the formation of self-regulating commons councils. It concludes that a legal pluralist analysis that focuses on the functionality of differing customary and legal norms, but which is also sensitive to the sources from which rules derive normativity, is essential if we are to position custom in the hierarchy of norms relevant to the governance of common land, to understand their respective roles and how these can change over time and space, and to appraise their effectiveness.

French negation, the Superset Principle, and Feature Conservation

2019 ◽  
pp. 199-227
Author(s):  
Karen De Clercq
Keyword(s):  
Internal Structure ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Natural Consequence ◽  
Negative Concord ◽  
Double Negation ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Syntactic Movement ◽  
Sentential Negation ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Over Time

This chapter provides a nanosyntactic account of negation in French, modelling the change from le bon usage French (BUF) to colloquial French (CF). It is argued that language change is driven by Feature Conservation: the lexical items involved in the expression of sentential negation may change over time, but the features needed remain stable. Furthermore, it is argued that the change from BUF to CF is economy-driven, resulting in bigger lexically stored trees, less spell-out-driven movements and a maximal operationalization of the Superset Principle. In addition, the account shows how negative concord and double negation can be explained as a natural consequence of the interplay of the internal structure of lexical trees and the Superset Principle. Finally, the chapter adds to theoretical discussions within nanosyntax by presenting how the interaction between syntactic movement and spell-out-driven movement may be conceived of.

scholarly journals Aaron Ember and the Establishment of Egypto-Semitic Phonological and Lexical Comparison (Part I)

2005 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gábor Takács
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Recent Progress ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Proper Time ◽  
Hungarian Academy ◽  
Comparative Linguistics ◽  
80Th Anniversary ◽  
Johns Hopkins University

Institute of Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Science The paper evaluates the Lebenswerk of Aaron Ember, one of the greatest figures of Egypto-Semitic linguistic comparison, accompanied by an evaluation and a detailed analysis of his etymological suggestions in the light of recent progress in Semito-Hamitic comparative linguistics. He was known as American Egyptologist and Semiticist of Johns Hopkins University. He was born in Tulnas (Kovno) of Lithuania in 1878. The 80th anniversary of his tragical and premature end (1926) represents the proper time when Ember’s memory may be revived and his etymological research may gain a worthy appraisal. It is all the more actual since the so-called “old school” (or trend) of Egypto-Semitic comparative phonology, which he himself symbolized in the first decades of the 20th century, is nowadays undeservedly forgotten. It is hoped that the present paper revives the interest in an extremely productive and once influential trend of Semito-Hamitic linguistics, to which Egyptian historical linguistics until now owes so much.

What's mine is yours: Stable variation and language change in Ancient Egyptian possessive constructions

2017 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 639-660
Author(s):  
Shayna Gardiner
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Multivariate Analyses ◽  
Continuous Variable ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Possessive Constructions ◽  
Stable Variation ◽  
Over Time

AbstractVariation is described as two or more variants competing for finite resources. In this model, two outcomes are possible: language change or specialization. Specialization can be broken down further: specialization for different functions, and partial specialization – stable variation. In this paper, I analyze the differences between stable variation and language change using the two variables present in Ancient Egyptian possessive constructions. Observing four Egyptian possessive variants, split into two groups with two variants each – clitic possessor variants and full nominal possessor variants – for a total of 2251 tokens, I compare factors affecting variant choice in each possessive group. Results of distributional and multivariate analyses indicate that a) change over time occurs in clitic possession, while stable variation occurs with noun variants; and b) different kinds of factors govern the two sets: the continuous variable phrase complexity affects variant choice in nominal possession, but does not affect the clitic variants.

Transacting Obasinjom: The Dissemination of a Cult Agency in the Cross River Area

Africa ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ute Röschenthaler
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
The Other ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Cross River ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Language Boundaries ◽  
Over Time

AbstractDuring the twentieth century, Obasinjom became one of the best known and most effective cult agencies in the Cross River area of Cameroon and Nigeria. This paper aims at reconstructing the history of Obasinjom and some of its variants. Unlike many other witch-hunting cults, Obasinjom usually did not disappear after accomplishing the immediate job for which it was acquired. The owners additionally desired to possess the institution because it created wealth, influence and prestige for them as well as their village as a whole. Obasinjom and other cult agencies (as well as women's and men's societies and dance associations) spread from village to village across ethnic or language boundaries. Along with their dissemination, something of their identities and agency diffused and was incorporated into their histories over time and space. As intellectual property they were owned by the buying village and at the same time remained the property of the selling village. Obasinjom, as well as more important institutions, created decentralised networks of owners who had no definite knowledge of all the other participants. The recently formed pan-Obasinjom association, however, has changed this situation and, at least among some owners, created a feeling of identity and a greater sense of unity.

Gender and language change in Old Norse sentential negatives

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tam Blaxter
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Prose Fiction ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Consistent Finding ◽  
Historical Societies ◽  
Sentential Negation ◽  
Over Time

AbstractOne consistent finding across sociolinguistic studies is the tendency for female speakers to lead in ongoing change. Different explanations have been proposed for this and a key method of testing these explanations is to identify whether the pattern occurs in the languages of a wider range of societies than have been studied thus far. Historical societies are relatively understudied in this regard, but undertaking variationist research into gender in historical varieties presents many challenges. One way to overcome these is to examine variation internal to fiction data. This paper presents an analysis of the effect of gender on the adverb selected for sentential negation in Old Norse prose fiction. It finds that female characters lead consistently in this change over time. In doing so, it demonstrates the feasibility of using fiction data when examining the effect of gender in historical varieties such as Old Norse.

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