Scales and Units

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn M. de Luna
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
The North ◽  
First Case ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
River Region ◽  
History Of ◽  
Alternative Approaches

This chapter uses two case studies to explore how historians study language movement and change through comparative historical linguistics. The first case study stands as a short chapter in the larger history of the expansion of Bantu languages across eastern, central, and southern Africa. It focuses on the expansion of proto-Kafue, ca. 950–1250, from a linguistic homeland in the middle Kafue River region to lands beyond the Lukanga swamps to the north and the Zambezi River to the south. This expansion was made possible by a dramatic reconfiguration of ties of kinship. The second case study explores linguistic evidence for ridicule along the Lozi-Botatwe frontier in the mid- to late 19th century. Significantly, the units and scales of language movement and change in precolonial periods rendered visible through comparative historical linguistics bring to our attention alternative approaches to language change and movement in contemporary Africa.

scholarly journals Phylogenetic Methods in Historical Linguistics: Greek as a Case Study

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arne O. Mooers ◽  
Panayiotis A. Pappas
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
General Mechanism ◽  
Current Frequency ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Lexical Change ◽  
History Of

AbstractWe review and assess the different ways in which research in evolutionary-theory-inspired biology has influenced research in historical linguistics, and then focus on an evolutionary-theory inspired claim for language change made by Pagel et al. (2007). They report that the more Swadesh-list lexemes are used, the less likely they are to change across 87 Indo-European languages, and posit that frequency-of-use of a lexical item is a separate and general mechanism of language change. We test a corollary of this conclusion, namely that current frequency-of-use should predict the amount of change within individual languages through time. We devise a scale of lexical change that recognizes sound change, analogical change and lexical replacement and apply it to cognate pairs on the Swadesh list between Homeric and Modern Greek. Current frequency-of-use only weakly predicts the amount of change within the history of Greek, but amount of change does predict the number of forms across Indo-European. Given that current frequency-of-use and past frequency-of-use may be only weakly correlated for many Swadesh-list lexemes, and given previous research that shows that frequency-of-use can both hinder and facilitate lexical change, we conclude that it is premature to claim that a new mechanism of language change has been discovered. However, we call for more in-depth comparative study of general mechanisms of language change, including further tests of the frequency-of-use hypothesis.

scholarly journals A distributional semantic approach to the periodization of change in the productivity of constructions

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 490-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florent Perek ◽  
Martin Hilpert
Keyword(s):  
Present Method ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Distributional Semantics ◽  
Semantic Approach ◽  
Lexical Meaning ◽  
First Case ◽  
History Of ◽  
Type Frequency ◽  
Corpus Data

Abstract This paper describes a method to automatically identify stages of language change in diachronic corpus data, combining variability-based neighbour clustering, which offers objective and reproducible criteria for periodization, and distributional semantics as a representation of lexical meaning. This method partitions the history of a grammatical construction according to qualitative stages of productivity corresponding to different semantic sets of lexical items attested in it. Two case studies are presented. The first case study on the hell-construction (“Verb the hell out of NP”) shows that the semantic development of a construction does not always match that of its quantitative aspects, like token or type frequency. The second case study on the way-construction compares the results of the present method with those of collostructional analysis. It is shown that the former measures semantic changes and their chronology with greater precision. In sum, this method offers a promising approach to exploring semantic variation in the lexical fillers of constructions and to modelling constructional change.

scholarly journals Inferencing, Reanalysis, and the History of the French est-ce que Question

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Waltereit
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
Theoretical Level ◽  
History Of ◽  
Practical Level

Abstract In this paper, I discuss critically the traditional view of reanalysis, taking into account recent debates about the concept. In particular, I argue that the debate about reanalysis tends to conflate two interpretations of reanalysis: reanalysis as a type of language change among other ones, and reanalysis as the recognition or “ratification” of any kind of change. I offer a possible explanation of that potential confusion. I then illustrate this distinction using the history of the French est-ce que question as a case study. I report original diachronic research on the history of that construction. Further, I discuss implications both at a conceptual-theoretical level and at a practical level for further diachronic research. The paper concludes with a summary and discussion of the findings.

scholarly journals Thermal Surface Analysis on Neo-minimalist apartment façades in Penang, Malaysia

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 01001
Author(s):  
Yasser Arab ◽  
Ahmad Sanusi Hassan ◽  
Bushra Qanaa
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Performance ◽  
Thermal Imager ◽  
Efficient Design ◽  
Kuala Lumpur ◽  
Architectural Style ◽  
Less Is More ◽  
The North ◽  
First Case ◽  
Shading Devices

The study investigates apartment’s façade thermal performance with neo-minimalist architectural style in Penang, Malaysia. Neo-minimalist style is considered as the most popular style in Malaysia in 2010s. The style is rediscovering from early modern minimalist movement with a design concept “less is more”. It applies minimal and efficient design of architectural character in defining form and space. Penang Island the second most important city in Malaysia after Kuala Lumpur. It is located at the north-western part of the country. The first case studies is the Light Linear apartment which has sixteen stories located on the east cost of Penang Island at Pantai Street, Penang. The second case study is BayStar apartment building, the eleven stories building tis located in Bayan Lepas at the seaside facing Jerejak Island. In order to conduct this study Fluke Ti20 thermal imager was used to capture thermal images for the west facades of the selected case study hourly from 12:00 to 6:00 pm on 15th March 2017. The study finds that the recessed wall, balconies and the shading devices were the important elements to provide shades on the façades for good thermal performance.

Armenian prosody in typology and diachrony

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica DeLisi
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Secondary Stress ◽  
Modern Language ◽  
Primary Stress ◽  
Prosodic Word ◽  
History Of ◽  
Final Syllable ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Stress Patterns

AbstractThis paper examines the relationship between typology and historical linguistics through a case study from the history of Armenian, where two different stress systems are found in the modern language. The first is a penult system with no associated secondary stress ([… σ́σ]ω). The other, the so-called hammock pattern, has primary stress on the final syllable and secondary stress on the initial syllable of the prosodic word ([σ̀ … σ́]ω). Although penult stress patterns are by far more typologically common than the hammock pattern in the world’s languages, I will argue that the hammock pattern must be reconstructed for the period of shared innovation, the Proto-Armenian period.

Language Contact in Early Medieval Britain: Settlement, Interaction, and Acculturation

2020 ◽  
pp. 62-89
Author(s):  
Martin Findell ◽  
Philip A. Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Written Language ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
First Case ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
English Spelling

This chapter explores language contact in early medieval Britain, focusing on the methodological problems involved in studying historical language contact in situations where records of the languages involved are sparse. Two case studies then look at linguistic evidence for contact situations, one addressing the uses of the term wealh in Old English and especially in the Laws of Ine, while the other explores the influence of Latin on the development of Old English spelling. The first case study argues that the term wealh in early Old English (as in Continental Germanic) usage identified groups and individuals as Roman, as distinct from the identification with Celtic languages that developed later in the period. The second case study shows how spellings of the reflex of pre-Old English *[ɡɡj] developed through the engagement of Old English speakers with Latin, demonstrating the interactions between developments in the spoken and written language.

Change

2020 ◽  
pp. 310-338
Author(s):  
Hans-Jörg Schmid
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Systematic Description ◽  
Change Direction ◽  
History Of

This chapter discusses how the Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization Model explains language change. First, it is emphasized that not only innovation and variation, but also the frequency of repetition can serve as important triggers of change. Conventionalization and entrenchment processes can interact and be influenced by numerous forces in many ways, resulting in various small-scale processes of language change, which can stop, change direction, or even become reversed. This insight serves as a basis for the systematic description of nine basic modules of change which differ in the ways in which they are triggered and controlled by processes and forces. Large-scale pathways of change such as grammaticalization, lexicalization, pragmaticalization, context-induced change, or colloquialization and standardization are all explained by reference to these modules. The system is applied in a case study on the history of do-periphrasis.

Opera Inside and Out

2021 ◽  
pp. 227-268
Author(s):  
Katharine Ellis
Keyword(s):  
New Music ◽  
Musical Identity ◽  
Paris Opera ◽  
First Case ◽  
History Of

In three main sections, the discussion takes the reader from standard municipal opera in town theaters to the new phenomenon of open-air opera that started fitfully in the late 1860s but which became fashionable and important for decentralist and regionalist reasons from around 1900 onward. In the first case study, Wagner’s Lohengrin is detoxified in 1891 via seven municipal French stages, in advance of its successful appearance at the Paris Opéra. This provincial coup nevertheless indicates the stranglehold of French repertorial centralization, since it was possible only because Wagner was already embarrassingly famous and the violent history of his reception in Paris had paralyzed the capital’s ability to function as normal. Lohengrin was acclaimed in Lille as “local” but contained no audible couleur locale. It was through such “marked” music that opera acted as a vector for the “picturesque” presentation of the French provinces. Changing critical and audience attitudes to couleur locale from the 1830s onward prepared the conditions necessary for the development of regionalist operatic commentary, especially in Brittany and Provence. Identity, whether local and/or national, could also be enacted by audiences attending festival and commemorative performances of opera and stage spectacle in open-air venues. Catalyzed by performances at Orange, a tradition of open-air opera presented a distillation of meridional musical identity from around 1900 in ancient classical venues and their modern equivalents, while the new music it spawned remained stubbornly difficult to transplant to Paris.

CONVERGENCE AND THE FORMATION OF AFRIKAANS

2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul T. Roberge
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Important Case ◽  
General Idea ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
Languages In Contact ◽  
History Of

As a phenomenon to be explained, convergence in historical linguistics is substantively no different than in creolistics. The general idea is that accommodation by speakers of “established” languages in contact and the formation of new language varieties both involve a process of leveling of different structures that achieve the same referential and nonreferential effects. The relatively short and well-documented history of Afrikaans presents an important case study in the competition and selection of linguistic features during intensive language contact.

scholarly journals Does historical linguistics need the Cognitive Commitment? Prosodic change in East Slavic

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 573-585 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tore Nesset
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Fundamental Property ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Traditional Practice ◽  
Speech Communities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Linguistic Structures

AbstractOn the basis of a case study of the so-called jer shift in Slavic, I argue that the Cognitive Commitment is essential for an adequate analysis of language change. While the “social turn” and the “quantitative turn” open up important perspectives and provide new opportunities for cognitive historical linguistics, the Cognitive Commitment remains essential because it facilitates elegant and insightful analyses and paves the way for more general hypotheses about language change. The jer shift is a prosodic change that originated in Late Common Slavic and spread to Old East Slavic in the twelfth century. This sound change involved the lax vowels /ĭ, ŭ/ (often referred to as jers or yers), which either disappeared or merged with /e, o/ depending on the prosodic environment. Contrary to traditional practice, I argue that the jer shift should be analyzed in terms of trochaic feet, i. e., rhythmic groups of two syllables, where the leftmost syllable is prominent. This account is psychologically realistic, as dictated by the Cognitive Commitment, since rhythmic grouping is a fundamental property of human cognition (Nathan 2015. Phonology. In Ewa Dąbrowska & Dagmar Divjak (eds.), Handbook of cognitive linguistics, 253–273. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter Mouton and Ding et al. 2016. Cortical tracking of hierarchical linguistic structures in connected speech. Nature Neuroscience 19. 158–164). While the Cognitive Commitment is essential for historical linguistics, one important limitation deserves mention. Historical changes such as the jer shift can be represented as “sound laws”, i. e., statements that summarize changes that span over many generations. Such statements are not about processes in the minds of individual speakers or speech communities at any point in time. They are therefore not directly relevant for the Cognitive Commitment, but are nevertheless among the most valuable tools historical linguists have at their disposal.

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