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.

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.

The role of frequency of use in lexical change

Diachronica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 584-612
Author(s):  
Fiona M. Wilson ◽  
Panayiotis A. Pappas ◽  
Arne O. Mooers
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Word List ◽  
General Mechanism ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Lexical Change ◽  
Linguistic Evolution ◽  
Post Hoc

Abstract Based on the number of words per meaning across the Indo-European Swadesh list, Pagel et al. (2007) suggest that frequency of use is a general mechanism of linguistic evolution. We test this claim using within-language change. From the IDS (Key & Comrie 2015) we compiled a comparative word list of 1,147 cognate pairs for Classical Latin and Modern Spanish, and 1,231 cognate pairs for Classical and Modern Greek. We scored the amount of change for each cognate pair in the two language histories according to a novel 6-point scale reflecting increasing levels of change from regular sound change to external borrowing. We find a weak negative correlation between frequency of use and lexical change for both the Latin-Spanish and Classical-Modern Greek language developments, but post hoc tests reveal that low frequency of use of borrowed words drive these patterns, casting some doubt on frequency of use as a general mechanism of language 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.

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.

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.

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.

Historical Linguistics

Anthropology ◽  
2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Tavárez
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
European Languages ◽  
The Impact

Historical linguistics is a discipline with strong interdisciplinary connections to sociocultural anthropology, ethnohistory, and archaeology. While the study of language change and etymology can be traced back to ancient societies in the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Asia, a number of important methodological approaches emerged in the late 18th century, when European scholars who were engaged in colonial administration set the foundations for research in Indo-European languages. Contemporary historical linguistics has maintained a focus on several large-scale questions, such as the origins of the language faculty; the classification and typology of the world’s languages; the time depth of major language changes; ancient writing systems; the impact of linguistic and cultural contacts on language change; the emergence of pidgins and creoles; the influence of colonial expansion and evangelization projects on language change; and the interface among literacy practices, language change, and the social order. This article outlines all of these important inquiries, with a particular stress on the sustained interaction among historical linguistics, anthropology, and ethnohistory. This survey has two focii: the first one is languages of the Americas, and the second one is ethnohistorical and philological methodology. This choice in focus conveys existing historical strengths and showcases our current knowledge about language contact and language change in the Americas.

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.

Language Contact

2020 ◽  
pp. 857-870
Author(s):  
Klaus Beyer
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Contact Linguistics ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Network Approach ◽  
Areal Linguistics ◽  
French Tradition

The chapter starts with a short history of contact studies related to Africa. It briefly looks at early works from Heine (pidgins in the Bantu area) and the French tradition exemplified in the LACITO series on language contact. Considerable space is given to the developments of the last ten years or so when areal linguistics (Aikhenvald and Dixon), linguistic geography (Heine and Nurse), and contact linguistics (Childs, Mesthrie) were put center stage in the African linguistic context. The second part of the chapter looks at methodological issues. Substantial space is given to social contexts in the description of contact-induced language change. The social network approach and other sociolinguistic tools are demonstrated by means of a brief case study from a West African rural contact zone.

The relative clause marker in Scots English: Diffusion, complexity, and style as dimensions of syntactic change

1980 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Romaine
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Qualitative Change ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
History Of

ABSTRACTA historical study of variation in the relative clause marker in Scottish English indicates that sociolinguistic methodology has some important contributions to make to historical linguistics. The use of the frequency with which NPs in certain syntactic positions are relativized as a measure of syntactic complexity reveals that the WH relativization strategy appears to have entered the language in the most complex styles and least frequently relativized syntactic positions, until it eventually spread or diffused throughout the system. The addition of the WH relativization strategy seems to have resulted in a ‘squish’ of two strategies which are opposed in stylistic meaning rather than in actual qualitative change in the relative system. The process of diffusion can be seen as completed as far as the more formal styles of the modern written language are concerned, but it has not really affected the spoken language, where the native TH strategy prevails. (Sociolinguistic methodology, historical linguistics, language change, relativization, history of tle English language)

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