scholarly journals Language contact in Gibraltar English: A pilot study with ICE-GBR

2017 ◽  
pp. 93
Author(s):  
Lucía Loureiro-Porto ◽  
Cristina Suárez-Gómez
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Preliminary Analysis ◽  
Detailed Comparison ◽  
Passive Voice ◽  
British English ◽  
News Reports ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Current State ◽  
Parent Variety

The variety of English used in Gibraltar has been in contact with a number of European languages, such as Spanish, Italian, Hebrew and Arabic (Moyer, 1998: 216; Suárez-Gómez, 2012: 1746), for more than 300 years. Studies of this variety have traditionally been based on interviews and observation (e.g. Moyer, 1993, 1998; Cal Varela, 1996; Levey, 2008 2015; Weston, 2011, 2013, etc.), and a detailed morphosyntactic description is yet to be published. In this context, the compilation of a reliable Gibraltar corpus using the standards of the International Corpus of English (ICE) will constitute a landmark in the analysis of this lesser known variety of English. In the present paper we describe the ICE project and the current state of the compilation of ICE-GBR. In addition, we present a detailed comparison between the section on press news reports of ICE-GB (standard British English) and ICE-GBR, with the aim of identifying morphosyntactic features that reveal the influence of language contact with Spanish in this territory. We explore variables such as the choice of relativizer (assuming a higher preference for that in GBR, in agreement with Spanish que, the most frequent relativizer, Brucart, 1999: 490), the use of titles and pseudo-titles preceding proper names (which, as shown by Hundt and Kabatek, 2015, are very frequent in English journalese and extremely infrequent in Spanish), and the frequency of the passive voice (expected to be lower in ICE-GBR), among others. A preliminary analysis of these variables reveals that the influence of Spanish on the variety of English used in the Gibraltarian press, at the morphosyntactic level, is almost non-existent, limited to occasional cases of code-switching between the two varieties. We hypothesize that a possible explanation for this strong exonormative allegiance to British English, at least in press news reports, can be found in a strong editorial pressure to reflect the prestigious parent-variety.

scholarly journals Indefinite determiners in informal Italian: A preliminary analysis

Linguistics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 679-712
Author(s):  
Anna Cardinaletti ◽  
Giuliana Giusti
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Preliminary Analysis ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
Specific Form ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Online Questionnaire ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Negative Statements ◽  
Scope Interpretation

AbstractThis paper presents the results of a pilot study on the distribution of indefinite determiners in contexts with narrow scope interpretation in current informal Italian. It individuates the available forms and presents their diatopic distribution. The research is based on data collected through an online questionnaire designed to detect optionality. The results show that in narrow scope indefinite contexts, i. e., negative statements, both the zero determiner and the definite article are widespread throughout the country. The partitive determiner is only found in episodic sentences and is limited to restricted geographic areas. In all contexts and areas, a large degree of optionality is found. In some context and area, however, it is possible to identify one form more prominent than the others. This can be related to the context, which may favour some specialized meaning of one specific form, e. g., saliency and small quantity, or to diatopic variation due to language contact with the dialect, as shown by comparing present-day informal Italian with the dialectal data reported in AIS and analysed in (Cardinaletti and Giusti. 2018. Indefinite determiners: Variation and optionality in Italo-Romance. In Diego Pescarini & Roberta D’Alessandro (eds.), Advances in Italian dialectology: Sketches of Italo-Romance grammars, 135–161. Amsterdam: Brill).

Modern Greek V V dvandva compounds: A linguistic innovation in the history of the Indo-European languages

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Ralli
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Compound Formation ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Late Medieval Period ◽  
European Languages ◽  
History Of ◽  
Internal Change ◽  
Contact Situation ◽  
Asian Languages

This paper deals with [V V] dvandva compounds, which are frequently used in East and Southeast Asian languages but also in Greek and its dialects: Greek is in this respect uncommon among Indo-European languages. It examines the appearance of this type of compounding in Greek by tracing its development in the late Medieval period, and detects a high rate of productivity in most Modern Greek dialects. It argues that the emergence of the [V V] dvandva pattern is not due to areal pressure or to a language-contact situation, but it is induced by a language internal change. It associates this change with the rise of productivity of compounding in general, and the expansion of verbal compounds in particular. It also suggests that the change contributes to making the compound-formation patterns of the language more uniform and systematic. Claims and proposals are illustrated with data from Standard Modern Greek and its dialects. It is shown that dialectal evidence is crucial for the study of the rise and productivity of [V V] dvandva compounds, since changes are not usually portrayed in the standard language.

Adjectival Suffixes: From Latin to Romance

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franz Rainer
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Change Processes ◽  
Semantic Change ◽  
Semantic Categories ◽  
European Languages

All languages seem to have nouns and verbs, while the dimension of the class of adjectives varies considerably cross-linguistically. In some languages, verbs or, to a lesser extent, nouns take over the functions that adjectives fulfill in Indo-European languages. Like other such languages, Latin and the Romance languages have a rich category of adjectives, with a well-developed inventory of patterns of word formation that can be used to enrich it. There are about 100 patterns in Romance standard languages. The semantic categories expressed by adjectival derivation in Latin have remained remarkably stable in Romance, despite important changes at the level of single patterns. To some extent, this stability is certainly due to the profound process of relatinization that especially the Romance standard languages have undergone over the last 1,000 years; however, we may assume that it also reflects the cognitive importance of the semantic categories involved. Losses were mainly due to phonological attrition (Latin unstressed suffixes were generally doomed) and to the fact that many derived adjectives became nouns via ellipsis, thereby often reducing the stock of adjectives. At the same time, new adjectival patterns arose as a consequence of language contact and through semantic change, processes of noun–adjective conversion, and the transformation of evaluative suffixes into ethnic suffixes. Overall, the inventory of adjectival patterns of word formation is richer in present-day Romance languages than it was in Latin.

William Carleton between Irish and English: using literary dialect to study language contact and change

2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 339-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin McCafferty
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Empirical Comparison ◽  
Middle Phase ◽  
British English ◽  
The Future ◽  
Complex Constraints ◽  
Contact Situation ◽  
William Carleton ◽  
Bear Witness

This study examines two features of the Irish English literary dialect of William Carleton, a bilingual writer of the period when Ireland shifted to English. It addresses the issue of the validity of literary dialect via empirical comparison of the use of plural verbal -s in Carleton and in personal letters written by a close contemporary from a similar background. The result suggests considerable accuracy in Carleton’s dialect representation: he uses plural verbal -snot only in agreement with the complex constraints of the Northern Subject Rule but also in line with usage in the letters. Then the study examines Carleton’s use of the be after V-ing construction, which is typically a perfect in present-day Irish English. The future uses found in older texts are sometimes cited as examples of inauthentic literary dialect. However, like others of his generation, Carleton uses be after V-ingin both future and perfect senses. Given his social and linguistic background, his place in relation to the language shift, and the apparent accuracy with which he portrays dialect features, Carleton provides crucial support for the view that future uses arose in a language contact situation in which speakers of British English interpreted be after V-ingas a future, while speakers of Irish acquiring English intended it as a calque on an Irish perfect. As more Irish shifted to English, perfect meanings came to dominate. Carleton and his contemporaries bear witness to the middle phase of this process.

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.

History of the Portuguese Lexicon

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernhard Pöll
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Western World ◽  
Romance Language ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Colonial Expansion ◽  
Lower Extent ◽  
History Of ◽  
Basic Vocabulary

The basic vocabulary of Portuguese—the second largest Romance language in terms of speakers (about 210 million as of 2017)—comes from (vulgar) Latin, which itself incorporated a certain amount of so-called substratum and superstratum words. Whereas the former were adopted in a situation of language contact between Latin and the languages of the conquered peoples inhabiting the Iberian Peninsula, the latter are Germanic loans brought mainly by the Visigoths. From 711 onward, until the end of the Middle Ages, Arabic played a major role in the Peninsula, contributing about 1,000 words that are common in Modern Portuguese. (Classical) Latin and Greek were other sources for lexical enrichment especially in the 15th and 16th centuries as well as in the 18th and 19th centuries. Contact with other European languages—Romance and Germanic (especially English, and to a lower extent German)—led to borrowings in several thematic fields reflecting the economic, cultural, and scientific radiance that emanated from the respective language communities. In the course of colonial expansion, Portuguese came into contact with several African, Asian, and Amerindian languages from which it borrowed words for concepts and realia unknown to the Western world.

Diglossia in North Africa

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lotfi Sayahi
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Genetic Relationship ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
The Other ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Standard Arabic ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Language Attitude ◽  
Functional Distribution ◽  
Definition Of

Diglossia refers to a situation where two linguistic varieties coexist within a given speech community. One variety, labeled the ‘high variety’, is used in formal domains including education, while the other variety, labeled the ‘low variety’, is used principally in instances of informal extemporaneous communication. The domains of use, however, are not strictly separate and especially so with the increase in electronic modes of communication. This results in what has been described as diglossic code-switching, and the gradual encroaching of, in the case under consideration here, vernacular Arabic upon the domains of use of Standard Arabic. While the genetic relationship between the two varieties is central in the definition of a classical diglossic situation as in the case of Arabic, the concept of diglossia has often been extended in the literature to cover situations of a functional distribution between languages that are genetically distant, such as with the situation of Spanish and Guaraní in Paraguay. In North Africa, vernacular Arabic is in a classical diglossic distribution with Standard Arabic, while the Berber languages are often described as existing in a situation of extended diglossia with Arabic. However, distinguishing between diglossia as it exists between the Arabic dialects and Standard Arabic and the situation of bilingualism that involves Arabic, Berber, and European languages provides the best framework for describing the linguistic situation in North Africa. Diglossia is a key element in understanding the mechanisms of the region’s language contact and change as it plays a central role in shaping language attitude, language policy, and language planning.

Do contact languages influence the distribution of prepositions in Estonian dialects?

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-384
Author(s):  
Mirjam Ruutma
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Prepositional Phrase ◽  
Gradual Decrease ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
Regular Distribution ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Usage Frequency ◽  
New Findings

AbstractThe origins of prepositional phrase structure in Finnic languages shows little evidence of being contact-induced. However, whether language contact has influenced the structure at a later stage is debatable. The current paper provides new findings on the topic of contact-induced change by comparing the distribution of prepositions in Estonian dialects with the respective contact languages. The purpose is to determine whether the usage frequency of prepositions is higher in areas mainly in contact with prepositional Indo-European languages. The topic is approached from a corpus-based, frequency-driven viewpoint. The results show a small, gradual decrease in the use of prepositions from the northeastern to the western dialect areas. Thus, the uneven but regular distribution of prepositions in Estonian dialects cannot be explained with language contact. This evidence supports the general understanding that adpositions are an unlikely class to be influenced by contact.

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