The influence of language contact on word order of some minority languages in Southern China

2019 ◽  
pp. 205-236
Author(s):  
Yunbing Li
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Southern China ◽  
Minority Languages

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.

Diachronic features of Romanian in a broader comparative setting

2019 ◽  
pp. 217-222
Author(s):  
Alexandru Nicolae
Keyword(s):  
Structural Properties ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Romance Language ◽  
Syntactic Theory ◽  
Syntactic Change ◽  
History Of ◽  
Diachronic Development

Chapter 6 highlights the novel theoretical and empirical facts brought about by the word order changes that occurring in the passage from old to modern Romanian, showing how the diachrony of Romanian may contribute to a better understanding of the history of the Romance languages and of the Balkan Sprachbund, as well as to syntactic theory and syntactic change in general. One important dimension of diachronic variation and change is the height of nouns and verbs along their extended projections (lower vs higher V- and N-movement). The two perspectives from which language contact proves relevant in the diachronic development of word order in Romanian, language contact by means of translation and areal language contact, are discussed. The chapter also addresses the issue of surface analogy vs deep structural properties; once again, Romanian emerges as a Romance language in a Balkan suit, as Romance deep structural properties are instantiated by means of Balkan word order patterns.

Syntactic variation in the history of Norwegian and the decline of XV word order

Diachronica ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
John D. Sundquist
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
Syntactic Variation ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Case Morphology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Exogenous Factors ◽  
Subsequent Loss

This essay examines syntactic variation between Complement–Verb (XV) and Verb–Complement (VX) order in a corpus of Middle Norwegian texts written between 1250 and 1525. In comparison to traditional studies which relate word order variation and the subsequent loss of XV word order to overt case morphology, this analysis proposes that information structure and variation in the underlying structure of the VP play a significant role. Empirical data point to the interaction of endogenous and exogenous factors, including language contact between Norwegian and Danish, which ultimately brings about the decline of XV word order in 15th-century Norwegian.

Grammar, Contact and Time

2007 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 144-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Mithun
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Structural Features ◽  
Western North America ◽  
Current Form ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Grammatical Structures ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Striking Parallelism

AbstractA continuing issue in work on language contact has been determining the relative borrowability of various structural features. It is easy to imagine, for example, how a tendency to use particular word order patterns in one language might be replicated by bilinguals in another, but difficult to understand how abstract morphological structures could be transferred. When we look at linguistic areas, however, we often find grammatical features shared by genetically unrelated languages that seem unborrowable. Here we consider the importance of adding the dimension of time to investigations into the potential effects of contact. As a point of departure we examine a relatively straightforward example from western North America, a striking parallelism in verbal structure among large numbers of languages indigenous to California. The example illustrates the fact that parallel grammatical structures in neighboring languages need not have been borrowed in their current form. They might instead be the result of an earlier transfer of patterns of expression that set the stage for subsequent parallel developments.

Correlation between social and linguistic parameters in modeling language contact: evidence from endangered Finnic varieties

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 (221) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Markus ◽  
Fedor Rozhanskiy
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language And Identity ◽  
Modeling Language ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Language Competition ◽  
The Social ◽  
High Volatility ◽  
Linguistic Level ◽  
Social Level

AbstractThis article discusses a case of language competition between two minority languages, Votic and Ingrian. We analyze the sociolinguistic situation in the contact area, and the contact-induced linguistic changes in both languages. Although the two languages had a very similar fate, and the same premises for language competition, Ingrian appears to have been more socially prestigious and was for a long period of time gradually replacing Votic. It is shown that the two languages chose different strategies for interaction. The Ingrians preserved their strong identity but transformed their language significantly, and thus achieved an easier understanding with their neighbors. On the other hand, the Votes were unwilling to adapt their language to contact influence, but shifted easily to their neighbors' identity. We suggest distinguishing between two types of volatility: social volatility, which describes the willingness of a nation to shift to a new language and identity; and linguistic volatility, which denotes the readiness of speakers to adopt innovations from a neighboring language. In minority vs. minority competition, the two types of volatility often demonstrate inverse tendencies: high volatility on the linguistic level corresponds to low volatility on the social level, and vice versa.

scholarly journals Stylistic Fronting in the Ormulum - Scandinavian Syntactic Phenomena in Early Middle English Texts

Nordlyd ◽  
10.7557/12.15 ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carola Trips
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
English Language ◽  
Metrical Pattern ◽  
Poetic Text ◽  
Order Change ◽  
Word Order Change

This paper deals with Scandinavian influence in Early Middle English texts and especially with one syntactic phenomenon, stylistic fronting. It is claimed here that the OV/VO word order change in Early Middle English was triggered by language contact with Scandinavian (Kroch & Taylor, 1997) and that the occurrence of syntactic phenomena like stylistic fronting are taken to be evidence for the heavy impact on the English language that led to this change. The focus of the paper lies on the findings from one Early Middle English poetic text, the <em>Ormulum</em>, which shows non-syntactic as well as syntactic evidence for Scandinavian influence. It is shown that the orders that seem to reflect the fronting operation are indeed true instantiations of stylistic fronting. Moreover, in this text stylistic fronting is a phonological phenomenon, because it is used by Orm, its author, whenever the metrical pattern would otherwise be violated. Thus, it was part of Orm's grammar and he could use it for phonological reasons. The fact that the fronting operation is metrically driven supports Holmberg's (2000) analysis of stylistic fronting as a PF-operation.

scholarly journals Cultural and linguistic affinities amongst Meitei-Sizang-Thadou

2019 ◽  
pp. 58-67
Author(s):  
Bobita Sarangthem ◽  
Lhingneilam Lhouvum
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Field Works

This paper attempts to highlight the cultural and linguistic affinities amongst Meitei, Sizang and Thadou people. The data are collected from the field works in Imphal (Manipur, India), Tamu (Sagaing division of Myanmar) and Diphu (KarbiAnglong of Assam, India) for Meitei, Sizang, and Thadou respectively. Linguistically, Meitei, Sizang and Thadou share common Tibeto- Burman feature of SOV word order, agglutinative forms, sharing lexical cognates due to language contact. Culturally, these languages show some similarities; however, Thadou and Sizang are more similar. Nonetheless, languages have been a reflection of those cultural distinctions as well as their identities.

Hmong-Mien Languages

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David R. Mortensen
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Southern China ◽  
Compact Groups ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Special Relationship ◽  
Language Groups ◽  
Chinese Scholars ◽  
Rare Classes ◽  
Internal Relationships ◽  
Mainland Southeast Asia

Hmong-Mien (also known as Miao-Yao) is a bipartite family of minority languages spoken primarily in China and mainland Southeast Asia. The two branches, called Hmongic and Mienic by most Western linguists and Miao and Yao by Chinese linguists, are both compact groups (phylogenetically if not geographically). Although they are uncontroversially distinct from one another, they bear a strong mutual affinity. But while their internal relationships are reasonably well established, there is no unanimity regarding their wider genetic affiliations, with many Chinese scholars insisting on Hmong-Mien membership in the Sino-Tibetan superfamily, some Western scholars suggesting a relationship to Austronesian and/or Tai-Kradai, and still others suggesting a relationship to Mon-Khmer. A plurality view appears to be that Hmong-Mien bears no special relationship to any surviving language family. Hmong-Mien languages are typical—in many respects—of the non-Sino-Tibetan languages of Southern China and mainland Southeast Asia. However, they possess a number of properties that make them stand out. Many neighboring languages are tonal, but Hmong-Mien languages are, on average, more so (in terms of the number of tones). While some other languages in the area have small-to-medium consonant inventories, Hmong-Mien languages (and especially Hmongic languages) often have very large consonant inventories with rare classes of sounds like uvulars and voiceless sonorants. Furthermore, while many of their neighbors are morphologically isolating, few language groups display as little affixation as Hmong-Mien languages. They are largely head-initial, but they deviate from this generalization in their genitive-noun constructions and their relative clauses (which vary in position and structure, sometimes even within the same language).

Micro-change and macro-change in diachronic syntax

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Éric Mathieu ◽  
Robert Truswell
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Diachronic Syntax ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Syntactic Change ◽  
Complementizer Agreement ◽  
Viewpoint Aspect ◽  
And Control

This introduction discusses current trends in diachronic linguistics with a focus on syntactic change and reviews the fifteen other chapters included in the volume. In the spirit of modern diachronic syntax, the selected articles show that very general patterns of change, emergent, multigenerational diachronic phenomena, interact with small, discrete, local, intergenerational changes in the lexical specification of grammatical features. General topics include acquisition biases, cross-categorial word order generalizations, typological particularities and universals, language contact, and transitional changes, while specific linguistic topics include tense and viewpoint aspect, directional/aspectual affixes, V2, V3, Stylistic Fronting, directional/aspectual prefixes, negation, accusative and dative marking, analytic passives, complementizer agreement, and control and raising verbs.

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