Phonotactics, prophylaxis, acquisitionism and change: *Rime-xxŋ and ash-tensing in the history of English

Papers in Historical Phonology ◽

10.2218/pihph.4.2019.4192 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 4 ◽

pp. 83-135

Author(s):

Patrick Honeybone

Keyword(s):

Language Acquisition ◽

American English ◽

Rule Based ◽

History Of ◽

Phonological Change

This article revisits, extends and interrogates the position advocated in Honeybone (2019) — that phonotactic constraints are psychologically real phonological entities (namely: constraints on output-like forms), which have a diachrony of their own, and which can also interfere with diachronic segmental change by inhibiting otherwise regular innovations. I focus in the latter part of the article on the role of one phonotactic constraint in the history of English: *Rime-xxŋ. I argue that we need to investigate the emergence of such constraints in the history of languages and I show how this particular constraint, once innovated (which occurs through constraint scattering), can be understood to have inhibited the patterning of ash-tensing in certain varieties of American English (and also that it may now have been lost in some varieties). To do this, I adopt a phonological model which combines aspects of Rule-Based Phonology and aspects of Constraint-Based Phonology, and which is firmly rooted in the variation that exists when changes are innovated. Finally, I evaluate the extent to which the type of phonotactically-driven process-inhibition that I propose here involves prophylaxis in phonological change (I show that it doesn't), and I consider the interaction of these ideas with the proposal that all change occurs in language acquisition (‘acquisitionism’).

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Women in the history of linguistics

Women in the History of Linguistics ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198754954.003.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-30

Author(s):

Wendy Ayres-Bennett ◽

Helena Sanson

Keyword(s):

Language Acquisition ◽

Central Section ◽

Future Directions ◽

The Past ◽

Early Stages ◽

Challenges And Opportunities ◽

History Of Linguistics ◽

History Of ◽

Role Of Women

This Introduction outlines the need for a ‘true history’ (Lerner 1976) of the role of women in the history of linguistics, which considers them on their own terms, and challenges categories and concepts devised for traditional male-dominated accounts. We start by considering what research has already been conducted in the field, before exploring some of the reasons for the relative dearth of studies. We outline some of the challenges and opportunities encountered by women who wished to study the nature of language and languages in the past. The geographical and chronological scope of this volume is then discussed. In a central section we examine some of the major recurring themes in the volume. These include attitudes towards women’s language, both positive and negative; women and language acquisition and teaching; and women as creators of new languages and scripts. We further explore women as authors, dedicatees, or intended readers of metalinguistic texts, as interpreters and translators, and as contributors to the linguistic documentation and maintenance. We consider how women supported male relatives and colleagues in their endeavours, sometimes in invisible ways, before reviewing the early stages of their entry into institutionalized contexts. The chapter concludes with a brief section on future directions for research.

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On case loss and svarabhakti vowels: the sociolinguistic typology and geolinguistics of simplification in North Germanic

Journal of Linguistic Geography ◽

10.1017/jlg.2019.3 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 7 (01) ◽

pp. 1-13

Author(s):

Tam T. Blaxter ◽

Peter Trudgill

Keyword(s):

Second Language Acquisition ◽

Language Acquisition ◽

Case Studies ◽

Language Contact ◽

Future Research ◽

Dialect Contact ◽

Low German ◽

History Of ◽

Middle Low German

AbstractWork in sociolinguistic typology and creole studies has established the theory that intensive language contact involving second language acquisition by adults tends to lead to grammatical simplification. This theory is built on many anecdotal case studies, including developments in the history of Continental North Germanic associated with contact with Middle Low German. In this paper, we assess the theory by examining two changes in the history of Norwegian: the loss of coda /Cr/ clusters and the loss of prepositional genitives. If the theory is correct, these changes should have been innovated in centers of contact with Middle Low German. We find that both changes in fact spread into southeastern Norwegian from Swedish. Since contact with Low German also took place in Sweden and Denmark, this is consistent with the theory. It opens questions for future research about the role of dialect contact in simplificatory change in North Germanic.

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Productivity, richness, and diversity of light verb constructions in the history of American English

Journal of Historical Linguistics ◽

10.1075/jhl.19009.sun ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 349-388

Author(s):

John D. Sundquist

Keyword(s):

Empirical Analysis ◽

American English ◽

Linguistic Change ◽

Light Verbs ◽

Light Verb Constructions ◽

Light Verb ◽

Verb Constructions ◽

History Of ◽

The Rich

Abstract This study provides an empirical analysis of productivity in Light Verb Constructions (LVCs) in the history of American English. LVCs contain a semantically light verb like make or take that may be paired with an abstract nominal object, as in make an assumption or take charge. Using a 406-million word corpus of texts written between 1810 and 2009, we track the frequency of LVCs and analyze the range of light verb + nominal object pairings. Using statistical measurements of biodiversity from the field of ecology, we evaluate the hypothesis that “the rich get richer” among light verbs: the most frequent verbs become more frequent and more diverse, occurring with an ever-growing variety of different NP complements. The results contribute to ongoing discussions in cross-linguistic, diachronic research on reasons for the growth of LVCs, the gradient nature of linguistic productivity, and the role of exemplars in the interaction between type and token frequencies during periods of linguistic change.

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Special issue on mechanisms of French contact influence in Middle English: diffusion and maintenance

English Language and Linguistics ◽

10.1017/s1360674318000096 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 22 (2) ◽

pp. 197-205

Author(s):

OLGA TIMOFEEVA ◽

RICHARD INGHAM

Keyword(s):

Language Acquisition ◽

Middle English ◽

Language Change ◽

Language Shift ◽

Historical Research ◽

Special Issue ◽

The World ◽

Contact Language ◽

History Of

Recent years have seen a spate of publications that attempt to recontextualise the history of English in contact-linguistic (Miller 2012; Lutz 2013; Durkin 2014) and sociolinguistic terms (Millar 2012), and conversely to confront previous descriptions of contact phenomena with new data and theoretical insights available from situations of language shift and substratum influence (Filppula, Klemola & Paulasto 2008; Vennemann 2011), extensive bilingualism (Schendl & Wright 2011), language acquisition (Ingham 2012) and contact-induced grammaticalisation (Timofeeva 2010). Coupled with advances in our understanding of contact- and acquisition-induced language change (Heine & Kuteva 2005; Jarvis & Pavlenko 2008), and of the role of contact in the varieties of English around the world (Schreier & Hundt 2013), there is a clear need in this area of historical research for scholars to reinvestigate earlier stages of English as a contact language.

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Problems with variable properties in syntax

Cadernos de Linguística ◽

10.25189/2675-4916.2021.v2.n1.id306 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 01-19

Author(s):

David Lightfoot

Keyword(s):

Language Acquisition ◽

Language Change ◽

Syntactic Structure ◽

Universal Grammar ◽

Logical Form ◽

Variable Properties ◽

Generative Capacity ◽

History Of ◽

Evaluation Metric

Like those birds born to chirp, humans are born to parse; children are predisposed to assign linguistic structures to the amorphous externalization of the thoughts that we encounter. This yields a view of variable properties quite different from one based on parameters defined at Universal Grammar (UG). Our approach to language acquisition makes two contributions to Minimalist thinking. First, in accordance with general Minimalist goals, we minimize the pre-wired components of internal languages, dispensing with three separate, central entities: parameters, an evaluation metric for rating the generative capacity of grammars, and any independent parsing mechanism. Instead, children use their internal grammar to parse the ambient external language they experience. UG is “open,” consistent with what children learn through parsing. Second, our understanding of language acquisition yields a new view of variable properties, properties that occur only in certain languages. Under this open UG vision, specific elements of I-languages arise in response to new parses. Both external and internal languages play crucial, interacting roles: unstructured, amorphous external language is parsed and a structured internal language system results. My Born to parse (Lightfoot 2020) explores case studies that show innovative parses of external language shaping the history of languages. I discuss 1) how children learn through parsing, 2) the role of parsing at the two interfaces between syntactic structure and the externalization system (sound or sign) and logical form, 3) language change, and 4) variable linguistic properties seen through the lens of an open UG. This, in turn, yields a view of variable properties akin to that of evolutionary biologists working on Darwin’s finches; see section 7.

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Elaborating the role of reflection and individual differences in the study of folk-economic beliefs

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x18000274 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 41 ◽

Author(s):

Kevin Arceneaux

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Individual Differences ◽

Cognitive Processes ◽

Evolutionary History ◽

Behavioral Responses ◽

History Of ◽

Economic Beliefs

AbstractIntuitions guide decision-making, and looking to the evolutionary history of humans illuminates why some behavioral responses are more intuitive than others. Yet a place remains for cognitive processes to second-guess intuitive responses – that is, to be reflective – and individual differences abound in automatic, intuitive processing as well.

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The role of a family history of adenocarcinomas in patients with Barrett oesophagus

Gastroenterology ◽

10.1016/s0016-5085(01)82192-2 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 120 (5) ◽

pp. A442-A442

Author(s):

P TSIBOURIS ◽

M HENDRICKSE ◽

P ISAACS

Keyword(s):

Family History ◽

History Of ◽

Barrett Oesophagus

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Protective Factors and Suicidality in Members of Arab Kindred

Crisis ◽

10.1027/0227-5910/a000116 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 33 (2) ◽

pp. 80-86 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Sami Hamdan ◽

Nadine Melhem ◽

Israel Orbach ◽

Ilana Farbstein ◽

Mohammad El-Haib ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Risk Factors ◽

Protective Factors ◽

Suicidal Behavior ◽

Composite International Diagnostic Interview ◽

Diagnostic Interview ◽

Suicidal Risk ◽

Arab Population ◽

Psychiatric Interview ◽

History Of

Background: Relatively little is known about the role of protective factors in an Arab population in the presence of suicidal risk factors. Aims: To examine the role of protective factors in a subsample of in large Arab Kindred participants in the presence of suicidal risk factors. Methods: We assessed protective and risk factors in a sample of 64 participants (16 suicidal and 48 nonsuicidal) between 15 and 55 years of age, using a comprehensive structured psychiatric interview, the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI), self-reported depression, anxiety, hopelessness, impulsivity, hostility, and suicidal behavior in first-degree and second-relatives. We also used the Religiosity Questionnaire and suicide attitude (SUIATT) and multidimensional perceived support scale. Results: Suicidal as opposed to nonsuicidal participants were more likely to have a lifetime history of major depressive disorder (MDD) (68.8% vs. 22.9% χ2 = 11.17, p = .001), an anxiety disorder (87.5% vs. 22.9, χ2 = 21.02, p < .001), or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (25% vs. 0.0%, Fisher’s, p = .003). Individuals who are otherwise at high risk for suicidality have a much lower risk when they experience higher perceived social support (3.31 ± 1.36 vs. 4.96 ± 1.40, t = 4.10, df = 62, p < .001), and they have the view that suicide is somehow unacceptable (1.83 ± .10 vs. 1.89 ± .07, t = 2.76, df = 60, p = .008). Conclusions: Taken together with other studies, these data suggest that the augmentation of protective factors could play a very important role in the prevention of incidental and recurrent suicidal behavior in Arab populations, where suicidal behavior in increasing rapidly.

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