scholarly journals Vowel harmony decay in Old Norwegian

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 11-48
Author(s):  
Jade J. Sandstedt
Keyword(s):  
Historical Record ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Vowel Harmony ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Full Spectrum ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Phonological Feature ◽  
Occurrence Patterns ◽  
Over Time

Vowel harmony involves the systematic correspondence between vowels in some domain for some phonological feature. Though harmony represents one of the most natural and diachronically robust phonological phenomena that occurs in human language, how and why harmony systems emerge and decay over time remains unclear. Specifically, what motivates harmony decay and the pathways by which harmony languages lose harmony remains poorly understood since no consistent historical record in any single language has yet been identified which displays the full progression of this rare sound change (McCollum 2015, 2020; Kavitskaya 2013, Bobaljik 2018). In this paper, I explore the progression and causation of vowel harmony decay in Old Norwegian (c 1100–1350). Using a grapho‐phonologically tagged database of a sample of 13th‐ to 14th‐century manuscripts, I present novel corpus methods for tracking and visualising changes to vowel co‐occurrence patterns in historical records, demonstrating that the Old Norwegian corpus provides a consistent and coherent record of harmony decay. The corpus distinguishes categorical pre‐decay harmony, probabilistic intermediate stages, and post‐decay non‐harmony. Across the Old Norwegian manuscripts, we observe a variety of pathways of harmony decay, including increasing harmony variability via the collapse of harmony classes introduced by vowel mergers, the lexicalisation of historically harmonising morphemes, and trisyllabic vowel reductions which limit harmony iterativity. This paper provides the first detailed corpus study of the full spectrum and causation of this rare sound change in progress and provides valuable empirical diagnostics for identifying and analysing harmony change in contemporary languages.

scholarly journals Vowel Harmony: An Historical Account

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 106
Author(s):  
Emran R. Al Khattab
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Vowel Harmony ◽  
Main Concern ◽  
Continuous Change ◽  
Historical Account ◽  
English History ◽  
Continuous Growth ◽  
Over Time

All languages change over time. English has undergone continuous change throughout its three major periods: Old English (roughly from 450 to 1100 AD), Middle English (from 1100 to 1500), and Modern English (from 1500 to the present). Sound is one of the most easily influenced parts of language to be subject to different changes.  Sound change is inevitable and it is a live indication of the continuous growth of language. The evidence to prove the regularity and systematicity of sound change has been the main concern of linguists, This paper seeks to provide more evidence on how vowel harmony played a key role on the regularity of sound change by extracting samples of sound changes that have taken place throughout the English history.

scholarly journals Characteristics of Korean Forest Fires and Forest Fire Policies in the Joseon Dynasty Period (1392–1910) Derived From Historical Records

Forests ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
Donghyun Kim
Keyword(s):  
Forest Fire ◽  
Forest Fires ◽  
East Coast ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Fire Damage ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
Royal Authority ◽  
Joseon Dynasty ◽  
Fire Stations

This study examined the records of forest fire outbreaks and characteristics over the 518 years of the Joseon Dynasty period (1392–1910) through the analysis of major historical records of Korea. The historical books used in this study were 14 major national historical books, and include the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty (朝鮮王朝實錄), the Diaries of the Royal Secretariat (承政院日記), and the literature was examined, centering on official records of the royal palace in the Joseon Dynasty period. The contents of forest fires recorded in the historical record literature include the overviews of outbreak, forest fire types, and forest fire damage. According to the results of analysis of historical records, the largest forest fire damage was in the forest fire that occurred on the east coast in 1672, in which 65 persons died and in the forest fire that occurred in the same area in 1804, in which 61 persons died and 2600 private houses were destroyed by fire. The causes of fire outbreak were shown to be unknown causes in 42 cases, accidental fires in 10 cases, arson in 3 cases, thunder strike in 3 cases, hunting activities in 2 cases, child playing with fire in 1 case, cultivating activities in 1 case, and house fire in 1 case. Forest fire outbreaks were analyzed by region and by season and according to the results, 56% (39 cases) of the forest fires broke out on the east coast and 73% (46 cases) broke out in the spring. Forest fire policies include those for general forests, those for reserved forests, those for prohibited forests, those for capital city forests, those for royal family’s graves, royal ancestral shrine, and placenta chamber, those for hunting grounds such as martial art teaching fields, and relief policies for people in areas damaged by forest fires, forest fire policies for national defense facilities such as beacon fire stations, and burning and burning control policies for pest control. In conclusion, due to the seriousness of forest fires in the Joseon Dynasty period, the royal authority and local administrative agencies made various forest fire prevention policies, policies for stabilization of the people’s livelihood damaged due to forest fires, and methods to manage major facilities in forests.

Worth(Less)

2019 ◽  
pp. 103-126
Author(s):  
Adam Fracchia
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Current Mode ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
Irish Immigrants ◽  
Industrial Town ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Ethnicity And Race ◽  
The Town ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Mode Of Production

The small industrial town of Texas, Maryland, employed hundreds of Irish immigrants in the quarrying and burning of limestone during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This chapter by Adam Fracchia examines patterns of value based on categories of class, ethnicity, and race that were influenced by and necessary to ensure the profitability of the quarry industry. Historical records in combination with material culture illustrate shifts in these values over time and the patterns of marginalization that led to the removal of Texans and the destruction of their property. Ultimately, the preservation of the town is governed by similar notions of value tied to the current mode of production and a static perception of the town’s heritage that indirectly supports its continued destruction.

Maori and Alcohol: A Reconsidered History

2000 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter C. Mancall ◽  
Paul Robertson ◽  
Terry Huriwai
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
European Contact ◽  
History Of ◽  
Alcohol Related Harm ◽  
Potential Use ◽  
Related Harm ◽  
Different Parts

Objective: To document aspects of the history of alcohol use among Maori, with a particular focus on the period from 1840 to 1872 and to identify potential use of this knowledge in the development of strategies for the prevention and treatment of alcohol-related harm among Maori in contemporary New Zealand. Method: A survey of the surviving documentation about alcohol in nineteenth-century New Zealand; materials were predominantly drawn from the writings of pakeha (non-Maori) missionaries, officials and travellers, as well as available statistical records. Results: Analysis of early written historical records suggests significant variation in the response of Maori to the introduction of alcohol in different parts of New Zealand during the period following European contact. Conclusions: One stereotype that has arisen suggests Maori have been incapable of and/or unable to manage the production and use of alcohol. On the other hand, another commonly held belief has been that Maori supported abstinence or ‘resisted alcohol’ because they recognised its ‘ruinous nature’ and because it was contrary to traditional custom and practices. Historical information indicates that the Maori response to the introduction of alcohol was in fact diverse and for much of the nineteenth century alcohol was non-problematic for many Maori. This reinterpretation of the historical record can potentially empower contemporary Maori to take greater responsibility for the use of alcohol. It also challenges the negativity of the stereotypes generated by historical misinformation.

Neutral vowels in sound-symbolic vowel harmony in Korean

Phonology ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darrell Larsen ◽  
Jeffrey Heinz
Keyword(s):  
Vowel Harmony ◽  
The Other ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Tentative Hypothesis ◽  
Traditional Understanding

The set of neutral vowels in the vowel-harmony pattern found in Modern Korean sound-symbolic words is traditionally considered to consist of two members: [i] and [ɨ]. Some authors have tentatively put forward the hypothesis that [u] and [y] are also neutral. A corpus study on the phonotactics of Korean sound-symbolic vowel harmony provides quantitative support both for the traditional understanding of [i] and [ɨ] as neutral vowels and for the tentative hypothesis that [u] and [y] are also neutral. Additionally, the corpus study reveals that vowels are neutral to different degrees. The vowel [a] is shown to be partially neutral, but unlike the other neutral vowels which are transparent, [a] is partially opaque. The distribution of diphthongs is also studied.

The sound change j > y in the Arabic dialects of peninsular Arabia

1965 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. M. Johnstone
Keyword(s):  
Sound Change ◽  
Phonological Feature ◽  
Arabic Dialects ◽  
Classical Arabic ◽  
The Way

An important phonological feature of many of the dialects of Arabia is the pronunciation of . This sound change is not confined to one dialect group, and unlike the affrication of and is non-conditioned. The evidence whether > in Classical Arabic or in the ancient dialects is rather inconclusive, and exceptin a few authors it is not categorically stated to be a sound change in the way that this is stated, for example, of 'aj'aja (iy[y] > ij[j] mainly in pause) for the dialect of the Tamīm.

“Black Writers and White!”: Jack Conroy, Arna Bontemps, and Interracial Collaboration in the 1930s

Prospects ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 401-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Wixson
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Black Writers ◽  
Black American ◽  
Literary Production ◽  
Working Class History ◽  
American Cultural History ◽  
Over Time

The task of cultural recovery, George Hutchinson writes, begins with “those moments when places where the intertwined discourses of race, culture, and nation were exposed to questioning, to skepticism, to transformation, however small and localized, and when possibilities for coalitions of cultural reformers were envisioned and exploited” (Harlem, 26). The historical record has been muddied by shifting political currents and fragmented by instances of deliberate neglect over time, yet scholars have recently begun to reconstruct the complicated story of interracial cooperation between the two world wars. More effort, however, should be devoted to discovering connections and parallels between the worlds of work and art — of labor and literature — as part of this story. One reward of such effort, I suggest, will be to reveal the hitherto hidden “lines of continuity and disruption” that James A. Miller sees connecting “the African-American literary production of the 1920s and its production in the 1930s” (87–88). That those lines often intersected lines traced by nonblack literary production and working-class history reinforces Hutchinson's point that it is necessary to rethink “American cultural history from a position of interracial marginality, a position that sees ‘white’ and ‘black’ American cultures as intimately, mutually constitutive” (Harlem, 3).

scholarly journals Social complexity as a proximate and ultimate factor in communicative complexity

2012 ◽  
Vol 367 (1597) ◽  
pp. 1785-1801 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd M. Freeberg ◽  
Robin I. M. Dunbar ◽  
Terry J. Ord
Keyword(s):  
Social Complexity ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Causal Factor ◽  
Human Language ◽  
The Social ◽  
Alternative Hypotheses ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Complexity Hypothesis ◽  
Complex Social Systems ◽  
Over Time

The ‘social complexity hypothesis’ for communication posits that groups with complex social systems require more complex communicative systems to regulate interactions and relations among group members. Complex social systems, compared with simple social systems, are those in which individuals frequently interact in many different contexts with many different individuals, and often repeatedly interact with many of the same individuals in networks over time. Complex communicative systems, compared with simple communicative systems, are those that contain a large number of structurally and functionally distinct elements or possess a high amount of bits of information. Here, we describe some of the historical arguments that led to the social complexity hypothesis, and review evidence in support of the hypothesis. We discuss social complexity as a driver of communication and possible causal factor in human language origins. Finally, we discuss some of the key current limitations to the social complexity hypothesis—the lack of tests against alternative hypotheses for communicative complexity and evidence corroborating the hypothesis from modalities other than the vocal signalling channel.

Online Fragmentation in Wartime

2015 ◽  
Vol 659 (1) ◽  
pp. 166-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deen Freelon ◽  
Marc Lynch ◽  
Sean Aday
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Longitudinal Changes ◽  
Network Communities ◽  
Clear Increase ◽  
Tools And Methods ◽  
Over Time

Theorists have long predicted that like-minded individuals will tend to use social media to self-segregate into enclaves and that this tendency toward homophily will increase over time. Many studies have found moment-in-time evidence of network homophily, but very few have been able to directly measure longitudinal changes in the diversity of social media users’ habits. This is due in part to a lack of appropriate tools and methods for such investigations. This study takes a step toward developing those methods. Drawing on the complete historical record of public retweets posted between January 2011 and August 2013, we propose and justify a partial method of measuring increases or decreases in network homophily. We demonstrate that Twitter network communities that focused on Syria are in general highly fragmented and homophilous; however, only one of the nine detected network communities that persisted over time exhibited a clear increase in homophily.

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