Preface: Language Change and the New Millennium (original) (raw)
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Nordic Journal of Linguistics, 1992
This volume derives from the symposium "The causes of language change: do we know them yet?" at the University of Troms0 in 1987. The papers offer no major breakthroughs in understanding the causes of linguistic change, nor does any cohesive overview emerge of why languages change. Nevertheless, this collection does contain valuable contributions. The views of causes and explanation in these papers vary greatly in scale and orientation. They range from explications of individual changes to rather abstract, programmatic overviews. Most of the papers do not indicate what they mean by "explanation" or "cause". For most linguists, explanation is not the Coseriu-Andersen "rational explication" (p. 7), nor are linguists likely to accept Ureland's assertions of (perhaps better called hopes for) a paradigm shift which makes more room for social and political factors. At the other end of the scale, Ohala (pp. 173-5) argues that all sciences ultimately resort to "probabilistic explanations" which are not fully nomological (exceptionless, lawful), while he avoids teleological explanations, preferring mechanistic ones. And what about "change"? The views represented vary greatly. Ureland would subsume linguistic change under social and political change, and Muhlhausler seems to concur. Andersen follows Coseriu's claim (which Andersen upholds only in part) that linguistic change does not exist (p. 12); Andersen observes that "in linguistics the word 'change' has come to be more of a liability than an asset" (p. 11)! Ohala holds sound change to be non-mentalistic and the lack of change to be the evidence that speakers create rules in their grammars (p. 193). The variety of approaches represented here is best appreciated by reference to the individual papers. Henning Andersen's "Understanding linguistic innovations" is an accessible repetition of his views (published, for example, in Andersen 1975,1980a, 1980b, 1988). This is a programmatic presentation, with no examples, of Andersen's broad-scale approach to linguistic change. Andersen acknowledges extensive inspiration from Coseriu. For Coseriu, the task of the historical linguist is not causal explanation but that of rational explication. Andersen, however, attempts to avoid one of the often-criticized shortcomings of Coseriu's scheme, that of underemphasizing aspects of language change that are not necessarily subject to human will (i.e. certain universals). Central to the Coseriu-Andersen view of language change is the asymmetrical relationship between norms (actual usage) and system (productive rules)-for example, unproductive patterns defined in the norms may be curtailed and superceded by the productive patterns of the system (p. 19). For Andersen, since grammar acquisition is based on abduction, divergent interpretations of the same usage are possible. Different speakers are capable of producing usage which conforms to the same norms in spite of differences in their internal grammatical systems (p. 19).
The main characteristic of any occidental language is the change brought into it with the passage of time. Language dies when it ceases to change. In this article, the main changes brought into English language since the time of its emergence are highlighted with reference to morphology, phonology, syntax and semantics
English Language and Linguistics, 2012
ARCHER. A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers, compiled by Douglas Biber and Edward Finegan. www.llc.manchester.ac.uk/research/projects/archer/ BLOB. Before-LOB, The Lancaster 1931 Corpus, compiled by Geoffrey Leech, Paul Rayson and Nicholas Smith. www.helsinki.fi/varieng/CoRD/corpora/BLOB-1931/index.html BNC. The British National Corpus, subcorpus of speech. Distributed by Oxford University Computing Services on behalf of the BNC Consortium. www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk Brown. A Standard Corpus of Present-Day Edited American English, for Use with Digital Computers, compiled by W. N. Francis and H. Kučera. Brown University. Providence, Rhode Island. icame.uib.no/newcd.htm COHA.
Major Trends in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics Volume 3
2014
Grammatical change, as opposed to (for example) phonetic or lexical change, is generally felt to be a slow process, imperceptible to the native speaker. There is some truth in this judgement, and yet changes in English grammatical usage during the recent past have been considerable. The evidence for this comes from comparable corpora or subcorpora systematically sampled from the language at regular intervals of time. It has now become possible to • observe changes in progress in written English • compare rates of change from one genre to another • compare rates of change across the two regional varieties: American English (AmE) and British English (BrE)
Studies in Linguistic Variation and Change Studies in Linguistic Variation and Change
CBDA is a relative newcomer to the world of internationally recognized conferences addressing the history of the English language. The main objective of the conference, created in 2008, is to provide colleagues working in France and abroad with an opportunity to explore linguistic phenomena from a diachronic perspective and to discuss their theoretical implications. A second goal was to awaken interest in France in the study of English from a variationist perspective, across a number of fields including dialectology, historical and socio-historical linguistics. Since 2008, CBDA has been held every two years alternately at the universities of Amiens and Tours; but thanks to an enlarged network of scholars involved, the 2015 edition is to be organized by the University of Reims-Champagne-Ardenne in the beautiful medieval city of Troyes. Ever since its creation CBDA has enjoyed the financial backing of two research groups: LLL (Laboratoire Ligérien de Linguistique, UMR 7270) and Corpus (EA 4295). Their unfailing support is gratefully acknowledged here. More specifically, concerning the organization of CBDA-3, the organizers wish to express their gratitude to the Corpus team, to the University of Picardie, and to Professor Pierre Sicard for all their help and support. In all, some 40 papers were presented at CBDA-3. The abstracts are available on the conference website (www.cbdaconference.org/). Only 12 papers appear in the present volume, though others might have been published elsewhere.
Journal of Germanic Linguistics, 2003
This book, which was written as a Habilitationsschrift, began as a study of the so-called Saxon genitive (prenominal genitive) in German, but has come to encompass all the diachronic changes that have occurred in the German nominal system, especially to the left of the noun. The study attempts to give a synchronic analysis of the relationships within the noun phrase from a diachronic perspective. Moreover, data from other Germanic languages are taken into account, especially from English and the Scandinavian languages. All the changes in the German NP are attributed by Demske to a single change in the relationship between articles and nouns, from semantic to a morphologically motivated relationship (320). After the introductory chapter 1, chapter 2 deals with agreement within the nominal system, chapter 3 with possessive pronouns, and chapter 4 with the attributive genitive. The book concludes with some general implications for diachronic syntax. Chapter 1, "Einleitung," gives an overview of previous analyses of the German nominal system, pointing out some of the problems with the NP analysis. Demske assumes the DP hypothesis, which claims that nominal phrases are not projections of nouns but rather of the functional category D(eterminer). The DP analysis overcomes the limitations of the NP analysis and is especially attractive for German, since case, number, and gender are primarily realized on the article rather than on the noun itself. Chapter 2, "Grammatische Merkmale und Relationen," deals with the marking of the features case, number, gender, and definiteness on nouns, adjectives, and articles. First, Demske outlines the inflectional and agreement properties of the noun phrase in New High German (NHG), especially the problems of adjective inflection. Then she discusses some previous approaches within both the generative and the HPSG (head-driven phrase structure grammar) frameworks. Demske brings historical data from Old High German (OHG) and Early New High German (ENHG) into this discussion.
The English Language: Transformations Through the Ages
Sanshodhak, 2023
The English language, from its inception as Old English to its present form in the postmodern age, has experienced an extraordinary evolution, making it one of the most widely spoken languages worldwide. It provides a comprehensive overview of English throughout various epochs, highlighting its significant influences and transformations throughout these epochs. From its Germanic roots and the Latin and French infusions during the Middle Ages, through the standardization of the Early Modern era, to the technological and socio-cultural shifts of the Late Modern and Postmodern eras, English has demonstrated remarkable adaptability. A number of internal and external factors have contributed to the trajectory of English, as highlighted in this study. This paper aims to demonstrate the dynamic nature of English, emphasizing its resilience, malleability, and its ability to reflect the ever-evolving human experience by charting these developments.
Taiwan Journal of Linguistics, 2008
Amidst the recent explosion of interest in linguistic science and the subsequent publication of large numbers of introductory works on the subject, O'Grady et al.'s Contemporary Linguistics (5 th ed.) stands out as a solid general purpose primer directed at an academic audience. Written by some eighteen contributors specializing in each of the seventeen branches of linguistics covered, topics are judiciously chosen while drawing on current scholarship and integrating different theoretical persuasions, without losing sight of the book's target readership. The result is an up-to-date text balanced in its treatment of subject matter and perspectives-a work that lives up to its moniker of "Contemporary" Linguistics.