Subgrouping, Wave Theory, Language Contact, Areal Linguistics

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Commentary on Crowley, Ch. 8-13

• Subgrouping, Wave Theory, Language Contact, Areal
  Linguistics

2
Subgrouping

• Shanes presentation raised a number of practical
  questions such as
• Which dialect is the most conservative and which
  is the most innovating?
• According to Shanes lexico-statistical analysis,
  Matu-Daro retains the most cognates, Kanowit the
  least. (I have suggested that he re-do his
  percentages based on just the first 200 words of
  our list, to avoid the problem of artificial gaps
  in the Kanowit data.)

3
Innovations imply out-migration

• What does Shanes classification imply with
  respect to the movement of the Melanau people?
  Did they start in Kanowit and migrate to the
  coast? Or did they come in from the coast and
  migrate to Kanowit?
• According to two articles by Blust (1991) and
  Ross (1991), conservative dialects typically
  represent stay-at-homes, whereas innovating
  dialects imply populations on the move.

4
Why should this be?

• Ross (1991) offers a sociological explanation
  relating to the correction behavior of
  migrating vs. sedentary adults.
• The innovators are the children acquiring the
  language.

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Correction behavior of adults

• To the extent that the children are corrected,
  innovation is curtailed to the extent they are
  not corrected, innovations develop rapidly.
• According to Ross (1991), migrating populations
  are less concerned about the niceties of
  pronunciation and grammar than are sedentary
  populations.

6
Preliminary Method of Subgrouping

• Lexicostatistical analysis is useful as a
  preliminary tool in subgrouping.
• Remember our results obtained after only an hour
  or so of such analysis and reported in Homework
  1.
• Based on the first 200 words of our list, we
  discovered that the pair Matu-Daro, Belawai
  shared the highest number of cognates next were
  M-D, Dalat and last were Dalat, Kanowit.

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Advanced Method of Subgrouping

• Lexicostatistical methods seek to establish
  subgroups by counting words/cognates.
• The Comparative Method achieves the same goal by
  counting shared innovations (rules, including
  sound changes,and morphological (analogical)
  changes).
• Where the results differ, you can have an
  argument about which method represents the
  truth.
• For 99 out of 100 linguists, the answer is
  clear the Comparative Method is the only
  reliable approach.

8
Although I agree with the 99, I do not share the
attitude of some library-bound linguists that
lexicostatistical analysis has no value.

• Therefore, I find it interesting when the
  results of the two methods converge, and I am
  also interested in knowing why in case the
  results differ.

9
So what about Melanau?

• Null hypothesis all four dialects are sisters.
• Last resort The null hypothes is maintained
  until the evidence forces a better one.
• Disinterestedness A scientist shouldn't be
  invested in the outcome. Hypotheses are not
  good or bad but only supportable or
  unsupportable based on the evidence.

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So what about Melanau?

• To look for a subgrouping hypothesis, we need to
  count not just cognates, but also (and
  especially) rules.
• Any two rules shared by any two dialects is
  POTENTIALLY a shared innovation. (Remember this
  term.)
• In the Comparative Method, a subgroup is defined
  over the number and quality of shared
  innovations.
• For example, one group of German dialects share
  the First Consonant Shift (Grimms Law), e.g.
  PIE pgtf) and the High German Second Consonant
  Shift, e.g. PGmc pgtpf).

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Great Vowel Shift 10 or more sound changes

• English dialects show evidence of the GVS. A
  language closely related to English that failed
  to undergo the Great Vowel Shift is barred from
  membership in the same lower order subgroup.
  Such a language is Frisian.
• Of course, English and Frisian do belong in a
  higher-order subgroup that also includes Dutch.

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No end in sight

• Subgrouping goes on and on. PIE has three
  primary branches representing first-order
  subgroups Anatolian, Hellenic, and
  Indo-Iranian. Each of these has three or more
  branches and each of these has more and more
  branches, all the way down to hundreds of
  individual languages.

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PAn and PMP

• Proto-Austronesian has nine primary branches,
  all representing languages currently spoken on
  the island of Taiwan.
• One of the nine, Proto-East Formosan, is the
  mother of Proto-Malayo-Polynesian.
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian_language
  sStructure

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Tree theory vs. Wave theory, p. 249

• An interesting conumdrum exists at the heart of
  the field of Historical and Comparative
  Linguistics.
• There exist two perfectly valid theories of the
  way languages change and people move.
• One is called the tree theory and/or theory of
  divergence, and it has served as the basis of
  this course.
• Its not unlike the decision to teach
  articulatory phonetics. There exists another
  approach (acoustic phonetics), but it would be
  confusing to teach both at the same time.

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Early European Migrations
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http//books.google.com/books?idyfZZX1qjpvkCpgP
A72lpgPA72dqproto-indo-europeanwavetheoryso
urceblotsdNLHiyRafFsig5N7qAR_g3yaX2XxZrKepYCK
2wO4hleneiTBC1Sb6RBOHAtgeWtszqDAsaXoibook_
resultresnum1ctresultPPA73,M1
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Branches imply a tree waves imply a pond (or a
flat map)

• Tree theory assumes that people move and
  languages change without looking back. Here
  today, gone tomorrow. It follows that languages
  will keep branching as they lose contact with
  their ancestral roots. Tree theory works best
  over ever larger tracts of time. PIE and PAn go
  back 6,000 years. Thats plenty of time for
  languages to diverge in tree-like fashion.
• But dialectologists have long known its not like
  that on the ground. Changes actually begin in
  one location and spread to the next location,
  like ripples on a pond.

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Wave theory

• Moreover, speech communities are not monads they
  interact with other communities. Its the same
  with rules (changes).
• Often many changes (rules) will spread from one
  language to another within an area. Crowley
  mentions the spread of uvular ? in Europe (p.
  260) and the Rhenish Fan (p. 247) as examples.
• Accordingly, linguistics has developed a
  sub-field called areal linguistics.

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ISOGLOSS

• A principal tool of Wave Theory is the isogloss.
• The term is derived from the Greek and means
  same word.
• An isogloss is a lineoften in the form of a
  closed circle like a ripple on a pondshowing the
  spread of a new word or a sound change over a
  linguistic area.
• A bundle of isoglosses defines a dialect area.

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Isoglosses vs. shared innovations

• One term is tree-theoretical, the other is
  wave-theoretical.
• Both are used to define dialect groupings.
• Both are statistics-bound in the sense that
  dialect groupings depend on convergence of
  significant numbers of valid comparisons.
• For example, in wave theory dialect boundaries
  are defined in terms of bundles of isoglosses.

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Wave-like change across languages

• A famous example concerns retroflection in the
  languages of India. There are at least 14 major
  language groups in India nearly all of them have
  retroflex alveolar stops. For most of these
  languages, retroflection is irregulari.e. does
  not follow from the respective protolanguages.
  Probably it was borrowed in ancient times,
  probably from Sanskrit, and spread across the
  map.

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Wave-like changes

• Another example is the change q gt h/__ in Malay
  and scores of other languages in Southeast Asia.
• This word-final h corresponding to PMP q is
  irregular in many of the languages, although it
  is regular in Malay and Javanese.
• Malay and Javanese were the prestige languages
  and power centers during the reign of the
  Sriwijaya Empire (7th-13th century). It is
  necessary to assume that the RULE was borrowed by
  scores of languages, which accounts for the
  unexpected appearance of word-final h in
  languages scattered all over the map.

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Rejang irregular -h

• In Rejang, there are three dialects in contact
  with Malay, and two dialects insulated
  geographically from such contact.
• Two of those in contact with Malay have
  developed word-final h reflecting PMP -q the
  other three reflect PMP final -q as glottal
  stop.
• The irregularity arises when one considers the
  structure of Proto-Rejang. The Proto-Rejang
  reflex was clearly glottal stop (simplicity,
  Uniformitarianism, etc.). So how did two
  dialects develop h? There is no evidence of ?
  gt h except word-finally in the two dialects in
  contact with Malay. And in one of the
  dialectsRawasthis h is the only allophone
  (Rawas lacks word-initial and intervocalic /h/).

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Wave theory to the rescue

• A convenient conclusion is that Rawas and
  Kebanagung dialects borrowed -h from Malay as a
  consequence of intermarriage with Malay speakers.
• Bilingualism and the prestige of the loaner
  language are two material causes of most
  borrowing, which in turn has an effect on the
  children. (Always the children are the primary
  agents of change.)

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What to do about a conundrum?

• Given that we have two theoriestree theory and
  wave theorywhich one is correct?

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Duh! They are both correct!

• One works best over long stretches of time and
  among languages that have lost contact with one
  another.
• The other works best on the ground over short
  stretches of time, and among languages (and
  dialects) in constant contact with one another.

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When are both relevant?

• Theoretically, both are always relevant all the
  time. But its confusing to mix them
  indiscriminately.
• In practical terms, when problems arise within a
  tree-theoretical analysis, a solution can
  sometimes be found by adopting a wave-theory
  approach.
• This is especially true when dealing with
  closely-related dialects, such as Melanauand
  especially Matu and Daro (which are taken to be a
  single dialect) and Matu-Daro and Belawai. The
  closer the dialects are geographically, the more
  likely they are to borrow not just words, but
  rules.

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Areal Linguistics, p. 261

• Moreover, rules may be borrowed across a wide
  area from a language, such as Malay, which is (or
  was once) held in high regard.
• Such was likely the case with the Rejang final -h
  in two of five dialects, and which upset the neat
  tree-theoretical applecart. Wave theory came to
  the rescue to explain the odd -h.
• Just as borrowed words can be set aside when
  establishing proto-languages within
  tree-theoretical assumptions, so borrowed rules
  can and must be set aside, i.e. dealt with
  separately.

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Substrate theory, p. 270

• A linguistic substrate refers to indigenous
  languages that may have become extinct as the
  result of contact with, and colonialization by, a
  superior culture.
• Substrate languages often leave traces in the
  form of vocabulary items and even rules.
• For example, the NYC bowery dis and dat may be
  remnants from a Dutch substrate (NYC lt New
  Amsterdam).
• Psycholinguistic test Name five American rivers.

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Again, we set aside substrate influences. Why?

• Because reconstruction is tree-theoretical
  borrowing patterns have their place in
  wave-theory approaches.
• A proto-language belongs to the theory of
  divergence. Remember the second part Barriers
  reduce the density of intercommunication.
• By contrast, when people move next door to a
  robust community speaking a different language,
  both languages may change in part because of the
  contact. Comparative reconstruction breaks down.
  Wave theory rules here.

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Does tree-theory apply to Melanau?

• Clearly the answer is yes. The dialects are far
  enough apart linguistically (and geographically)
  to warrant applying the Comparative Method.

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Can our four dialects be sub-grouped?

• That remains to be seen.
• Its no loss if they cant be we just want the
  facts.
• Two tree-theoretical possibilities remain on the
  table.
• All four dialects are sisters WXYZ (null
  hypothesis)
• Two or three can be subgrouped W XYZ or
  WXYZ.

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Back to the question of possible shared
innovations

• Take the rule -k gt -? in Dalat and Kanowit.
• Is this a shared innovation?
• Remember I said Any two rules shared by any two
  dialects is POTENTIALLY a shared innovation.
• Just looking at -k gt -? in isolation, it is
  impossible to tell whether it is a shared
  innovation.

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Candidates for shared innovation status problems
and solutions

• Part of the problem with-k gt -? is that it is a
  common (natural) change that might have occurred
  independently in each dialect.
• Moreover, the same change has affected Malay.
• What is needed is more evidence that the two
  dialects in question indeed form a subgroup.

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Shared innovation is a technical term.

• In order to count as a shared innovation, a rule
  must be established to have arisen within a
  common subgroup.
• No single rule can have such statuswith one
  possible exception (see below). What is needed
  is a goodly number of identical rules converging
  on a set of dialects.

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Strong and weak evidence

• Some candidates for shared innovations have more
  weight than others as evidence for subgrouping.
  
• Shared uncommon rules (such as Dalat agti) have
  more weight than shared common ones (such as
  -kgt?).
• Weirdness has its uses in Historical Phonology.

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More research needed!

• The way to strengthen a weak subgrouping argument
  is to find support in the form of other
  candidates.
• Are there any other candidates?
• I wish I knew!
• Thats what we have graduate students for!

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Once Over Lightly

• The last slide lists a set of topics I found
  interesting when reading the last five chapters
  of Crowley.
• Please refer to the Study Guide for a couple of
  possible test questions designed to help focus
  your reading.

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Once Over Lightly

• Neogrammarian Hypothesis, p. 226
• Cultural Reconstruction, Chapter 13
• Blusts attempt to reconstruct iron for PMP,
  p. 316
• Age-area Hypothesis, p. 305
• Paleo-linguistics, p. 308

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Commentary on Ch. 8-12

• LING 485/585
• Winter 2009