LING 580: Today

1
LING 580 Today

• Goals
• 1. What constitute possible changes for the vowel
  systems of natural languages?
• 2. Schools of thought (McMahon 2)
• Neogrammarian Sound Change
• The Structuralists
• The Generativists
• 3. Principles of chain shifting
• Completed Changes (Labov 5)
• Changes in Progress (Labov 6)
• Read for next time
• Labov 10, 11 review Milroy and Milroy 1987

2
Introductory concepts (from last time)

• The use of the present to explain the past
• Historical linguistics is able to demonstrate
  where and when language changes, and how it has
  changed, but why a change begins (the so-called
  actuation problem) has not been successfully
  addressed.
• Past questions possible changes for natural
  languages
• Present data studies of change in progress
• e.g., Philadelphia Vowels
• Possible problems with the Uniformitarian
  principle
• -- the role of cities
• -- the role of rural dialects

3
1. What constitute possible vowel system changes?

• A. The historical record provides compelling
  evidence for
• 1. Shifts
• 2. Mergers
• 3. Rotations

4
1. What constitute possible vowel system changes?

• A. The historical record provides compelling
  evidence for
• 1. Shifts
• Minimal Chain Shift a change in the position of
  two phonemes, so that
• Phoneme A leaves an original position which B
  then assumes
• /A --gt B/
• Extended Chain Shift a change in the position
  of two phonemes, so that
• the entering value of one minimal chain
  replaces the leaving value of a second minimal
  chain
• /A --gt B --gt C --gt D/
• 2. Mergers a change in the position of two
  phonemes, so that
• Phoneme A leaves an original position and
  enters a new position occupied by another
  phoneme, B
• /A/ --gt /B/
• 3. Rotations equivalent to Extended Chain
  Shifts

5
2. Schools of Thought In search of principles

• The Neogrammarians (aka der Junggramatiker)
• -- Paul, Brugmann, Osthoff, Bopp, Grimm, Rask
  (Leipzig, last 25 yrs of 19th c.)
• -- lautgesetz The sound law mainstay of the
  N. approach
• -- believed that languages dont decay in the
  sense of losing ability to express relations
  between elements they evolve alternative
  strategies.
• -- most importantly associated with the
  Regularity Hypothesis
• Sound change is regular and exceptionless
• All words of similar phonetic context are
  affected
• All speakers in a speech community are affected
• Sound changes are purely phonetically conditioned
• -- believed that analogy cleans up after sound
  change
• -- concerned with sounds

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2. Schools of Thought In search of principles

• The Structuralists
• -- Saussure (Swiss, early 20th c.) Bloomfield,
  Hockett (American) Jakobson, Trubetskoy (Prague
  School)
• -- believed synchrony, not diachrony, to be
  primary in importance to linguistics
• -- distinguished langue from parole within the
  human capacity for langage
• -- view presupposes a contrast between elements
  and combination of elements into higher-order
  units (including the notion of a
  phoneme--minimal element of sound)
• -- Saussures notion of the Linguistic Sign
• -- attempted to explain the what and why of sound
• change.
• what mergers and splits
• why preserve symmetry pairs of phonemes
• with a low functional load are likely to
• merge.
• -- concerned with systems (syntagmatic
  paradigmatic)

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2. Schools of Thought In search of principles

• The Generativists
• -- Chomsky (American)
• -- infinite productivity of language (no closed
  set of forms) limiting factor is grammaticality
• -- phonemes dont change rules do.
• -- human languages share or may be distinguished
  by a set of grammatical components
• -- generative phonology retained notion of
  phoneme, holding that components of the grammar
  interact
• -- in sound change
• Construct and compare rules and underlying forms
  for each stage
• Change may only occur in the form, ordering, or
  inventory of rules
• Rules may be added or lost at the end of an
  established rule system. No rule insertion.

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2. Schools of Thought In search of principles

• Applicatios of Structuralist notions in Changes
  in progress
• Drag and Push chains -- where have these been in
  operation in completed changes? In changes in
  Progress?
• What do we know about the functional load of
  (ae)? What was the Structuralists prediction
  regarding pairs of phonemes with low functional
  load? With high functional load?