Sociohistorical and Variationist Approaches
to Language Change
http://www.ling.cam.ac.uk/Li7
1.
Introduction
Uniformitarian Principle: The claim that the same mechanisms which
operated to produce the large-scale changes of the past may be observed
in the current changes taking place around us. (Labov 1972:161, cited in
McMahon 1994:233)
If we accept the above, then findings pertaining to present-day changes
can be used to inform our understanding of historical changes. Notably,
the study of synchronic change has clear methodological advantages over
the study of diachronic change, given that our access to both speakers
and texts is (typically) severely limited in the latter case.
Recall from Lecture One that many linguistic changes proceed as follows:
1.
Actuation: The rule appears in the language.
2.
Actualisation: The rule applies to more and more words in the
language (lexical diffusion) or to more and more linguistic contexts.
3.
Transmission: The change spreads to more and more speakers
(e.g. different social groups) and through more and more registers
(e.g. stylistic levels)
Sociohistorical accounts of language change offer in-depth analysis of the
transmission of change both within and across language communities. In
terms of theoretical orientation, sociohistorical accounts are typically
functionalist rather than formalist; that is, the focus is on the social
functions of language and their role in driving language change, rather
than on the formal properties of linguistic systems.
One exception to the above generalization concerns variationist accounts
of language change that have been offered in the generative literature
and which will be discussed in Section 4, below.
Features of sociohistorical accounts of grammatical change:
Patterned variation between competing innovative and
conservative forms.
Dr. D. Anderson
Michaelmas Term 2007
Li7: Historical Linguistics
Michaelmas Term 2007
In prestige-driven change, change moves from the most
complex to the least complex environments.
Variation encompasses (at least) stylistic level of text (i.e.
text type), social position of the speaker, and grammatical
environment.
Change is directional when driven by prestige.
Issues with sociohistorical modeling of language change:
Model diffusion, not change (actuation)
Only ‘surface’ variants can be modelled easily this way. Are these
simply models of lexical change?
Directionality is maintained by prestige alone.
Focus is typically on written registers. Are these really models of
how literary language changes rather than spoken language?
2.
External (or exogenous) motivations for language change
(Fennell 2001)
Geographic
- Separation; isolation.
- Contact
Exposure to new phenomena (e.g. technological innovations).
Imperfect learning
‘Substratum’ effects
Social prestige
3.
Sociohistorical accounts: Sample studies
3.1
Nevalainen, T. & Raumolin-Brunberg, H. (2003)
Extensive examination of correspondence from Tudor and Stuart period
of English history.
External factors affecting language change during this period:
•
•
•
•
Social variation
Gender
Geographic mobility
Education
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Michaelmas Term 2007
Printing
Changes attributed to the above factors:
o
Modification/loss of certain titles of address (e.g. Master,
Mistress, Goodman, Goodwife)
o
Replacement of third person singular suffix -(e)th with –(e)s
o
Determiners my and thy (originally northern forms) replace mine
and thine
o
Object pronoun you acquires a subject interpretation, while also
retaining its former meaning.
o
Relative pronoun which replaces the which
o
Loss of do in affirmative declarative sentences
‘…he did attempt to assassinat, and offered violence to his
fathers person, and did chase and pursue him…’
(Tryal of Standsfield 1688; see Nevalainen 2007)
The authors also detail a number of English features adopted into Scots
English, particularly after King James VI of Scotland succeeded Queen
Elizabeth of England in 1603.
3.2
Romaine’s study of relative clause markers in Scots English
Three basic variants:
that
wh-forms (who, which, whose etc.)
zero
Old English
þe
þæt (> þat)
Middle English þe is lost in relative function; wh-interrogative pronouns
(which, who) extended to relative function.
Middle Scots which, who, etc. spread from English.
“The data I have presented here show that the wh-strategy entered the
written language and worked its way down a stylistic continuum ranging
from the most to the least complex styles.” (Romaine 1980: 234)
Notably, Modern spoken Scots English (basically) uses that in all syntactic
positions: the process of replacing that by which was never completed.
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“My results suggest that variability which is stylistically stratified can
persist over centuries without necessitating change.” (Romaine 1980: 239)
4.
Variationist accounts in the generative framework.
As noted in the previous weeks’ lectures, formal (or generative)
approaches to language change typically take child language acquisition as
the locus of change and emphasize discontinuity in transmission of
grammatical knowledge over generations.
Lightfoot (1999:83)
“It is languages which change gradually; grammars are a different
matter.”
According to this view, grammatical change is necessarily ‘abrupt’ change.
Nevertheless, formalist researchers cannot simply ignore the issue of
gradualism in language change, as gradual change is well attested.
4.1
One example: The rise of auxiliary do
Rise of auxiliary do in English
Upper broken line:
Negative questions
Upper solid line:
Affirmative questions
Lower broken line:
Negative declaratives
Lower solid line:
Affirmative declaratives
Percentage ofdo forms in different types of sentence, 1500-1700
(Chart adapted from Ellegård (1953) ‘The Auxiliary Do.’ University of
Gothenburg; reproduced from Roberts 2007:311).
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Examples from Nevalainen (2006:108-9)
Negative question:
Why do ye know not my speache? (Helsinki Corpus. The New
Testament, William Tyndale (transl.) 1534)
Affirmative question:
Do you bring me hither to trie mee by the Lawe…? (Helsinki Corpus.
The Trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, 1554)
Negative declaratives:
‘…and how your Lordship can of right denie this moch unto hym, I
do not know…’ (CEEC, Thomas Wilson, 1572)
Affirmative declaratives:
‘…and I a Hearer, but no Speaker, did learne my misliking of those
Matters…’ (Helsinki Corpus. The Trial of Sir Nicholas
Throckmorton, 1554)
Constant Rate Effect (Kroch 1989:200)
‘…when one grammatical option replaces another with which it is in
competition across a set of linguistic contexts, the rate of
replacement, properly measured, is the same in all of them.’
The Constant Rate Effect predicts that the actualisation of change in
different contexts will proceed at same rate (even if the actual
frequencies of usage vary in each context).
4.2
The Double base hypothesis (Kroch 1989; Santorini 1992,1993;
Pintzuk 1999)
One example: Santorini’s study of historical changes in Yiddish
subordinate clauses
Santorini proposes that syntactic change is ‘gradual’: There is a period
when speakers have two grammatical settings (that is, when they are
‘bilingual in their own language’).
The evidence for this claim comes from the shift in Yiddish from Inflfinal to Infl-medial underlying word order. Early Yiddish was Infl-final
and moved to be Infl-medial. Many sentences were ambiguous because
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they could be either Infl-final, with extraposition of elements, or Inflmedial.
Data = 2200 subordinate clauses in 40 texts from early 1400s–mid 1900s.
If individuals use either the Infl-final or the Infl-medial grammar, but
not both at the same time, we would expect the frequency in each
individual text to be either 0% or 100%, but it is not.
Santorini concludes instead that “…children have the ability to abduce
more than one grammatical system from the primary data in the course of
acquisition’ (1992:619)
Some issues:
Gradually speakers use the Infl-medial component of their
grammar more and more. But why should they? (cf. directionality)
When grammars ‘compete’, why does one win?
How reliable are the data? Is the text the product of a single
speaker?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Reading Recommendations
Textbooks
Milroy, James. 1992. Linguistic Variation and Change: On the Historical
Sociolinguistics of English. Oxford: Blackwell.
Romaine, Suzanne. 1982. Socio-Historical Linguistics: It’s Status and
Methodology. Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, 34. CUP.
Fennell, B. 2001. A History of English: A Sociolinguistic Approach.
Blackwell.
Nevalainen, T. 2006. An Introduction to Early Modern English. Edinburgh
University Press. (Chapter 10, ‘Language in the community’)
Nevalainen, T. and H. Raumolin-Brunberg. 2003. Historical
Sociolinguistics: Language Change in Tudor and Stuart England. Pearson
Education.
Labov, W. 2001. Principles of Linguistic Change. Vol. 2: Social Factors.
Blackwell.
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Journal articles
Ball, Catherine N. 1996. A diachronic study of relative markers in spoken
and written English. Language Variation and Change 8: 227–58.
Kytö, M. 1993. ‘Third-person present singular verb inflection in Early
British and American English.’ Language Variation and Change 5: 113-139.
Biber, D. and E. Finegan. 1989. ‘Drift and the evolution of English styles: A
history of three genres.’ Language 65: 487–517.
Romaine, S. 1980. ‘The relative clause marker in Scots English:
Diffusion, complexity, and style as dimensions of syntactic change.’
Language in Society 9: 221–47.
Generative theory
Roberts, I. 2007. Diachronic Syntax. OUP. (Chapter 4: ‘The dynamics of
syntactic change’; Chapter 5, ‘Contact, creoles and change.’)
Kroch, T. 2001. ‘Syntactic change.’ In M. Baltin and C. Collins (eds) The
Handbook of Contemporary Syntactic Theory. Blackwell.
Kroch,T. 1989. ‘Reflexes of grammar in patterns of language change.’
Language Variation and Change 1: 199-244. (Reprinted in Roberts, I. (ed.)
2007. Comparative Grammar: Critical Concepts in Linguistics. Vol.6, Part
6. Routledge.)
Santorini, B. 1992. ‘Variation and change in Yiddish subordinate clause
word order.’ Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 10: 595-640.
Santorini, B. 1993. ‘The rate of phrase structure change in the history of
Yiddish.’ Language Variation and Change 5: 257-83.
Santorini, Beatrice. 1995. ‘Two types of verb second in the history of
Yiddish.’ In A. Battye and I. Roberts (eds.) Clause Structure and
Language Change. OUP, 53–79.
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