Types of language change

Theoretical frameworks for the study of language change

Contents

• The Neogrammarians
• Structuralism
• Functionalism Generativism
• Sociolinguistics
• Lexical Diffusion
• Grammaticalisation
• Construction grammar
• Other approaches (CAS)

The Neogrammarians

• After Darwin
• Group of German grammarians, "Die Junggrammatiker“ (Neogrammarians), proposed a scientific approach to grammar
• They established principles to develop theories and came to certain laws for phonological evolution

• Laws based on observation of phenomena (deductive method)
• This German tendency was later followed by French and English
• Interest for old stages of languages  linguistic studies and literary works

Structuralism

Saussure was the first structuralist but had been formed as a Neogrammarian

He views language as a series of dichotomies

Synchrony vs diachrony

Functionalism

• Structuralism had two tendencies: European and American
• Functionalist approches derive from European structuralism

Sociolinguistics

• 1960s: debate about the concept of science and its applicability to
• Social Sciences
• Humanities
• These epistemological discussions led to new ways of interpreting language change and other social phenomena
• Language change, not subject to general/deterministic rules that allow for prediction or induction

• If there are laws these are temporally and culturally constrained
• Nowadays, linguists are concerned with the psychological and sociocultural context
• Sociolinguistics combines language variation and language cange

You will have to find our about Grammaticalisation and Construction Gramar and their explanation for language change

Types of change

Classically, change is presented as a dichotomy  External change vs internal change

This distintion was promoted by:

• Sociolinguistics (Croft, 2000; Jones & Esch, 2002; Jones & Singh, 2005)
• Genetic Linguistics (Thomason & Kaufman, 1988)
• Principles & Parameters (Briscoe, 2000a, 2000b; Clark & Roberts, 1993; Lightfoot, 1979; Pintzuk, Tsoulas, & Warner, 2000; Yang, 2000)

Sociolinguistics and Genetic Linguistics

• internal: languages follow 'natural','normal' and 'regular’ paths of change, according to general principles such as assimilation, analogical extension and analogical levelling (Thomason & Kaufman, 1988: 22pp.; Jones & Singh 2005: 18-19)

OE stanas > PE stones

OE sorga > PE sorrows

OE naman > PE names

ANALOGICAL EXTENSION

• external: language contact, i.e. child bilingualism or adult second language learning (L2)

OE hie/heo, him/hira, heom/heora

replaced by

ON ðeir, ðeim, ðeira

BORROWING

Principles and Parameters

• internal: innate set of parameters that limits the space of possible grammars (Yang, 2000: 232; Clark & Roberts,1993: 340; Biberauer, Holmberg, Roberts, & Sheehan, 2010)
• external: refers to the varying language input during acquisition

Some issues

• Sociolinguistics/Genetic Linguistics: Explain what is happening in great detail, but not why it is happening. How do 'internal' causes work, what are the triggering events?
• Principles & Parameters: Universal Grammar (innate) as 'internal' cause is too broad. If it is universal across all languages it does not predict anything specific about language change

Other approaches

• Language as a Complex Adaptive System (CAS):

"The structures of language emerge from interrelated patterns of experience, social interaction, and cognitive mechanisms.” (Beckner et al., 2009)

“[...] the traditional distinction between language-external and language-internal causes for linguistic change and evolution may turn out to be of Little interest in the end.” (Bickel, 2013: 13)

• The CAS model considers primary (causal) and secondary (relational) predictors rather tan internal/external change