Language Drift

1. Language Drift • Gabriel Schubiner • Seminar on Endangered Languages, 2010

2. Types of Change • Lexical: Early Modern English, bewrayeth • Grammatical • came unto him they (EME) > they came to him • thou > you • giveth > gives • Phonetic: Great Vowel Shift, /u:/ > /au/ • Borrowing: “accent” from French • Orthographic: Latin ‘v’, French ‘ou’ in ‘thou’

3. Phonetic Change • Conditioned or unconditioned • Non-phonemic (allophonic) change • does not change # of phonemes in language • Phonemic • Merger (A,B > B or A,B > C) • irreversible • Split (A > B,C) • follows merger (loss of context) • /mu:s/ > /mu:s/ > /mu:s/> /mu:s/>/maus/ • /mu:si/> /my:si/> /my:s/ >/mi:s/>/mais/

4. Chain shifts • Latin > Spanish

5. Borrowing • To varying extents depending on contact and social situation • Distinguished by: • Phonological evidence • Cognates • Morphemes • Geographic & Ecological

6. Analogical Change • Large category • Example: Leveling of strong verbs • strive/strove/striven • strive/strived/strived • Back formation (cherise [fr.] > cherry) • Meta/Re-analysis (a nǣddre [OE] > an adder)

7. Semantic Shift • Usually through methods such as metaphor, metonymy, taboo avoidance, hyperbole • In contact: • Myan kye:x, deer > horse • deer becomes k’iče’ kye:x (forest horse)

8. Comparative Linguistics • Reconstruction of dead languages through comparison of ‘child’ languages • Should be able to write all changes in rule of form: X > Y | Context • Phonetic drift should be consistent across language given context

9. Genetic Lineage

10. Wave Model

11. Cultural history or linguistic tendency? • Theorized that nature of language determined the types of change likely to occur • More recently, attention has been turned to cultural issues • Sociocultural issues condition linguistic factors - Thomson & Kaufman

12. Language Contact • Borrowing vs. substratum interference • bilingualism • greater than lexical borrowing • syntactic interference usually accompanies phonological interference

13. Language Contact: Intensity • Little or no interference if shifting group is small or bilingual • Abrupt creolization is the extreme case • Change from imperfect learning • somewhat dependent on native language

15. Markedness • In language shift, markedness likely to decrease in transfer • For a bilingual population, typological differences may be more important • Interchange of morphological and syntactic structures for similar purpose • Native language typology affects outcome of contact • Clearly segmentable features more likely to be borrowed

16. Discussion • Holistic view of influences in change • No change occurs alone • What does this mean for language conservation? • What about the role of the researcher?

17. Modern Irish • Every generation has a different language • Linguistic integrity • cultural integrity/maintenance of cultural knowledge • Unnatural versus natural change • Teaching materials • Contrast with Okinawan where phrases have gained cachet

18. Milroy • Impact considerations: • linguistic • language attitudes and ideologies • cognitive constraints

19. Martha’s Vineyard • English, Portuguese, Native American, other • Centralization of /ai/ and /au/ correlated with degree of resistance to vacationers (identification with island)

20. Dialect Leveling • Disappearance of dialects in response to social movement or change • Dialect supported by strong community • What strategies could we invoke to preserving dialogue differences?

21. Death vs. Change • bilingual vs semi-speaker • total bilingualism leads towards isomorphic languages • semi-speakers due to interruption of transmission • Thought: teaching non-native speakers (even within the community) could accelerate language decay

22. Example: Asia Minor Greek • Entire syntax remodeled after Turkish • Flexional to agglutinative morphology • Grew to absorb entire declension pattern • Yet, AMG not endangered language

23. Actualization of Change

24. Discussion