scholarly journals Word familiarity and lexical change: The case of Sarawak Malay Dialect

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Radina Mohamad Deli
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Familiarity Rating ◽  
Psycholinguistic Research ◽  
Lexical Change ◽  
Preliminary Study ◽  
Word Familiarity

This preliminary study looks at the familiarity rating of words in Sarawak Malay Dialect (SMD). Although familiarity ratings of language items are usually utilised in psycholinguistic research, they can be very useful for studies in the area of language change. The aim of this study is twofold: (1) to compare the perceptive familiarity rating of Sarawak Malay words; and (2) to document Sarawak Malay words that are undergoing lexical change. Fifty SMD words were used in this study consisting of those with meanings that can be considered as medium to high in frequency for everyday speech. Questionnaires were designed using a 5-point Likert-type scale to rate word familiarity and distributed to 15 participants who were native SMD speakers between the ages of 20 and 25. Across word items, more than one third were found to be rated as less familiar and unknown and thus were not actively used in daily conversations. There were also a number of words perceived as familiar to highly familiar but were not widely used in everyday speech. Evidently, it is crucial to document and preserve these SMD words as they are fast becoming passive vocabulary for the young and may eventually be lost in their lexicon.

“Dragon fly”: Lexical change, local scatter, and the national norm

1982 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-417
Author(s):  
Frank Anshen ◽  
Mark Aronoff
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
National Norm ◽  
Lexical Change

ABSTRACTIn the New York area, there are three local terms for “dragon fly”: darning needle, dining needle, and diamond needle. We analyze the distribution of these terms and their relation to the national norm, dragon fly. (Language variation, dialectology, language change.)

scholarly journals Phylogenetic Methods in Historical Linguistics: Greek as a Case Study

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arne O. Mooers ◽  
Panayiotis A. Pappas
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
General Mechanism ◽  
Current Frequency ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Lexical Change ◽  
History Of

AbstractWe review and assess the different ways in which research in evolutionary-theory-inspired biology has influenced research in historical linguistics, and then focus on an evolutionary-theory inspired claim for language change made by Pagel et al. (2007). They report that the more Swadesh-list lexemes are used, the less likely they are to change across 87 Indo-European languages, and posit that frequency-of-use of a lexical item is a separate and general mechanism of language change. We test a corollary of this conclusion, namely that current frequency-of-use should predict the amount of change within individual languages through time. We devise a scale of lexical change that recognizes sound change, analogical change and lexical replacement and apply it to cognate pairs on the Swadesh list between Homeric and Modern Greek. Current frequency-of-use only weakly predicts the amount of change within the history of Greek, but amount of change does predict the number of forms across Indo-European. Given that current frequency-of-use and past frequency-of-use may be only weakly correlated for many Swadesh-list lexemes, and given previous research that shows that frequency-of-use can both hinder and facilitate lexical change, we conclude that it is premature to claim that a new mechanism of language change has been discovered. However, we call for more in-depth comparative study of general mechanisms of language change, including further tests of the frequency-of-use hypothesis.

scholarly journals Furiously fast: On the speed of change in formulaic language

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Buerki
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Time Window ◽  
Rate Of Change ◽  
Formulaic Language ◽  
Linguistic Change ◽  
Linguistic Feature ◽  
Lexical Change ◽  
Reference Corpus ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Using Data

Abstract Addressing a topic that has been marginal to discussions within historical linguistics, this study looks at how extent and speed of language change can be quantified meaningfully using corpus data. Looking specifically at formulaic language (understood here as word sequences that instantiate typical phrasings), a solidly data-based assessment of the speed of change within a 100-year time window is offered. This includes both a relative determination of speed (against the speed of change in lexis which is generally thought to be the fastest type of linguistic change, cf. Algeo 1980: 264; Trask and Millar 2010: 7) as well as a new independent measure of speed which is easy to interpret and therefore of high validity, while also robust and potentially applicable to any linguistic feature that can be counted in corpus data. Using data from a diachronic reference corpus of 20th century German, it is shown that change in formulaic language is very notably faster than lexical change, that the extent of change over a century is comparable in extent to contemporary inter-genre variation and that overall, the rate of change does fluctuate somewhat at the level of temporal granularity employed in this study. It is also argued that quantifying the speed of linguistic change can play an important role in building a deeper understanding of language change in general.

Dialect vocabulary changes over 100 years. Standardization and new dialect forms in Hamaogi glossary

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-116
Author(s):  
Fumio Inoue ◽  
Yasushi Hanzawa
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Time Span ◽  
Spatial Diffusion ◽  
Linguistic Change ◽  
Language Standardization ◽  
22Nd Century ◽  
Lexical Change ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Seven Generations

Abstract This paper treats linguistic changes over a long time span, covering 100 years in terms of the birth years of the informants and over 250 years since the compilation of a dialect glossary. Data from seven generations about 20 years apart were acquired. We compare the absolute time of linguistic change in lexical items recorded in Hamaogi, a dialect glossary, with the results of a large-scale sociolinguistic survey in Tsuruoka City. For lexical phenomena, the change seems to be continuous over the 250 years. Lexical changes occurred in the feudal ages, after modernization, after WWII and even recently. New dialect is discussed as a symbol of language change in the opposite direction to language standardization. A “glottogram map” or “3D glottogram” presents concrete data of the spatial diffusion of the new dialect form, ganpo. We offer concrete observations of the development of new dialect, which is part of a language change in progress. More than 250 years seem to be necessary from the beginning to the end of a lexical change. This suggests that many dialect forms will remain until the 22nd century..

Code-Switching as a Reflection of Contact-Induced Change

2020 ◽  
pp. 192-214
Author(s):  
Ad Backus
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
The Other ◽  
Code Mixing ◽  
Language Mixing ◽  
Lexical Change ◽  
Theory Of Language

Code-switching is often studied in purely synchronic terms, as recorded speech is analyzed for patterns of language mixing. Though this has yielded numerous useful theoretical advances, it has also shielded the code-switching literature from serious engagement with the phenomenon of language change, even from the subtype of change caused by language contact. There is also the additional practice of limiting the study of code-mixing and code-switching to lexical mixing. On the other side of the fence, meanwhile, discussions of contact-induced language change tend to be limited to morphological and syntactic phenomena. This chapter breaks through this stalemate, and argues that a usage-based approach to language change actually demands integration of these perspectives. Code-switching should be seen as a reflection of lexical change. It is for this reason that a synchronic distinction between loanwords and code-switching makes no sense, since the terms refer to the diachronic and synchronic planes, respectively, of the same phenomenon. In the chapter, the author interprets the code-switching literature from this theoretical viewpoint, and explores what both the literature on code-switching and that on contact-induced change stand to gain from linking their empirical findings to a usage-based theory of language change that allocates proper attention to synchrony and diachrony, and unites lexical and structural change in the same framework.

The relationship between lexical variation and lexical change

1993 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Regional Variation ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Comparable Data ◽  
Linguistic Change ◽  
Lexical Variation ◽  
Social Variation ◽  
Lexical Change ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACTMuch has been written about the relationship between the usage of particular social groups and language change. This article reports on a longitudinal study of lexical variables that analyzed comparable data from the 1930s and 1990. Nearly 1,000 words were tested to determine differences in usage related to age, sex, race, education, region, and rurality. Another set of tests compared the terms used at each point in time. Yielding a list of words that exhibited both change and a pattern of social or regional variation, the results indicated that males, whites, older speakers, and speakers from rural areas use more older terms. The most educated speakers use more newer terms. These findings were reinforced by an analysis of “No Response” answers, especially on questions about obsolete or agricultural referents, which were more common among females, blacks, and urban dwellers. Most of the linguistic change was not accompanied by significant social variation.

LEXICAL CHANGE, LANGUAGE CHANGE

2000 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 420-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. VON SCHNEIDEMESSER
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Lexical Change

On conceptualizing grammatical change in a Darwinian framework

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-108
Author(s):  
Michael Breyl ◽  
Elisabeth Leiss
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Phylogenetic Trees ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Critical Periods ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Precise Position ◽  
Intuitive Appeal ◽  
Lexical Change ◽  
New Hosts ◽  
Grammatical Change

Abstract Approaching language change within a Darwinian framework constitutes a long-standing tradition within the literature of diachronic linguistics. However, many publications remain vague, omitting conceptual details or missing necessary terminology. For example, phylogenetic trees of language families are regularly compared to biological speciation, but definitions on mechanisms of inheritance, i.e. how linguistic information is transferred between individuals and cohorts, or on the linguistic correlates to genotype and phenotype are often missing or lacking. In light of this, Haider’s attempts to develop this approach into a theoretically more precise position, closely mirroring principles of Darwinian natural selection in the dimension of diachronic grammatical change, but contrasting this with non-Darwinian lexical change. He draws a comparison to viral replication, essentially positing that grammar variants act as mental viruses, competing for replication in new hosts, i.e. children during critical periods of language acquisition. Haider proposes that in light of this competition for replication, the unconscious fixation of an individual’s grammar leads to diachronic grammatical change largely mirroring Darwinian natural selection. Despite the intuitive appeal this mode of reasoning may feature, the following response paper identifies and discusses a suit of shortcomings to this conceptualization. Some problems arise from underspecified theoretical notions, others due to the incomplete or inaccurate adoption of biological principles, and yet more through a partial incompatibility with empirical data. These criticisms do not amount to a dismissal of the Darwinian framework Haider is following, but to a rejection of Haider’s current position. Albeit it remains unclear if a truly Darwinian approach to language change can be reached, suggestions on how Haider’s theoretical notions could be further developed are made and pertinent efforts may ultimately lead to a productive theory.

The role of frequency of use in lexical change

Diachronica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 584-612
Author(s):  
Fiona M. Wilson ◽  
Panayiotis A. Pappas ◽  
Arne O. Mooers
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Word List ◽  
General Mechanism ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Lexical Change ◽  
Linguistic Evolution ◽  
Post Hoc

Abstract Based on the number of words per meaning across the Indo-European Swadesh list, Pagel et al. (2007) suggest that frequency of use is a general mechanism of linguistic evolution. We test this claim using within-language change. From the IDS (Key & Comrie 2015) we compiled a comparative word list of 1,147 cognate pairs for Classical Latin and Modern Spanish, and 1,231 cognate pairs for Classical and Modern Greek. We scored the amount of change for each cognate pair in the two language histories according to a novel 6-point scale reflecting increasing levels of change from regular sound change to external borrowing. We find a weak negative correlation between frequency of use and lexical change for both the Latin-Spanish and Classical-Modern Greek language developments, but post hoc tests reveal that low frequency of use of borrowed words drive these patterns, casting some doubt on frequency of use as a general mechanism of language change.

HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS.Herbert Schendl. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. xi + 130. $12.95 paper.

2003 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 589-589
Author(s):  
Michael C. Shapiro
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
General Reader ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Linguistic History ◽  
Lexical Change ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Grammatical Change ◽  
Phonological Change

This brief volume is a contribution to the Oxford introductions to language study series, a set of nontechnical guides to various aspects of the study of language, intended for the general reader with no formal background in linguistics. This book, like the others in the series, is not intended to be a systematic introduction to its subject but rather is designed to give readers a general sense of historical linguistics and to steer them in the direction of further readings. The book is divided into four parts. The first and largest part comprises eight brief essays that treat: (a) the fact that languages evolve over time and attitudes toward them change, (b) data and evidence for reconstructing linguistic history, (c) lexical change, (d) grammatical change, (e) phonological change, (f) language contact, (g) explanations for language change, and (h) recent developments in historical linguistics. The remaining parts of the book contain brief excerpts from readings, further readings, bibliographic references, and a glossary.

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