Language Variation and Language Change Across the Lifespan

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Buchstaller
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Language Variation

“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.)

From Language Contact to Language Variation

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 288-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Massimo Cerruti
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
Italian Region ◽  
The North ◽  
North Western ◽  
Insight Into

This paper falls within the line of research dealing with the role of intralinguistic variation in contact-induced language change. Two constructions are compared in terms of their respective degrees of grammaticalization: the progressive periphrasis ese lì c/a+Verb, which is widespread in some Northern Italo-Romance dialects, and the corresponding Italian construction essere lì che/a+Verb. The study focuses on the presence of such constructions in Turin, the capital of the north-western Italian region of Piedmont, in which the former periphrasis is less grammaticalized than the latter. It contends that the grammaticalization process of essere lì che/a+Verb was triggered by the contact between Piedmontese dialect and Italian, whereas the pace of grammaticalization of this periphrasis is affected by the contact between different varieties of Italian. The paper points out that the case study may provide insight into more general issues concerning not only the interplay of contact and variation in language change but also the role of sociolinguistic factors in shaping contact-induced grammaticalization phenomena.

Looking Beyond Decreolization as an Explanatory Model of Language Change in Creole-Speaking Communities

1999 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Aceto
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
Explanatory Model ◽  
Related Concept ◽  
Language Variation And Change ◽  
Variation Data ◽  
Creole Languages

This paper discusses internally-motivated change as a largely ignored factor in understanding diachrony in creole languages: that is, externally-motivated models — and the most popular of these is certainly decreolization and the related concept of the creole continuum — have been nearly exclusively relied upon by creolists to explain phenomena associated with language variation and change in creole-speaking communities, particularly among the Atlantic English-derived creoles. This paper presents one alternative to viewing variation data derived from creole speakers as solely a function of decreolization. It raises issues associated with (and explores alternatives to) that singular view of diachrony.

Multiple sources and multiple causes multiply explored

2013 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 675-691 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian D. Joseph
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistic ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Linguistic Practice ◽  
Language System ◽  
Occam’S Razor ◽  
Multiple Pressures ◽  
Multiple Causes

Multiple sources abound in language, at all levels of linguistic analysis (phonology, syntax, semantics, etc.), and in a range of historical pursuits, including etymology and variationist investigations. From a methodological standpoint, moreover, recognizing multiple sources is often good historical linguistic practice (contrary to inclinations towards neat and elegant solutions that satisfy Occam’s Razor). That is, if we can identify multiple pressures on some part of a language system, it cannot always readily be excluded that some or even all might have played a role in shaping a particular development; if all of the factors represent reasonable pressures that speakers could have been aware of and influenced by, excluding any could simply be arbitrary. In this paper, accordingly, I survey the breadth of multiple sources in a variety of areas of language change, and advance one particular consequence that multiple sources can lead to, namely the hypothesis that recognizing multiple sources can be a basis for positing proto-language variation that is realized in variation within single languages and across related languages.

scholarly journals GAYO LANGUAGE IS OLD MALAY (A DIALECTOLOGY STUDY: THE LANGUAGE CHANGE)

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdussalam Abdussalam ◽  
Salami Mahmud
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
Research Subjects ◽  
Language History ◽  
Data Error ◽  
Bahasa Indonesia

An interdisciplinary linguistic which studies the problem on language variation is so called Dialectology. The variation of language happens on the usage that is caused by the change of social environment and place for ages. Language variation can be found in the form of accent, sub dialect, dialect, or that of language. Studying a language variation means also to trace the language history. Geographically, language variation can show where the speaker comes from. Linguistics distinctions analyzed in dialectology are phonetics, morphemic, and lexical variations. However, in this study, phonological and lexical variations are discussed. Glosses used are Ogden's 850 basic words which have been translated into Bahasa. The research subjects are 18 Gayo native speakers. Six of them become primary informants and the rests are as secondary ones. Methods of acquiring data used are cakap-simak (speak and listen) as well as tulis-rekam (write and record). The discovered data from the informants are crosschecked with the standardized words of Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian Great Dictionary). Then, the distance of word variations are determined by using dialectometry formula. The result are: 165 words = 19,41% lexical differences, 305 words = 35,88% phonetically differences, and 380 words = 44,71% without difference, neutral or zero. By regarding 1% data error tolerant, it can be concluded that Gayo language is Old Malay that has “accent variation = 20,41%" compared to New Malay or Bahasa Indonesia.

When Language Fails

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Yang
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
Language Variation And Change ◽  
Numerical Studies ◽  
Tolerance Principle

The theory predicts complete lexicalization when the number of exceptions to a rule exceeds the threshold, which leads to morphological gaps: without a productive rule, you only know the derived form if you hear it otherwise ineffability arises. Detailed numerical studies for gaps in Russian, English, Spanish, and Polish. The Tolerance Principle also directly bears on language variation and change, in that it provides/predicts the conditions under which language change is actuated. As a case study, the theory explains why—and when—the so-called dative sickness, and other instances of case substitution, took place in Icelandic in the 19th centuries.

Third Factors in Language Variation and Change

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elly Van Gelderen
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Language Faculty ◽  
Language Variation And Change ◽  
Generative Syntax ◽  
Syntactic Theory ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
Cyclical Process ◽  
The Impact

In this pioneering study, a world-renowned generative syntactician explores the impact of phenomena known as 'third factors' on syntactic change. Generative syntax has in recent times incorporated third factors – factors not specific to the language faculty – into its framework, including minimal search, labelling, determinacy and economy. Van Gelderen's study applies these principles to language change, arguing that change is a cyclical process, and that third factor principles must combine with linguistic information to fully account for the cyclical development of 'optimal' language structures. Third Factor Principles also account for language variation around that-trace phenomena, CP-deletion, and the presence of expletives and Verb-second. By linking insights from recent theoretical advances in generative syntax to phenomena from language variation and change, this book provides a unique perspective, making it essential reading for academic researchers and students in syntactic theory and historical linguistics.

A Grand Tour of English Grammatical Constructions

English Today ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 61-63
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Laws
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Unified Theory ◽  
Grand Tour ◽  
Systematic Fashion ◽  
Information Packaging ◽  
Knowledge Of Language

This introductory text successfully achieves its ambitious goal of demonstrating how the Construction Grammar framework can be applied in a systematic fashion to a range of sub-disciplines within Linguistics. Construction Grammar (CG) is a unified theory of knowledge of language modelled on knowledge of constructions. Each chapter illustrates the application of CG to a different sub-discipline, from those that are more well-established in the literature, such as argument structure and information packaging, to areas that have been addressed in depth more recently from this perspective, such as morphology, language variation and language change.

UNDERSTANDING LANGUAGE CHANGE.April M. S. McMahon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pp. xi + 361. $17.95 cloth, $14.36 paper.

1997 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 412-412
Author(s):  
Robert Bayley
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
Language Attrition ◽  
Intended Audience ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Contact Language ◽  
History Of ◽  
Linguistic Evolution

This book, based on an undergraduate course at Cambridge University, provides a comprehensive introduction to language change. Chapter 1 sets forth the history of the study of language change and the basic questions in the field. The remainder of the book is divided into two parts. Chapters 2–7 examine internally motivated change at the phonological, syntactic, semantic, and lexical levels. Within each chapter, the author outlines important theoretical positions, from the Neogrammarians to the generative work of Lightfoot and more recent studies of grammaticalization. Although, as McMahon notes, the separation of types of language change by levels involves considerable idealization, the result is greater clarity of organization. The second part (Chapters 8–12), which is concerned with language contact, language variation, pidgins and creoles, language attrition and death, and linguistic evolution, is organized topically. It is this section that is perhaps of most interest to students of SLA. As in the first section, McMahon reviews the perspectives on language change that emerge from a wide variety of classic studies, including Bickerton's work on Guyanese Creole and Dorian's studies of East Sutherland Gaelic. Although specialists might be disappointed to see their favorite studies missing, the examples provide an effective introduction for the intended audience of undergraduates.

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