1,721,086 research outputs found
Dialect contact and the speed of Jespersen's cycle in Middle Low German
No full textThe present paper adds empirical evidence to the observation that dialect contact can lead to language change, and in particular, structural simplification. Empirically, the paper maps out the differences in the speed of the transition from stage II to stage III in different Middle Low German scribal dialects and proposes an account for these differences
‘U is’ or ‘U bent’? Polite forms of address and verbal agreement in historical Dutch and Ibero Romance
Get PDFNegation in the history of Low German and Dutch
Get PDFThis chapter looks at the progress of Jespersen’s cycle in Low German and Dutch, tracing the emergence of a new marker of negation (nicht, niet) replacing earlier preverbal ni/ne/en and the very slow process by which the original marker fell out of use. It also considers issues in language contact and variation within Low German and Dutch, including discussion of dialects, such as West Flemish, where the original marker of negation survives, in a new function, to this day. With negative indefinites, negative concord is lost in the shift from Old Low German (Old Saxon) to Middle Low German as Jespersen’s cycle proceeds
Continuity is change: the long tail of Jespersen's cycle in Flemish
No full textAll West Germanic languages have completed Jespersen's Cycle, replacing a preverbal negation marker (stage I) with a post-verbal one (stage III) after a period of transition during which the two could co-occur (stage II). Only the Flemish dialects have maintained the old preverbal marker to some extent. The present chapter addresses this apparent historical continuity, establishing that Flemish en was in fact saved from the fate of its West Germanic cognates by a morphosyntactic change. Based on an analysis of the contexts in which preverbal en is found in present-day Flemish dialects, it is argued that en has evolved into a marker of emphasis of polarity, and that contrary to appearances, the Flemish dialects have in fact reached stage III
Revisiting the five foundational problems of Weinreich, Labov & Herzog (1968)
No full textIn their seminal paper “Empirical Foundations for a Theory of Language Change”, Weinreich et al. (1968) set out five problems that according to them, any theory of language change needs to address. The constraints problem deals with the limits to possible changes, while the transitions problem asks what concrete stages are needed to account for a change. The embedding problem is concerned with the language internal and external factors that may influence the course of a change. The evaluation problem zooms in on a particular language external factor: the social evaluation of a change, and the effect of such an evaluation on the change. Finally, the actuation problem consists in finding an answer to the question why a given change occurs at a particular place and time, and why change may fail to happen elsewhere under seemingly similar conditions. In the over fifty years since its publication, Weinreich et al.’s programme has inspired much work, not always explicitly referring to it, which has addressed various subsets of these problems. The question guiding the current chapter is how the necessarily limited historical data can be exploited to find solutions to the constraints, transition, embedding, evaluation, and actuation problems, and how this is often a matter of methodological creativity and theoretical choices. With this aim, the current chapter discusses several case studies from the literature to showcase how research has built and continues to build on the foundations laid by Weinreich et al
Continuity and change in grammar: introduction
No full textOne of the principal challenges of historical linguistics is to explain the causes of language change. Any such explanation, however, must (also) address the ‘actuation problem’: why is it that changes occurring in a given language at a certain time cannot be reliably predicted to recur in other languages, under apparently similar conditions? What processes can be identified as the drivers of change? How central are syntax-external (phonological, lexical or contact-related) factors in triggering syntactic change? And finally, how can all of these factors be reconciled with the actuation problem? The present volume brings together 16 contributions selected from papers presented at the conference on Continuity and Change in Grammar that took place at the University of Cambridge 18-20 March 2008. The aim of the conference was to foster an exchange of ideas on different aspects of linguistic transmission in different frameworks (e.g. generative vs. functionalist) in order to enhance our understanding of what makes languages change and what in turn prevents them from changing
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