Peter Trudgill

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Peter Trudgill [email protected] Agder Univ./ La Trobe Univ./ Univ. de Fribourg/ Univ. of East Anglia Societies of intimates and mature phenomena Peter Trudgill A. Sociolinguistic Typology • Contact vs. isolation: degree of contact with other language communities • Dense vs. loose social networks (Milroy, 1980) • Social stability vs. instability (Dixon, 1997) • Relatively large vs. relatively small community size • Small vs. large amounts of shared information (Perkins, 1995) 1. Sociolinguistics, pidgin and creole studies Language contact leads to simplification 2. Language typology Language contact leads to complexification 3. Historical linguistics Thomason: “All the examples that support the claim that interference leads to simplification are of course counterexamples to the opposite claim.” 4. Sociolinguistic typology High contact societies – two types of contact: a) short-term pre-critical threshold contact → simplification b) long-term co-territorial post-threshold contact → complexification Low-contact societies a) preservation of existing complexity, BUT: b) where does development of complexity come from “in the first place”? In particular, where do irregularisation, opacity, syntagmatic redundancy “come from”? And what is origin of new, i.e. non-borrowed, morphological categories? 5. Simplification (Mühlhäusler, 1977) a) regularisation of irregularities b) increase in lexical/ morphological transparency c) loss of redundancy • reduction in syntagmatic redundancy • loss of morphological categories Complexification a) irregularisation b) increase in opacity c) increase in syntagmatic redundancy d) additive borrowing: acquisition of additional morphological categories 6. Hypothesis In small tightly-knit communities we are most likely to find an increase in irregularity, opacity and syntagmatic redundancy. And not only are morphological categories most readily lost during language contact, but they are also more readily developed in isolation. 1 [email protected] Agder Univ./ La Trobe Univ./ Univ. de Fribourg/ Univ. of East Anglia B. Traditional dialects/”Small” languages vs. Standard/Urban/Colonial dialects 1. Growth of categories a) SW Eng transitive vs. intransitive infinitives – intransitives in -y (Gachelin, 1991): Can you zew up thease zeam? ‘Can you sew up this seam?’ The cat vell zick an’ woulden mousy. ‘The cat fell sick and wouldn’t catch mice.’ b) SW English habitual vs. punctual (Ihalainen, 1991a): I do/did go there every day. I goes tomorrow / I went last week. c) North Frisian distinction between two different definite articles (Ebert, 1971; Walker, 1990: 14-15): Mooring dialect, Bökingharde: masc. di e fem. jü e neut. dåt et pl. da et The –e/-et forms are proximal and/or refer to a unique referent, as in e moune ‘the moon’, e wjaard ‘the truth’. The other forms are distal and/or are context bound and apply to definite but non-unique referents. cf. (a) Ik hääw ma e bürgermäister snaaked. vs. (b) Ik hääw ma di bürgermäister snaaked. ‘I have spoken with the mayor’ d) Norfolk English dialect presentative be (Trudgill, 2003): I am, he/she/it is, we/you/they are, but Here I be! Ah, here you be! Where’s Bill – ah, there he be. e) Old Norse had a distinct singular imperative form, but none for the plural. Modern Faroese has developed a singular-plural distinction: Far til hús! Go home! (sing.) Fari∂ til hús! Go home! (plur.) Thráinsson et al. (2004): “we have here an innovation in Modern Faroese”. 2 [email protected] Agder Univ./ La Trobe Univ./ Univ. de Fribourg/ Univ. of East Anglia f) Thráinsson et al (2004: 92): “Germanic languages typically do not have a plural form of the indefinite article”. Faroese has innovated one: used with nouns that only occur in the plural or to indicate “a pair of” something. Singular forms: m. f. n. Nom. ein ein eitt Acc. ein eina eitt Dat. einum eini/ einari einum Plural forms : m. f. n. Nom. einir einar eini Acc. einar einar eini Dat. einum einum einum Eg keypti einar skógvar I bought a pair of shoes Eg keypti einar buksur I bought a pair of trousers Eg keypti eini hús I bought a home In the last example, the neuter noun hús is in the accusative plural. The singular form of the same noun, eitt hús , would mean ‘a building’. 2. Increase in syntagmatic redundancy a) East Flemish subject tripling (de Vogelaer, 2004:191): Some Belgian Dutch dialects have doubling: Ze hebbe-en zieder drie kinderen they have they three kids ‘they have three kids’ East Flemish tripling in 1st-pers plur ‘we’: wij [full form], we [weak form], me [clitic] We zulle-me wij dat doen we shall-we we that do ‘we shall do that’ b) Answer particles in Flemish dialects: person agreement on yes, no (De Vogelaer 2005:35) Zullen we gaan? Jom. (‘yes’-1pl) Heb je dat gedaan? Jok. (‘yes’-1sg) Is het warm vandaag? Jot. (‘yes’-3sg) c) Bavarian dialect person marking on complementisers (Bayer, 1984): e.g. 2sg marking on ob ‘whether’ in agreement with pronoun du ‘you-sg’ and kumm-st ‘come-2sg’: obst du noch Minga kummst whether you-sg. to Munich come ‘whether you are coming to Munich’ 3 [email protected] Agder Univ./ La Trobe Univ./ Univ. de Fribourg/ Univ. of East Anglia 3. Decrease in morphological transparency a) Norfolk 3rd pers. sing. neut. pronouns (Trudgill, 2003): That’s raining. That’s raining, is it? That’s cold in here. That’s cold in here, in’t it? I see the cat - that was on the wall. The cat? I just see it on the wall. b) East Somerset pronominal allomorphy (Ihalainen, 1991b): He’s older than what I be. I looked up to un and said ‘What’s say?’ He do live in Latcham, don’ er? c) North Frisian infinitive allomorphy: Bökingharde dialect (Walker & Wilts, 2001:295-6): • forms in -e after modal and auxiliary verbs: hi wal bål kaame ‘he will soon come’. • forms in -en when infinitive stands alone; after preposition tu ‘to’; after verbs like bliwe ‘to stay’, hiire ‘to hear’: douen än fouen hiire tuhuupe ‘giving and receiving belong together’. • forms with zero after än ‘and’: dåt as ai lacht än snååk tjüsch ‘it is not easy to speak German’. 4. Irregularisation a) Faroese noun declension of dagur ‘day’ (Braunmüller, 2001: 73): OLD FAROESE MODERN FAROESE sg. pl. sg. pl. nom. [dagur] [dagar] [dèavúr] [dè:ar] acc. [dag] [dagar] [dèa] [dè:ar] gen. [dagås] [daga] [dagås] [dè:a] dat. [degi] [døgum] [de:ji] [dø:vún] b) Norfolk irregular preterites (Forby 1830; Trudgill, 2003): hoe hew show shew shriek shruck owe ewe snow snew save seft sew sew (as of stitches) sow sew (as of seed) wave weft thow thew (‘thaw thawed’) wrap wrop C. Complexification • Low amounts of adult language contact • High social stability • Small size • Dense social networks • Large amounts of communally shared information 1. Mature phenomena (Dahl, 2004): “presuppose a non-trivial history” – e.g. inflectional morphology 2. Societies of intimates (Givon and Young, 2002): chronological bias in typology? 3. Cross-linguistically dispensable categories: e.g. evidentials 4 [email protected] Agder Univ./ La Trobe Univ./ Univ. de Fribourg/ Univ. of East Anglia References Bayer, Josef. 1984. COMP in Bavarian syntax. Linguistic Review 3, 209-274. Braunmüller, K. 2001. Morfologisk typologi og færøsk. In K. Braunmüller & J.L. Jacobsen (eds), Moderne lingvistiske teorier og færøsk. Oslo: Novus, 67-88. Dahl, Östen. 2004. The growth and maintenance of linguistic diversity. Amsterdam: Benjamins. De Vogelaer, G. 2005. Persoonsmarkering in de dialecten in het nederlandse taalgebied. Ghent: Universiteit Gent. Dixon, R.M.W. 1997. The rise and fall of languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ebert, K. 1971. Referenz, Sprechsituation und die bestimmten Artikel in einem nordfriesischen Dialekt (Fering). Bredstedt: Nordfriisk Instituut. Gachelin, Jean-Marc. 1991. Transitivity and intransitivity in the dialects of South-west England. In Peter Trudgill and J. K. Chambers (eds.) Dialects of English: studies in grammatical variation. London: Longmans, 218-228. Givón, Talmy & Young, P. 2002. Cooperation and interpersonal manipulation in the society of intimates. In M. Chibatani (ed.) The grammar of causation and interpersonal manipulation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 23-56. Ihalainen, O. 1991a. Periphrastic do in affirmative sentences in the dialect of East Somerset. In P. Trudgill and J.K. Chambers (eds), Dialects of English: studies in grammatical variation. London: Longman, 148-60. Ihalainen, O. 1991b. On grammatical diffusion in Somerset folk speech. In P. Trudgill and J.K. Chambers (eds), Dialects of English: studies in grammatical variation. London: Longman, 104-119. Kusters, Wouter. 2003. Linguistic complexity: the influence of social change on verbal inflection. Leiden: Leiden University. Milroy, Lesley. 1980. Language and social networks. Oxford: Blackwell. Mühlhäusler, Peter. 1977. Pidginisation and simplification of language. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Perkins, Revere. 1995. Deixis, grammar, and culture. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Thrainsson, H. et al. 2004. Faroese: an overview and reference grammar. Torshavn. Thurston, William. 1994. Renovation and innovation in the languages of north-western New Britain. In T. Dutton and D. Tryon (eds.) Language contact and change in the Austronesian world. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 573-609. Trudgill, P. 2003. The Norfolk dialect. Cromer: Poppyland. Walker, A. 1990. Frisian. In C. Russ (ed.), The dialects of modern German: a linguistic survey. London: Routledge, 1-30. Walker, Alastair, and Ommo Wilts. 2001. Die nordfriesichen Mundarten. In H.H. Munske et al (eds.) Handbuch des friesischen/Handbook of Frisian studies. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 284-305. 5 [email protected] Agder Univ./ La Trobe Univ./ Univ. de Fribourg/ Univ. of East Anglia Publications on sociolinguistic typology: Peter Trudgill 1983 Language contact and language change: on the rise of the creoloid. In On dialect: social and geographical perspectives Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 102-107. 1989 Interlanguage, interdialect and typological change. In S. Gass, C. Madden, D. Preston & L. Selinker (eds.), Variation in second language acquisition: psycholinguistic issues. Multilingual Matters. 244-53.
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