Sociolinguistic Typology: Social Structure and Linguistic Complexity

Trudgill, Peter

doi:10.1017/9781316135716.005

Cited by 143 publications

(194 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Another logical possibility is restructuring, as defined by Lucas (2009: 145): "changes which a speaker makes to an L2 that cannot be seen as the transfer of patterns or material from their L1". Notably, this includes simplification, as explored in Trudgill (2011): if there are features of a language that are hard or impossible for L2 learners to acquire, then in a situation in which L2 learners constitute a sizeable proportion of the population it is more likely that those features will be lost. For this it is necessary to identify features that are L2-difficult regardless of the learner's L1.…”

Section: Imperfect Learning?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since the Brythonic Celtic language does not now survive in most of England, this implies a situation of diglossia with eventual language shift (Green 2011: 6). Linguists have been slow to accept these conclusions, instead preferring the traditional view that the Britons were displaced or died out, though in recent years some have argued vocally for Celtic influence (e.g., van der Auwera and Genee 2002;Tristram 2004;Laker 2008;Lutz 2009;McWhorter 2009;Trudgill 2011). The traditional linguistic argument against extensive Celtic contact is that English shows few lexical borrowings from Celtic, and this view was adopted by Victorian historians (e.g., Freeman 1871).…”

Section: V2 and V3 In Old Englishmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Language contact and V3 in Germanic varieties new and old

Walkden

2017

J Comp German Linguistics

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Certain recently-attested varieties of Germanic V2 languages are known to deviate from the strict V2 requirement characteristic of the standard. This is the case, for example, for Kiezdeutsch, a new German dialect, as well as urban vernacular varieties of Danish, Norwegian and Swedish: descriptively speaking, in these varieties, subject-verb inversion may be absent under certain well-defined conditions. In this article I outline those conditions and the type of syntactic analysis required to account for them, claiming that an articulated left periphery is needed to account for the findings. The similarity of the V3 patterns found in these new varieties, which are geographically isolated from each other but which share a characterization in terms of the demographics of their speaker groups, invites a diachronic account in terms of language contact. I argue that transfer cannot account for V3, but that a scenario of sequential simplification and complexification is able to do so. Finally, turning to Old English, which exhibits similar (though not identical) V2/V3 alternations, I argue that a similar synchronic analysis can be upheld and that its diachronic origins may well also have been similar-a case of using the present to inform our approach to the past.

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Section: Imperfect Learning?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: V2 and V3 In Old Englishmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language contact and V3 in Germanic varieties new and old

Walkden

2017

J Comp German Linguistics

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“…This is because language contact implies the interaction of purely systemic considerations with various extra-linguistic factors of social and cultural nature, which are also more difficult to predict. According to several scholars, from Thomason and Kaufmann (1988) to Trudgill (2011), social factors are even more relevant than linguistic factors in determining the effect of language change, 6 and the same may hold true for externally influenced degrammaticalization. This does not mean that cases such as Solomon Pidgin fastaem should be discarded as irrelevant to the debate on degrammaticalization.…”

Section: Internal and External Factors Underlying Degrammaticalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…debated whether formal erosion or semantic bleaching has to be seen as the most typical feature of grammaticalization: while Trudgill (2011), for example, advocates the former position, Heine and Kuteva (2005) prefer the latter. The fact that most instances of degrammaticalization here analyzed involve formally independent words with a rather abstract and grammatical meaning suggests that formal features of grammaticalization are more frequently contravened than its semantic features, and that semantic bleaching must therefore be considered more important than formal erosion in grammaticalization, in agreement with Heine and Kuteva (2005).…”

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confidence: 99%

On degrammaticalization: Controversial points and possible explanations

Viti

2015

Folia Linguistica

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This paper discusses the problem of degrammaticalization, that is, the exceptions to the unidirectionality of grammaticalization. After analyzing the criteria that allow us to distinguish between various instances of counter-directional change, two principles underlying degrammaticalization are identified; one is related to the type of language and the other to the type of target structures in which degrammaticalization occurs. Firstly, the targets of degrammaticalization are usually closed-class parts of speech with an abstract semantic component. Secondly, the languages in which counter-directional grammatical changes occur turn out to be deprived of an elaborate fusional morphology. These findings may also have an impact on the theoretical conception of grammaticalization, some of whose definitional properties are discussed. The paper ends with a discussion of a more controversial point, namely, counter-directional changes by folk etymology rather than by etymology proper. Abstract: This paper discusses the problem of degrammaticalization, that is, the exceptions to the unidirectionality of grammaticalization. After analyzing the criteria that allow us to distinguish between various instances of counterdirectional change, two principles underlying degrammaticalization are identified; one is related to the type of language and the other to the type of target structures in which degrammaticalization occurs. Firstly, the targets of degrammaticalization are usually closed-class parts of speech with an abstract semantic component. Secondly, the languages in which counter-directional grammatical changes occur turn out to be deprived of an elaborate fusional morphology. These findings may also have an impact on the theoretical conception of grammaticalization, some of whose definitional properties are discussed. The paper ends with a discussion of a more controversial point, namely, counter-directional changes by folk etymology rather than by etymology proper.

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“…According to Trudgill (2011), the degree of complexity depends on community size, social stability, density of social networks as well as the amount of adult language contact. Thus, for example, creoles are simpler than 'old' languages; 'large' languages like English are simpler than languages of preliterate/intimate societies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On extremes in linguistic complexity

Kilarski

Dziubalska-Kołaczyk

2012

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Summary This article examines common motifs in the accounts of the sound systems of Iroquoian, Polynesian and Khoesan languages as the most well-known cases of extremes in phonetic complexity. On the basis of examples from European and American scholarship between the 17th and early 20th century, we investigate continuities in the description of their seemingly ‘exotic’ inventories and phonotactic structures when viewed from the perspective of European languages. We also demonstrate the influence of phonetic accounts on the interpretation of other components of language and their role in the construction of biased images of the languages and their speakers. Finally, we show that controversies in descriptions of ‘exotic’ languages concern issues that remain relevant in modern phonetic research, in particular complexity of phonological systems, while notions which were conceived as ‘misconceptions’ have re-emerged as unresolved research questions, e.g., the status of clicks and small and large consonant inventories.

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Sociolinguistic Typology: Social Structure and Linguistic Complexity

Cited by 143 publications

References 29 publications

Language contact and V3 in Germanic varieties new and old

Language contact and V3 in Germanic varieties new and old

On degrammaticalization: Controversial points and possible explanations

On extremes in linguistic complexity

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