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change'</title></head><body>
<div><font face="Andale Mono" color="#000000">Hi all,</font></div>
<div><font face="Andale Mono" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Andale Mono" color="#000000">Regarding
'reversals'.</font><br>
<font face="Andale Mono" color="#000000"></font></div>
<div><font face="Andale Mono" color="#000000">Brian's suggestion
that we distinguish between true sound change and socially driven
changes reminds me of Kristin Bakken's (2001) paper "Patterns of
restitution of sound change", which I edited a few years ago. In my
discussion of the paper (2001: 8-9, 15-16) I went so far as to suggest
a terminological distinction:</font></div>
<div><font face="Andale Mono" color="#000000"><br>
"There are<i> restorations</i>, in which the loss of a constraint
(say, through phonological reanalysis) allows underlying
representations to resurface. Restorations are typically grammatically
conditioned in that 'original' morpheme shapes are restored only
in environments where they were subject to alternation.
.."</font><br>
<font face="Andale Mono" color="#000000"></font></div>
<div><font face="Andale Mono" color="#000000">"Distinct from such
changes are<i> restitutions</i>, such as those exemplified in
Bakken's paper, which ensue from contact with a closely related
language variety (dialect or sociolect) with pronunciation norms that
happen to be phonologically more conservative in some respect. ... in
reality such restitutions ... do not differ from other phoneme<i>
substitutions</i> in individual lexemes that may occur through dialect
contact .... Such a set of restitutions or substitutions is not a
phonological change--or even a single change in the sense of a
bounded, internally coherent historical event in the given
community's tradition of speaking. It is, properly speaking, just a
subset of a series of individual replacements of local word shapes
with borrowed ones, part of a smaller or larger relexification,
motivated by the individual word shapes' greater utility in
interdialectal communication and hence defined in pragmatic and
semantic terms. The progression of such a relexification begins as an
elaboration of speakers' grammars, as elements of a local tradition
of speaking are matched with marked covariants appropriate for
specified pragmatic purposes. It runs to completion lexeme by lexeme,
as the traditional elements one by one fall into disuse, superseded by
the borrowed, more widely used, more viable alternatives.
.."</font><br>
<font face="Andale Mono" color="#000000"></font></div>
<div><font face="Andale Mono" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Andale Mono" color="#000000">Regarding 'deliberate
change'</font></div>
<div><font face="Andale Mono" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Andale Mono" color="#000000">It is mostly valuable to
draw the distinction between innovation and change.</font></div>
<div><font face="Andale Mono" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Andale Mono" color="#000000">Evidently individuals
can enter deliberately made innovations into usage. But whether
deliberate innovations result in change depends on other speakers'
adopting them and using them, eventually to the exclusion of other
alternatives. Your academy or ministry of culture or big honcho can
propose a deliberate innovation. But whether it will ever have any
practical effect depends on the wisdom of the crowds. So in cases
where the linguist doesn't have positive evidence of all members of
a community wittingly and deliberately talking in lock-step, it is
probably better to avoid the expression "deliberate change" and
talk of 'deliberate innovations' and 'changes initiated by deliberate
innovations' instead.</font></div>
<div><font face="Andale Mono" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Andale Mono" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Andale Mono" color="#000000">--Henning</font></div>
<div><font face="Andale Mono" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Andale Mono" color="#000000">Henning Andersen,
UCLA</font></div>
<div><font face="Andale Mono" color="#000000"><br>
<br>
References: Kristin Bakken's paper is in *Actualization. Linguistic
Change in Progress*, ed. by Henning Andersen, 59-78. I discuss it in
the introduction. The full text is available on request<br>
</font></div>
<div><br></div>
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Today's Topics:<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> 1. Re: 'Reversed change'
dialect borrowing (Sally Thomason)<br>
2. Re: 'Reversed change' dialect borrowing (Sally
Thomason)</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> 3. Re: 'Reversed change'
dialect borrowing (Brian Joseph)<br>
<br>
<br>
----------------------------------------------------------------------<br
>
<br>
Message: 1<br>
Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 06:54:48 -0500<br>
From: Sally Thomason <thomason@umich.edu><br>
Subject: Re: [Histling-l] 'Reversed change' dialect
borrowing</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>To: "Patrick McConvell"
<Patrick.McConvell@aiatsis.gov.au><br>
Cc: histling-l@mailman.rice.edu<br>
Message-ID: <4274.1201348488@umich.edu><br>
<br>
<br>
Patrick,<br>
<br>
Oh, I'd never claim that *all* reversed changes<br>
are deliberate; the reason I was focusing on deliberate<br>
ones is that that was what my paper was about.<br>
<br>
Elsewhere in the same paper I talk about correspondence<br>
rules (or what Jeff Heath has called borrowing routines)<br>
-- Alan Dench's Australian example from his salvage<br>
fieldwork in Western Australia is a wonderful instance.<br>
In his case the speakers were aware of what they were<br>
doing (at least when they were stimulated to think about<br>
it); but there too, there are no doubt cases where<br>
speakers apply correspondence rules without being<br>
aware of what they're doing.<br>
<br>
-- Sally<br>
<br>
<br>
------------------------------<br>
<br>
Message: 2<br>
Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 07:06:14 -0500<br>
From: Sally Thomason <thomason@umich.edu><br>
Subject: Re: [Histling-l] 'Reversed change' dialect borrowing<br>
To: histling-l@mailman.rice.edu<br>
Message-ID: <4577.1201349174@umich.edu><br>
<br>
<br>
About Peter's comment:<br>
<br>
Well...I actually think we need to consider<br>
carefully whether we "agree that it's not exactly typical<br>
of what usually goes on". One thing that has struck<br>
me again and again over the past ten years or so, ever<br>
since I got interested in this whole issue of<br>
deliberate change, is that we merely *assume* that<br>
most changes are non-deliberate throughout their<br>
history. We have very little evidence on this point.<br>
I first heard about people making their dialects<br>
more different from the dialect of the guys next door<br>
when I read Peter's Dialects in Contact. But ever<br>
since I started giving talks here & there on deliberate<br>
change, people have come up with new examples for me;<br>
one such example was a case of deliberate dialect<br>
divergence from Peru -- the people told the<br>
fieldworker that they wanted to make sure they<br>
retained their differentness from the people just<br>
around the mountain from them, and so they deliberately<br>
distorted the pronunciation of their own words in<br>
a rule-governed way.<br>
<br>
I do still believe that most linguistic change must<br>
be non-deliberate. That's the easiest way to account<br>
for (for instance) regular sound change. But I<br>
also think that claims that the vast majority of</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>linguistic change is subconscious are on
shaky<br>
ground, as long as they lack evidence of any kind.<br>
(I admit that I haven't the faintest idea how one<br>
might go about gathering evidence.)<br>
<br>
-- Sally Thomason<br>
<br>
<br>
------------------------------<br>
<br>
Message: 3<br>
Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 09:51:20 -0500 (EST)<br>
From: Brian Joseph <bjoseph@ling.ohio-state.edu><br>
Subject: Re: [Histling-l] 'Reversed change' dialect borrowing<br>
To: thomason@umich.edu (Sally Thomason)<br>
Cc: histling-l@mailman.rice.edu<br>
Message-ID: <E1JImNM-0002LK-00@julius.ling.ohio-state.edu><br>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii<br>
<br>
Greetings -- this discussion is most interesting, and I<br>
would like to add just a few observations; even if they are<br>
not directly on target, I think this is an appropriate<br>
forum to mention them and they are in any case provoked<br>
by the recent postings.<br>
<br>
First, even though no one has actually said this, so in a<br>
sense I am either responding to a straw man or preaching to<br>
the choir, let me note that this discussion shows why it is<br>
useful to be precise about what we mean by "sound
change".<br>
In the cases brought out here, the event that was reversed was<br>
a Neogrammarian-style (i.e. regular and phonetically driven)<br>
sound change, what I like to call "sound change proper"
or<br>
"sound change in the strict sense" (or even simply
"Neogrammarian<br>
sound change") whereas the reversing event is a
socially-driven<br>
change. Terminology is always tricky to be sure, but I would<br>
love it if the term "sound change" were restricted to
"sound<br>
change proper" and some other term were invented for
"changes in<br>
sounds that are not sound change (in the strict sense)". I
often<br>
tell my classes that as paradoxically as it might seem, not every<br>
change in the sounds of a word is a matter of sound change
(analogical<br>
change, clippings, tabu deformation, and so on are all the sorts
of<br>
"other events" that can lead to changes in the pronunciation
of a</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>word that are not Neogrammarian sound
change in the strict sense).<br>
<br>
Second, socially-driven events of change *can* show regularity
(though<br>
they need not), but typically lack the phonetic basis that is a
hallmark<br>
of Neogrammarian sound change. We see this sort of thing in
hypercorrection<br>
all the time (Peter's.<br>
<br>
Finally, it reminds me of what I said at my ICHL presentation this
past<br>
summer, namely that when we get right down to it, social factors
can<br>
trump everything else in change (or everything except for the most
basic<br>
immutable universal foundational aspects of language, to the extent
there<br>
are any and if there are to the extent we can identify them).<br>
<br>
--Brian<br>
<br>
Brian D. Joseph<br>
The Ohio State University<br>
<br>
<br>
> About Peter's comment:<br>
><br>
> Well...I actually think we need to consider<br>
> carefully whether we "agree that it's not exactly
typical<br>
> of what usually goes on". One thing that has
struck<br>
> me again and again over the past ten years or so, ever<br>
> since I got interested in this whole issue of<br>
> deliberate change, is that we merely *assume* that<br>
> most changes are non-deliberate throughout their<br>
> history. We have very little evidence on this point.<br>
> I first heard about people making their dialects<br>
> more different from the dialect of the guys next door<br>
> when I read Peter's Dialects in Contact. But ever<br>
> since I started giving talks here & there on deliberate<br>
> change, people have come up with new examples for me;<br>
> one such example was a case of deliberate dialect<br>
> divergence from Peru -- the people told the<br>
> fieldworker that they wanted to make sure they<br>
> retained their differentness from the people just<br>
> around the mountain from them, and so they deliberately<br>
> distorted the pronunciation of their own words in<br>
> a rule-governed way.<br>
><br>
> I do still believe that most linguistic change must<br>
> be non-deliberate. That's the easiest way to account<br>
> for (for instance) regular sound change. But I<br>
> also think that claims that the vast majority of<br>
> linguistic change is subconscious are on shaky<br>
> ground, as long as they lack evidence of any kind.<br>
> (I admit that I haven't the faintest idea how one<br>
> might go about gathering evidence.)</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>><br>
> -- Sally Thomason<br>
<br>
<br>
------------------------------<br>
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End of Histling-l Digest, Vol 13, Issue 6<br>
*****************************************</blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<div>||||| Henning Andersen<br>
<br>
||||| Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures<br>
||||| University of California, Los Angeles<br>
||||| P.O.Box 951502<br>
||||| Los Angeles, CA 90095-1502<br>
<br>
||||| Phone: +1-310-837-6743. Fax by appointment<br>
|||||
http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/slavic/faculty/andersen_h.html</div>
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