28.811, Review: Anthro Ling; Historical Ling; History of Ling: Norde, van de Velde (2016)

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Subject: 28.811, Review: Anthro Ling; Historical Ling; History of Ling: Norde, van de Velde (2016)

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Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2017 11:51:00
From: Natalie Operstein [natacha at ucla.edu]
Subject: Exaptation and Language Change

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/27/27-1160.html

Review Editors' note:  This is a review article, a special feature of LINGUIST List reviews.

EDITOR: Muriel  Norde
EDITOR: Freek  van de Velde
TITLE: Exaptation and Language Change
SERIES TITLE: Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 336
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2016

REVIEWER: Natalie Operstein,  

Reviews Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

“Exaptation and Language Change”, edited by Muriel Norde and Freek Van de
Velde, focuses on a single proposed mechanism of historical-linguistic change,
''exaptation''. This concept and term initially emerged in the field of
evolutionary biology (Gould & Vrba 1982) and were first applied to the field
of historical linguistics by Roger Lass (Lass 1988, 1990), who provided the
following definition: 

Say a language has a grammatical distinction of some sort, coded by means of  
  morphology. Then say this distinction is jettisoned, PRIOR TO the loss of
the     morphological material that codes it. This morphology is now,
functionally     speaking, junk; and there are three things that can in
principle be done with it: 
    
    (i) it can be dumped entirely; 
    
    (ii) it can be kept as marginal garbage or nonfunctional/nonexpressive
residue
     (suppletion, 'irregularity'); 

    (iii) it can be kept, but instead of being relegated as in (ii), it can be
used for
     something else, perhaps just as systematic. 

    [...] Option (iii) is linguistic exaptation. (Lass 1990: 81-82; emphasis
is original)

The present volume attempts to unravel the defining features of linguistic
exaptation, delimit its scope of application, and determine its usefulness in
relation to other mechanisms and pathways of diachronic change, including
analogy, reanalysis and grammaticalization. In doing so, it builds on earlier
publications such as Traugott (2004). The volume is based on two workshops
devoted to exaptation that were organized by the editors in 2011 and 2012, and
consists of a brief preface and thirteen chapters. 

In ''Exaptation: Taking stock of a controversial notion in linguistics'',
Freek Van de Velde and Muriel Norde provide a conceptual introduction to the
volume. They define exaptation as ''the leap-like co-optation of a trait for a
new function that is not immediately related to its former function'' (p. 10).
This understanding of exaptation departs from the one in Lass (1990) in three
significant ways: it assumes that the new function is unpredictable or
''leap-like''; it does not assume that the exapted form was functionless prior
to the innovation; and it is not limited to the domain of morphology. The bulk
of the chapter is devoted to a discussion and illustration of each aspect of
this understanding, including exaptation outside morphology, the criterion of
functional emptiness of the exapted form, and what precisely counts as a
''leap-like'' change and a ''new'' function. 

In ''Being exacting about exapting: An exaptation omnibus'', Brian D. Joseph
argues that using a special label for refunctionalization of marginal
patterns, while taxonomically appropriate, is uninformative about the
developments involved, and that such developments are better accounted for by
using the traditional notions of analogy and reanalysis. In support of this
view, he examines four developments in the history of Sanskrit and English.
The two Sanskrit examples concern reduplication in the perfect tense, and each
involves extension of a marginal reduplicative pattern beyond its original
domain, to roots outside those in which it arose. The two English examples
involve extension/reanalysis of the preposition ‘of’ from marginal patterns in
the language. 

In ''Co-opting exaptation in a theory of language change'', Livio Gaeta argues
that the usefulness of the notion of exaptation will be enhanced if
supplemented by its conceptual counterpart -- adaptation -- in the discipline
from which it was borrowed. Gaeta conceives of adaptation and exaptation as
functionally distinct types of language change: while adaptive changes are
''oriented'' (e.g., in the domain of morphology they may be seen ''as an
improvement of the system adequacy or as a markedness reduction'', p. 86),
exaptive changes are ''non-oriented'' (''they do not seem to respond to a
general design'', p. 86). The bulk of the chapter is devoted to a discussion
of what types of changes may qualify as adaptive and what types of changes may
be viewed as exaptive in various domains of grammar. 

In ''Exaptation in Japanese and beyond'', Heiko Narrog begins by articulating
his views on the four defining features of exaptation: the ''junk'' status of
the source material, the conceptual novelty of the category created by
exaptation, the unexpectedness or unpredictability of the change, and the
leap-like nature of the change. In doing so, Narrog usefully situates his
understanding of these characteristics in relation to that of the other volume
contributors. The main body of the paper presents a comprehensive survey of
exaptive changes in the history of Japanese, which are carefully distinguished
from grammaticalizations. An interesting aspect of the paper is numerical
comparison of exaptations and grammaticalizations in the history of Japanese,
made possible by the author's comprehensive cataloguing of both. While the
number of reported exaptations is only 6, the number of grammaticalizations is
over 400; this disparity points to the minor status of exaptation as a source
of grammatical material in Japanese. 

The bulk of ''Functional changes and (meta-)linguistic evolution'', by
Ferdinand von Mengden, is devoted to tracing the conceptual history of the
term ''grammaticalization'' and to a survey of the conceptual motivations for
a range of labels for refunctionalization of grammatical elements, including
''secondary grammaticalization'', ''regrammaticalization'', ''regrammation'',
''functional renewal'', ''hypoanalysis'', ''functional shift/conversion'', and
''lateral shift/conversion'' (sections 2-5 of the paper). The notion of
exaptation is then examined against this background. Von Mengden sees
exaptation as being different from other functional shifts in two ways:
firstly, because it requires ''junk'' as its input and produces a functional
novelty as its output, and secondly, because of its parallel with biological
evolution. These properties of exaptation are examined in Section 6 of the
paper. 

The purpose of ''Exaptation from the perspective of construction morphology'',
by Muriel Norde and Graeme Trousdale, is to recast the notion of exaptation in
terms of diachronic construction grammar. After introducing the basic premises
of this approach, Norde & Trousdale define exaptations as ''processes
involving various constructional changes, whereby the link between a subschema
and one higher-level schema is severed, and the subschema comes to be aligned
to a different higher-level schema'' (p. 170). Following this discussion, they
examine several changes in Swedish, Danish and Dutch, such as reanalysis of
the genitive inflection -s as a determiner, in construction grammar terms, and
conclude that not all of the changes count as exaptations under their
approach. 

''Exaptation and degrammaticalization within an acquisition-based model of
abductive reanalysis'', by David Willis, relies on a model of diachronic
change in which the locus of change is assumed to be language learning
children and the cause of change, cross-generational reanalysis during first
language acquisition. The view of exaptation and degrammaticalization as
''special cases of . . . reanalysis'' (p. 199) naturally falls out from this
general approach. The specific point of contact between degrammaticalization
and exaptation is seen in the status of the source structures: it is assumed
that in both cases children reanalyze ''obsolescent material'' in adult
grammars by assigning it to a different category or function. The theoretical
discussion is supplemented by an examination of two specific changes:
degrammaticalization of the indefinite pronoun 'something' to a noun meaning
'thing' in Goidelic Celtic and South Slavic, and exaptation of the number
feature in the ‘was’ / ‘were’ alternation to encode the positive / negative
distinction -- the use of ‘was’ in affirmative and ‘were’ in negative clauses
-- in various English dialects. 

''Allogenous exaptaton'', by Francesco Gardani, takes a break from the
volume's focus on language-internal change by looking at exaptation of
borrowed morphology. Gardani aligns allogenous exaptation with Lass's (1990)
original definition as follows: 

Once speakers are able to isolate a [borrowed, N.O.] formative but do not know
    what to do with it, either because it does not mean anything to them
(junk) or its     lexical-    semantic load is weak, what should they do with
it? They can either     expunge it from the language, or keep it as a
fossilized form, or implement it to     the effect that it becomes an active
element in their language. These are the three     options famously envisaged
by Lass in his founding paper, the third of which is     exaptation. (p. 253)

The examples examined all involve verbal morphology and include recurring
refunctionalization of source language infinitive, perfective or imperative
markers as loan verb markers and/or denominal/deadjectival verb formatives in
the recipient languages, challenging the assumption that exaptive changes are
unpredictable. For example, the German suffix -ier-, which initially entered
the language as an (unanalyzed) part of French verbs borrowed in the
infinitive, was extracted from the loaned verbs and put to use ''either to
derive verbs from nouns or to mark verbs as non-native'' (p. 232). In addition
to providing examples of exaptation of borrowed morphological elements,
Gardani discusses how allogenous exaptation differs from grammaticalization,
secondary grammaticalization, and degrammaticalization.  

The next three chapters re-examine morphological developments that were
analyzed as exaptations in previous literature. In ''How functionless is junk,
and how useful is exaptation? Probing the -i/-esc- morpheme'', Dieter
Vermandere and Claire Meul look at the development of the Latin inchoative
verbal suffix -esc/isc- in Romance languages. Functionally, Romance -esc/isc-
has been explained as a stress-aligning device (it allows stress to uniformly
fall after the verb root in present tense forms) and/or as a means to avoid
stress-conditioned verb root allomorphy (compare the present-tense conjugation
of finire with that of udire in 1). 

(1)    finire 'finish'        udire 'hear'
        fin-ísco             ód-o
        fin-ísci              ód-i
        fin-ísce             ód-e
        fin-íámo            ud-iámo
        fin-íte               ud-íte
        fin-íscono         ód-ono

Vermandere & Meul argue that the previously proposed functions of -esc/isc-
are mere side-effects of this suffix's presence in verb paradigms, and that if
the exaptation account for the development of -esc/isc- is to be maintained,
it is necessary to redefine the functionality of -esc/isc- in Romance
languages and to abandon the requirement that the exapted form be functionless
(''junk'') or the exapted function conceptually novel. 

Like the preceding chapter, ''The history of nominative -er in Danish and
Swedish: A case of exaptation?'', by Eva Skafte Jensen, focuses on a single
diachronic change previously analyzed as exaptation: the development of an
inflectional marker -er into a derivational marker in Danish and Swedish.
Omitting the fine details (which are meticulously spelled out in the paper),
the change in question involves the following major steps: nominative case
marker > foregrounding device > marker of subjective evaluation in adjectives
> adjective suffix in idiomatic phrases (Danish) / suffix deriving nouns from
adjectives (Swedish). Also, as in the preceding chapter, Jensen argues that
whether or not to consider the development of -er a case of exaptation depends
on one's definition of exaptation and the weight placed on its different
defining characteristics. She ultimately concludes that the notion of
exaptation is not needed as not providing a useful contribution to our
insights about language change. 

In ''Is the development of linking elements in German a case of exaptation?'',
Renata Szczepaniak focuses on the evolution of linking elements in German
compounds, as seen in Schwein-e-braten 'roast pork' or Name-ns-shield 'name
tag'. She identifies two layers of linking elements. The older layer goes back
to Proto-Indo-European stem-forming suffixes located between the root and
inflectional endings. Szczepaniak argues that their development into linking
elements in German is not a case of exaptation because the source material was
not functionless but rather was used to mark declension classes, and the two
functions were related. The more recent layer derives from genitive singular
and plural endings, which were reanalyzed as linking elements following
reanalysis of noun phrases with a prenominal genitive modifier as compounds.
Szczepaniak argues that the development of genitive endings into linking
elements is not exaptation, either, because the exapted material was only
partially functionless: although the category of case is lost, that of number
is still present (compare Geburt-s-urkunde 'birth certificate' with
Geburt-en-rate 'birth rate'). 

The remaining two chapters apply the notion of exaptation to syntax. In
''Exploring and recycling: Topichood and the evolution of Ibero-Romance
articles'', Albert Wall and Álvaro Sebastián Octavio de Toledo y Huerta
propose an exaptation-based analysis of two developments in the evolution of
the definite article in Ibero-Romance languages. The first of these is the use
of determinerless singular nouns in Brazilian Portuguese (as in 2 below), and
the second is extension of the definite article ‘el’ to head that-clauses in
Spanish (as in 3 below; the glossing has been simplified).  
 
(2)    Barracão     pegou         fogo . . . 
        shed           caught        fire
        'The shed caught fire'

(3)     también    influye        mucho        el    que    estés    nerviosa
         also        influences    much        the    that    be.2s    nervous
         'It also plays a role that you might be nervous'

The authors argue that the definite articles in Portuguese and Spanish have
reached the end point of their respective grammaticalization paths: while in
Portuguese the article is extended to every type of noun, in Spanish it is
extended beyond nouns to infinitives and infinitival noun clauses. They
suggest that the innovations in (2) and (3) occur outside the attested
grammaticalization paths (in the authors' words, they do not follow the
''internal logic'' of their respective grammaticalization clines), and are
motivated by re-interpretation of the articles as topic-marking devices. Wall
& Octavio de Toledo see these developments as aligning with the following
definition of exaptation: 

Exaptation in language change can be thought of as the phenomenon of the
emergence of a new grammatical function at what could otherwise be expected to
be the end of a cline of grammaticalization. (Traugott 2004: 153)

In ''Exaptation and adaptation: Two historical routes to final particles in
Japanese'', Katsunobu Izutsu and Mitsuko Narita Izutsu argue that both
exaptation and adaptation are needed in linguistics. They look at two pathways
of final particle development in Japanese, from subordinating conjunctions
(shown in 4) and coordinating conjunctions (shown in 5). 

(4)     clause 1 -- CONJ -- clause 2 > clause 1 -- CONJ > sentence -- FINAL
PARTICLE

(5)     clause 1 -- CONJ -- clause 2 > clause 2 -- CONJ > sentence -- FINAL
PARTICLE   
     
The change in (4) consists in suppressing the main clause and reinterpretation
of the subordinating conjunction as a final particle. Izutsu & Izutsu argue
that this pathway is best described as adaptation: the conjunction occurs at
the end of its clause and naturally becomes sentence-final when the main
clause (clause 2) is suppressed. In this case, the feature of being
sentence-final ''has not been coopted but, in a way, shaped by natural
selection'' (p. 388). By contrast, the pathway in (5) is viewed as exaptation:
since the coordinating conjunction is moved to the end of the clause prior to
being reinterpreted as a final particle, the feature of being sentence-final
is ''not shaped by natural selection'' but rather ''is coopted for the
remedial function'', and the shift to the sentence-final position is ''an
unexpected abrupt change'' (p. 389). 

EVALUATION

This collection presents a variety of ways in which the notion of exaptation
is understood by linguists. Though no consensus is evident -- e.g., every
single aspect of the definition of exaptation has been challenged, and the
authors have expressed different views regarding whether or not this notion
contributes to our understanding of language change -- a number of common
themes have emerged. First, that exaptation is not a primitive notion but a
derived one: it ''does not have the same status as analogy or reanalysis,
which are fundamental mechanisms of change'' (Gardani, p. 254). Second, that
labels like ''unpredictable'' or ''unexpected'' change, which form part of
definitions of exaptation, only make sense against a background of assumptions
about ''predictable'' and ''expected'' changes; put differently, ''the notion
of exaptation is based on that of grammaticalization (or a broader notion for
directional changes)'' (Wall & Octavio de Toledo, p. 345). Third, that the
characteristics that define exaptation are relative rather than absolute. This
includes the ''junk'' status of the source material, the ''novelty'' of the
new function, the ''unexpectedness'' or the ''leap-like'' nature of the
change. For instance, Willis sees the source material of exaptation as
''obsolescent'' rather than ''junk'' (p. 203). Fourth, whether or not a given
change constitutes an instance of exaptation depends on one's definition of
the phenomenon. For example, Narrog, who attempts a comprehensive catalog of
exaptive changes in Japanese, excludes the changes described in Izutsu &
Izutsu as ''based on a quite different understanding of 'exaptation''' (p.
101). Similarly, Norde & Trousdale observe: ''According to Jensen (this
volume), the question of whether -er should be seen as an instance of
exaptation depends on its definition, or, more precisely, on the degree of
prominence given to its various 'characteristics''' (p. 186). In their own
paper, Norde & Trousdale ''consider the extent to which they [the
developments, N.O.] constitute examples of exaptation'' (p. 171), which
suggests that some developments may be seen as better examples of exaptation
than others.  

The volume opens a number of avenues for further research, which may include
further clarifying the notion of exaptation and its place in linguistics,
including in relation to the companion notion of adaptation (see Gaeta and
Izutsu & Izutsu); its place among other types of refunctionalization of
grammatical material; and the extent to which this notion is applicable to
domains other than inflectional morphology. Although extensions of exaptation
beyond morphology are lightly sketched in Van de Velde & Norde (pp. 11-15) and
Gaeta (pp. 76-83), most changes discussed in the book are morphological, while
Willis specifically views both exaptation and degrammaticalization as
''instances of the development of morphological material . . .'' (p. 198). 

Another avenue for future research, which is relatively underexplored in the
volume, is the sociolinguistic dimension. Most of the assembled studies make
no attempt to embed the exaptive changes in a social context, and the changes
are discussed in purely structural terms. For example, though Norde &
Trousdale name L2 learners as a possible source of reanalysis of adjectives in
-e as attributive adjectives in Dutch (pp. 187-188), they do not explore the
language contact/acquisition angle in their paper. Exceptions to this are
Gardani's chapter on exaptation of borrowed morphology and Willis's chapter,
which embeds exaptive changes within (presumably, monolingual) first language
acquisition as the general locus of diachronic change (for a summary of this
hypothesis see Meisel 2011: 124-126). A promising attempt to articulate the
social context of exaptation is made by Los (2013), who believes that it
arises in cases involving ''a previous stage in which there was a clear
breakdown in transmission'' (Los 2013: 268). Additional research on the social
context of exaptation may bring a better understanding of this phenomenon, and
is clearly warranted. 

Rather than attempting a unified picture of exaptation, this volume opens it
up for further exploration and provides a forum for a discussion of
refunctionalization of grammatical elements, with the focus on ''unexpected''
changes that set exaptation apart from cross-linguistically recurrent changes
such as those captured by grammaticalization clines. The main value of this
collection is in the diversity of views it offers and the variety of phenomena
that get discussed under a common rubric. It is expected to be of interest to
historical linguists, historians of linguistics, morphologists, and experts on
the languages discussed. 

REFERENCES

Gould, Stephen Jay & Vrba, Elisabeth S. 1982. Exaptation -- a missing term in
the science of form. Paleobiology 8: 4-15. 

Lass, Roger. 1988. How to do things with junk: Exaptation in language
evolution. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics 17: 33-62. 
 
Lass, Roger. 1990. How to do things with junk: Exaptation in language
evolution. Journal of Linguistics 26: 79-102. 

Los, Bettelou. 2013. Recycling ''junk'': A case for exaptation as a response
to breakdown. In Historical Linguistics 2011: Selected Papers from the 20th
International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Osaka 25-30 July 2011,
Ritsuko Kikusawa & Lawrence A. Reid (eds), 267-288. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 

Meisel, Jürgen M. 2011. Bilingual language acquisition and theories of
diachronic change: Bilingualism as cause and effect of grammatical change.
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 14: 121-145. 

Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 2004. Exaptation and grammaticalization. In
Linguistic Studies Based on Corpora, Minoji Akimoto (ed), 133-156. Tokyo:
Hituzi Syobo.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Natalie Operstein is the author of ''Consonant Structure and Prevocalization''
(2010) and ''Zaniza Zapotec'' (2015) and co-editor of ''Valence Changes in
Zapotec: Synchrony, Diachrony, Typology'' (2015). Her research interests
include historical and comparative linguistics, phonology, and language
contact.





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