dialect in novels

[Herb Stahlke]

This gets into matters like Sturtevant's Paradox and Kurylowicz's
Laws of Analogy.  Sturtevant's Paradox observes that sound change
is regular but produces irregularity while analogical change is
irregular but produces regularity.  An example of this would be
the was/were contrast in English.  The s/r contrast is the result
of the regular application in Germanic of Verner's Law followed by
rhotacization, giving OE waes/waeron.  The result is an irregular
verb form that gets regularized by analogy in those dialects that
use "was" with plural subjects.  Kurylowicz's Six Laws deal with
how analogy acts to produce regularity.  One of the major reasons
why so much irregularity persists in Standard English is that
Standard English determinedly retains those older forms that
analogy levels and regularizes in the vernaculars.  Much of that
irregularity is an consequence of standard language ideology.

By the way, I recall learning in elementary school that the
plural of dwarf was dwarves and that dwarfs was unacceptable.
Just thought I'd throw in some of my own Standard English
conditioning.

Herb

>>> mufw at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU 03/02/01 01:20PM >>>
At 11:08 AM 3/2/2001 -0500, Bob Fitzke wrote:
>By all means. The exceptions all arise out of a common ancestor,
i.e.,
>"the rule".
>
How come? Exceptions are exceptions because a rule did/does not
cover them in
the first place. Are you suggesting that exceptions are
(necessarily)
divergences from an earlier evolutionary stage when they were
covered by the
same more general rule? Do speakers really acquire a language by
rules or are
rules essentially a by-product of how analysts want to account
for linguistic
behavior (i.e., the behavior of speakers)?

Sali.

>Salikoko Mufwene wrote:
>>
>> At 09:14 AM 3/2/2001 -0500, Bib Fitzke wrote:
>> >Or, perhaps, when enough of the exceptions coalesce to form a
new
>> rule
>> >of their own; sort of a "rule within a rule". A type of
speciation?
>> >
>> "Speciation" presupposes some sort of common evolutionary
history, a
>> sort of divergence after evolving together. Would that be the
case
>> here?
>>
>> Sali.
>>
>> **********************************************************
>> Salikoko S. Mufwene
s-mufwene at uchicago.edu
>> University of Chicago                      773-702-8531; FAX
>> 773-834-0924
>> Department of Linguistics
>> 1010 East 59th Street
>> Chicago, IL 60637
>>
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/humanities/linguistics/faculty/mufwene.html
>> **********************************************************
>
**********************************************************
Salikoko S. Mufwene                        s-mufwene at uchicago.edu

University of Chicago                      773-702-8531; FAX
773-834-0924
Department of Linguistics
1010 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/humanities/linguistics/faculty/mufwene.html

**********************************************************