16.3121, Review: Socioling/Typology/Hist Ling:Delbecque et al(2005)

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Subject: 16.3121, Review: Socioling/Typology/Hist Ling:Delbecque et al(2005)

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1)
Date: 25-Oct-2005
From: Claudia Lange < Claudia.Lange at mailbox.tu-dresden.de >
Subject: Perspectives on Variation 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 19:36:22
From: Claudia Lange < Claudia.Lange at mailbox.tu-dresden.de >
Subject: Perspectives on Variation 
 

EDITORS: Delbecque, Nicole; van der Auwera, Johan; Geeraerts, Dirk
TITLE: Perspectives on Variation
SUBTITLE: Sociolinguistic, Historical, Comparative 
SERIES: Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs 163 
PUBLISHER: Mouton de Gruyter
YEAR: 2005
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-1318.html 

Claudia Lange, English Department, Technische Universitaet Dresden

Recently, the field has witnessed a massive surge of interest in 
variation on all levels of linguistic analysis, with a specific focus on 
grammatical variation, as e.g. the volumes edited by Rohdenburg and 
Mondorf (2003) and Kortmann (2004) testify -- incidentally, the title 
under review appears in the same series. Moreover, interest in 
variation is no longer restricted to dialectology, sociolinguistics, 
typology and other disciplines on the functionalist side of the formal-
functional divide in contemporary linguistics; see, for example, 
Barbiers et al. (2002). All contributors to this trend have in common 
that they are looking for ways to overcome the traditional barriers 
between the sub-disciplines and to develop a new, integrated and 
panchronic approach to the study of variation in language. The editors 
of the present volume explicitly place their collection of articles within 
that developing framework. Most papers date back to the conference 
of the Societas Linguisticae Europaea held in Leuven, Belgium in 
2001. I will first give an overview of all contributions before attempting 
an overall critical evaluation.

Peter Auer's paper, "Europe's sociolinguistic unity, or: A typology of 
European dialect/standard constellations" (8-42), is very wide in 
scope, as the title already indicates. Auer proceeds from the 
assumption that there is unity in diversity where the "European 
sociolinguistic repertoires" (7) are concerned. He focusses 
on "endoglossic national standard varieties in Europe in the second 
millenium A.D. and their relationship to the dialects in their respective 
geographical area" (8) and proposes a five-step model to account for 
all possible dialect-standard-relationships found in Europe, both 
synchronically and diachronically. The initial stage is labelled "type 
zero repertoire" and characterized by "exoglossic diglossia": the 
standard is provided by a language that is not at all related to the 
vernacular language(s) of the speech community, e.g. Latin in 
Medieval England. The next step to "type A repertoires" 
entails "medial diglossia with an endoglossic standard", a linguistic 
situation where the H-variety of a language is singled out for formal 
purposes and especially for writing; indeed, the medium of writing is 
fundamental for the spread of the new endoglossic standard (11). 
In "type B repertoires: spoken diglossia" (15), the use of the standard 
language is no longer restricted to the written medium, giving rise to a 
spoken standard language that may be and remain quite different 
from the respective written standard (17). Type C as the next step is 
labelled "diaglossia" and "characterised by intermediate variants 
between standard and (base) dialect" (22) and involving dialect 
levelling. This stage seems to represent the most common linguistic 
profile across contemporary Europe. If dialects are lost altogether, 
stage D is reached. 

This brief chronological survey is not able to do full justice to Auer's 
contribution; his paper offers a wealth of insights and perspectives for 
any further study on variation and will hopefully be taken up as a 
research program by others who are interested in the dynamics of 
contact continua and standardisation processes across Europe.

Paul Heggarty, April McMahon and Robert McMahon in "From 
phonetic similarity to dialect classification" (43-91) report from their 
ongoing work in developing a method to quantify the concept 
of 'phonetic similarity'. The authors first give a brief sketch of how their 
model tackles the basic problems arising whenever one deals with the 
concept of 'phonetic similarity', namely the "compatibility problem" and 
the "quantification problem" (50): which entities can or should actually 
be compared, and how can the degree of similarity between 
phonemes, and eventually lexemes, be expressed numerically? The 
quantification problem is solved by providing a method to "assess the 
significance of phonetic differences, relative to each other" (51), and 
the authors convincingly demonstrate how this can be achieved, given 
that phonological features are both discrete and well-defined and lend 
themselves readily to quantification. If the level of individual phonemes 
is left, however, the compatibility problem comes up again: how can 
the degree of phonetic similarity between cognates such as 
Italian 'castello' and French 'chateau' be measured? Here the authors 
introduce the 'node form' as the basis for comparison, that is the 
common ancestor (in this case Latin 'castellum') of both lexemes. 

After presenting their model, the authors embark on a very detailed 
discussion of an alternative approach which they label the "feature-
based approach" (71). Any reader who does not happen to be an 
expert in dialectrometry is bound to find this part of the paper slightly 
repetitive, and he or she will hopefully be forgiven for failing to 
appreciate the missionary zest the authors bring to their topic. The 
final section on "applications and extensions" (80f.) indicates the 
potential implications of the approach for the study of language 
change in general. 

Although it is not explicitly stated, the two preceding contributions 
seem to be the keynote papers, if only due to their sheer length. All 
following papers are much shorter and focus on individual case 
studies. 

Jose Tummers, Dirk Speelman and Dirk Geeraerts in "Inflectional 
variation in Belgian and Netherlandic Dutch: A usage-based account 
of the adjectival inflection" (93-110) use a corpus of written Dutch to 
investigate the extent of variation concerning one morphosyntactic 
parameter, namely the alternation between the declined and 
undeclined form of the attributive adjective in Belgian and 
Netherlandic Dutch. In order to quantify the phenomenon under 
scrutiny, the authors adapt their method of creating 
an "onomasiological profile" (97) in semantics and apply it to 
morphosyntax: the "inflectional profile collects conceptually equal 
alternatives to express an inflectional category" (98). The statistical 
analysis of these inflectional profiles lends support to some interesting 
observations on the relation of contemporary Belgian and 
Netherlandic Dutch: while there is little difference between the two 
varieties at the formal end of the stylistic continuum, Belgian Dutch 
displays a higher degree of internal variability as one moves along the 
cline towards the less formal end of the continuum. The lack of 
variation in Netherlandic Dutch indicates a higher degree of 
standardisation compared to Belgian Dutch. The authors call for 
further studies, both lexical and inflectional, in order to explore further 
the extent of variation in contemporary Dutch.

Reinhild Vandekerckhove's paper "Interdialectal convergence 
between West-Flemish urban dialects" (111-127) illustrates 
the "dynamics of the West-Flemish dialect area" (124, fn. 2). Her study 
is part of her ongoing research project concerned with urban 
vernaculars in West Flanders (Northern Belgium). In order to 
investigate pronoun usage, she created a corpus of elicited speech 
with informants from 4 different cities, available earlier dialect corpora 
also allowed real-time comparison. Vandekerckhove notes a complex 
pattern of "interdialectal exchanges" (123) resulting in a process of 
levelling: "pronouns with a limited distribution are replaced by 
pronouns with a wider distribution." (123). This finding is in line with 
many other studies on urban dialects and not particularly surprising. 
However, interdialectal exchange in West Flanders seems to take a 
rather uncommon turn: "dialect features with a limited areal dispersion 
gradually disappear, but they are replaced by other dialect features 
rather than by the standard language equivalents" (123), or to put it 
differently: "interdialectal influence still prevails over standard 
language interference" (124), a situation that has become almost 
extinct across Europe and therefore constitutes an intriguing research 
topic.

The next paper by Arjan van Leuvensteijn, "Substitutions in epistolary 
forms of address in the seventeenth century Dutch standard variety" 
(129-142), treats pronoun usage in Dutch from an altogether different 
point of view. Leuvensteijn traces changes in the forms of address as 
they become apparent in letters of the seventeenth century. His 
analysis of letters written by members of the Dutch upper class 
reveals significant changes in forms of address: the customary second 
person plural pronoun 'ghi', which indicated respect, came to be 
replaced by what he calls "honourable forms of address UE" (short for 
Dutch 'Uwe Edelheit', 'Your Honour') (133). This is clearly an example 
of a 'change from above', where the custom of the nobility provided 
the model for language use patterns in other strata of society.

Heli Tissari's paper "LOVE in words: Experience and 
conceptualization in the modern English lexicon of love" (143-176) 
addresses the question "what cognitive metaphors seem to produce 
LOVE words" (145) and what kind of changes are apparent over time. 
She draws on her own extensive work on the same word as well as on 
the exhaustive treatment by Julie Coleman (1999); the present study 
is a reanalysis and reassessment of Coleman's data. Tissari goes on 
to discuss the conceptual subdomains of LOVE, namely the family, 
friendship, sexuality, and religion, identifying the specific cognitive 
metaphors which are dominant in each participant subdomain. 
However, apart from the observation that "LOVE [...] comprises many 
beautiful things" (170), no clear pattern or general result emerges 
from this study.

The paper by Clara Molina adds a lighter touch to the present volume, 
despite its rather intimidating title "On the role of semasiological 
profiles in merger discontinuations" (177-193). 

Molina's contribution reads like a crime novel straight out of the 
business world; she places her main protagonists, words and 
meanings, into the sphere of pressure groups, reorganizations, 
mergers and takeovers. She traces the fate of her heroes, the native 
lexemes SORROW and SORE, throughout the history of English. The 
first centuries are marked by "an early process of mutual interaction" 
(181), then "a newcomer from French: PAIN" (183) arrives: "the 
balance of the network seemed suddenly endangered" (184), with 
dramatic consequences for the story: "As a result of the GREEDY 
[italicized in the original, C.L.] thrust of PAIN, the orbit of influence of 
both SORE and SORROW became endangered" (189). Meanwhile, 
SORE was making new friends: "in being surrounded by SORROW 
[...] and PAIN [...], SORE was better off siding with notions other than 
these" (188). As befits a crime novel, there is no happy ending: 
eventually, SORE yields to PAIN (189), and the overall outlook is not 
very promising where a sequel to the story is concerned: "The 
resulting network is not one in which various overlapping terms stand 
on relatively equal footing any more, but rather a much more 
radicalized one in which all terms, although still exhibiting a fairly large 
degree of overlap, glare in given prototypical meanings while 
becoming largely dimmed and superseded in the expression of other 
senses" (189f.). 

Caroline Gevaert's paper, "The ANGER IS HEAT question: Detecting 
cultural influence on the conceptualization of anger through diachronic 
corpus analysis" (195-208), concludes the group of articles which 
apply a cognitive framework. As the title suggests, the study offers 
new data for the evaluation of the claim "that the ANGER IS HEAT 
conceptualization is embodied" (195), i.e. grounded in human 
physiology and therefore universal. Gevaert first provides a synopsis 
of previous work done on the topic, the conceptual metaphor ANGER 
IS HEAT and its supposedly universal status: George Lakoff's claim 
(1987: 407) that the ANGER IS HEAT metaphor is pervasive not only 
crosslinguistically, but also throughout the history of English, has 
never been tested before. The present paper fills this gap by 
analysing expressions for anger in the Toronto Corpus of Old English 
and selected Middle English texts. Gevaert's insightful discussion of 
the data reveals clearly that the ANGER IS HEAT metaphor is culture-
specific rather than universal: "Its presence in the history of English is 
mainly due to influence of Latin and the humoral doctrine" (205f.), the 
popular medieval concept of the body as comprising four different 
humours. Her study aptly demonstrates the value of diachronic studies 
in cognitive linguistics.

Heide Wegener in "Development and motivation of marked plural 
forms in German" (209-234) deals with an addition to the class of 
German plural markers, namely {-s}, and gives an account in terms of 
Optimality Theory (OT) and Natural Morphology (NM).In German, {-s}
became available as a new plural marker in the seventeenth century 
and now occurs with loanwords from English and Romance languages 
("parks, laptops, pizzas"), neologisms with a final vowel 
("Unis" 'universities'), onomatopoeia ("Uhus" eagle owls') and proper 
names ("die beiden Berlins" 'the two Berlins') (cf. 217). The remainder 
of the article is concerned with the status and productivity of the new 
form within the German system of plural marking. It turns out that in 
the recent history of German, s-plurals appear as an interim solution 
for loanwords before they are fully integrated into the language, 
e.g. "Pizza - Pizzas - Pizzen".

The paper by Marcin Kilarski and Grzegorz Krynicki, "Not arbitrary, 
not regular: The magic of gender assignment" (234-250), is a 
contribution to the topic of gender assignment in the Scandinavian 
languages, more precisely a statistical analysis of gender assignment 
to English loans in Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. All three 
Scandinavian languages display a two-gender distinction of neuter vs. 
common gender (the somewhat different system of Norwegian 
Nynorsk was excluded from the study, cf. p. 246 fn. 4), and the 
question is whether gender assignment in these languages is 
determined by any formal or semantic characteristics of the nouns 
borrowed from English. The statistical analysis of the authors' corpus --
more than 2000 loanwords in each of the three languages -- shows 
that gender assignment is not entirely arbitrary, but subject to a 
variety of factors. As a general trend, a "continuing expansion of 
common and masculine genders" (245) can be observed.

The paper by Griet Beheydt, "Future time reference: English and 
Dutch compared" (251-274), treats the semantics and pragmatics of 
future tense(s). Although her main emphasis is contrastive, she also 
approaches her topic from a broadly conceived crosslinguistic 
perspective. Her corpus, however, appears somewhat unusual and 
raises certain doubts whether her results can in any way be 
generalised: the corpus consists of two English detective novels and 
their Dutch translations. A similar procedure is employed in the 
following paper: Katleen Van den Steen's observations on "Cleft 
constructions in French and Spanish" (275-290) are also based on a 
corpus of two novels and their translations. Unlike Beheydt, Van den 
Steen assigns her corpus centre stage and does not address 
questions of wider theoretical import; she does not, for example, make 
use of Knud Lambrecht's extensive work on French clefts (e.g. 
Lambrecht 1986, 1994, 2001) (Lambrecht (1994) is referred to in 
footnote 3, but not included in the bibliography). The article might 
have been better placed in a volume on translation studies, as the 
contribution it makes to our understanding of cleft constructions 
appears limited.

The two concluding articles display the typical typological approach: 
How is a given meaning expressed in language(s)? Torsten 
Leuschner in "How to express indifference in Germanic: Towards a 
functional-typological research programme" (291-317) gives a survey 
of "predicates of indifference in Germanic" (292) as a preliminary 
study for further typological research. The expressions he classifies 
as expressing indifference in Germanic "come in two basic structural 
types: either with an element of negation or with an element denoting 
identity or equality" (292), e.g. "it doesn't matter/ I don't care" or "it's all 
the same" (293). Leuschner sets out the basic syntactic, semantic and 
pragmatic properties of such expressions, pointing out similarities and 
differences in the encoding of indifference in both languages. He also 
devotes a section to the historical origin of predicates of indifference, 
focussing on lexical renovation (305f.), lexicalization (306), 
idiomatization (308f.) and borrowing (309f.). The study stands as a 
challenge to the claim that "languages hardly manifest any systematic 
typological variation in [the more] weakly grammaticalized patterns" 
(Haspelmath and König 1998: 581, quoted after Leuschner 312) and 
is bound to inspire further research.

Finally, Gisela Harras and Kristel Proost in "The lexicalization of 
speech act evaluations in German, English and Dutch" (319-336) look 
at "the way in which different types of speech act evaluations are 
lexicalized by speech act verbs and speech act idioms" (320). They 
develop a taxonomic framework which is able to differentiate 
speakers' propositional attitudes and presuppositions as well as other 
aspects of the communicative situation. They further compare speech 
act verbs and related idiomatic expressions, noting the differences in 
lexicalization patterns in English, Dutch and German.

CRITICAL EVALUATION

As indicated in the beginning, the papers collected in this volume were 
originally presented at the 2001 meeting of the Societas Linguistica 
Europaea. It is only to be expected that conference papers differ 
substantially in length, topic, method, style, and quality, and it is 
naturally within the discretion of the editors how much unity they want 
to impose on the contributions submitted to them. There are some 
disquieting indicators that the editors did not approach their task with 
unmitigated enthusiasm. For one thing, the proofreading is remarkably 
light-handed for a book which costs 118 euros and appears in such a 
prestigious series: there is irregular spacing of text lines due to the 
special characters in the article on "Interdialectal convergence" 
(111ff.) (a typical MS-Word formatting problem); several articles have 
odd paragraphs in ragged rather than justified setting (e.g. pp. 131, 
140/41, 232, 274ff.); hyphens in words appear in the middle of a 
sentence on p. 291 and throughout Leuschner's article (291ff.). 
Moreover, the editors' introduction does not waste more than one 
page on justifying the organising principles underlying the volume, 
before proceeding to a brief abstract for each paper to follow. The 
difficulty of finding coherence in a rather mixed bag of topics, 
approaches, and methods that typically come together as conference 
proceedings is well known. A programmatic editorial introduction can 
turn a collection of papers into more than the sum of its parts, witness 
the already mentioned volumes by Kortmann and Rohdenburg & 
Mondorf. Here, the editors have renounced the option of providing an 
introduction to the volume that might have served as a programmatic 
statement, thus limiting the scope of the volume as a whole. Most 
papers in the volume would have deserved better than that.

REFERENCES

Barbiers, Sjef, Leonie Cornips & S. van der Kleij (eds.) (2002), 
Syntactic Microvariation. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 
[www.meertens.knaw.nl/projecten/sand/synmic]

Coleman, Julie (1999), Love, sex, and marriage: A historical 
thesaurus. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi.

Haspelmath, Martin & Ekkehard König (1998), "Concessive 
conditionals in the languages of Europe". In: van der Auwera, Johan 
(ed.), Adverbial constructions in the languages of Europe. Berlin and 
New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 563-640.

Kortmann, Bernd (ed.) (2004), Dialectology meets Typology. Dialect 
Grammar from a Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Berlin and New York: 
Mouton de Gruyter.

Lakoff, George (1987), Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. 
Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press.

Lambrecht, Knud (1986), Topic, focus, and the grammar of spoken 
French. PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.

Lambrecht, Knud (1994), Information structure and sentence form. 
Topic, Focus, and the mental representation of discourse referents. 
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lambrecht, Knud (2001), "A framework for the analysis of cleft 
constructions." Linguistics 39,3: 463-516.

Rohdenburg, Günter & Britta Mondorf, (eds.) (2003), Determinants of 
Grammatical Variation in English. Berlin and New York: Mouton de 
Gruyter. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Claudia Lange is lecturer in Linguistics in the English department at 
the Technische Universitaet Dresden; Germany. She wrote her PhD 
thesis on reflexivity and intensification in the history of English and is 
currently working on the syntax of Indian English.





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