Two general principles of sexual differentiation emerge from previous sociolinguistic studies: that men use a higher frequency of nonstandard forms than women in stable situations, and that women are generally the innovators in linguistic change. It is not clear whether these two tendencies can be unified, or how differences between the sexes can account for the observed patterns of linguistic change. The extensive interaction between sex and other social factors raises the issue as to whether the curvilinear social class pattern associated with linguistic change is the product of a rejection of female-dominated changes by lower-class males. Multivariate analysis of data from the Philadelphia Project on Linguistic Change and Variation indicates that sexual differentiation is independent of social class at the beginning of a change, but that interaction develops gradually as social awareness of the change increases. It is proposed that sexual differentiation of language is generated by two distinct processes: (1) for all social classes, the asymmetric context of language learning leads to an initial acceleration of female-dominated changes and retardation of male-dominated changes; (2) women lead men in the rejection of linguistic changes as they are recognized by the speech community, a differentiation that is maximal for the second highest status group.

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The intersection of sex and social class in the course of linguistic change

List of figures Preface and acknowledgements Conventions List of abbreviations 1. The framework 2. Prior and current work on semantic change 3. The development of modal verbs 4. The development of adverbials with discourse marker function 5. The development of performative verbs and constructions 6. The development of social deictics 7. Conclusion Primary references Secondary references Index of languages Index of names Index of subjects.

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Regularity in Semantic Change

Language demonstrates structure while also showing considerable variation at all levels: languages differ from one another while still being shaped by the same principles; utterances within a language differ from one another while exhibiting the same structural patterns; languages change over time, but in fairly regular ways. This book focuses on the dynamic processes that create languages and give them their structure and variance. It outlines a theory of language that addresses the nature of grammar, taking into account its variance and gradience, and seeks explanation in terms of the recurrent processes that operate in language use. The evidence is based on the study of large corpora of spoken and written language, what we know about how languages change, as well as the results of experiments with language users. The result is an integrated theory of language use and language change which has implications for cognitive processing and language evolution.

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Language, Usage and Cognition

This paper is concerned with the social mechanisms of linguistic change, and we begin by noting the distinction drawn by Bynon (1977) between two quite different approaches to the study of linguistic change. The first and more idealized, associated initially with traditional nineteenth century historical linguistics, involves the study of successive ‘states of the language’, states reconstructed by the application of comparative techniques to necessarily partial historical records. Generalizations (in the form of laws) about the relationships between these states may then be made, and more recently the specification of ‘possible’ and ‘impossible’ processes of change has been seen as an important theoretical goal.

https://www.sfs.uni-tuebingen.de/~roland/Literature/Milroy(85)_linguistic_change_social_network_and_speaker_innovation.pdf

Linguistic change, social network and speaker innovation

Preface Acknowledgements Part I. Preliminaries: 1. What is evolutionary phonology? 2. Evolution in language and elsewhere 3. Explanation in phonology: a brief history of ideas Part II. Sound Patterns: 4. Laryngeal features 5. Place features 6. Other common sound patterns 7. The evolution of geminates 8. Some uncommon sound patterns Part III. Implications: 9. Synchronic phonology 10. Diachronic phonology 11. Beyond phonology References Language index Subject index.

Evolutionary Phonology: The Emergence of Sound Patterns

Historical linguistic theory and practice contains a great number of different 'layers' which have been accepted in the course of time and have acquired a permanency of their own. These range from neogrammarian conceptualizations of sound change and analogy to present-day ideas on rule change and language mixture. To get a full grasp of the principles of historical linguistics it is therefore necessary to understand the nature and justifications (or shortcomings) of each of these 'layers', not just to look for a single 'overarching' theory. The major purpose of the book is to provide in up-to-date form such an understanding of the principles of historical linguistics and the related fields of comparative linguistics and linguistic reconstruction. In addition, the book provides a very broad exemplification of the principles of historical linguistics.

Principles of historical linguistics

Why does language change? Why can we speak to and understand our parents but have trouble reading Shakespeare? Why is Chaucer's English of the fourteenth century so different from Modern English of the late twentieth century that the two are essentially different languages? Why are Americans and English 'one people divided by a common language'? And how can the language of Chaucer and Modern English - or Modern British and American English - still be called the same language? The present book provides answers to questions like these in a straightforward way, aimed at the non-specialist, with ample illustrations from both familiar and more exotic languages. Most chapters in this new edition have been reworked, with some difficult passages removed, other passages thoroughly rewritten, and several new sections added, e.g. on language and race and on Indian writing systems. Further, the chapter notes and bibliography have all been updated.

Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship: An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics

1. Prefatory note 2. Table of contents 3. Charts, figures and tables 4. Abbreviations 5. 1. Introduction: diachronic linguistics (by Lehmann, Winfred P.) 6. 2. Building on empirical foundations (by Labov, William) 7. 3. A semiotic model of diachronic process phonology (by Dressler, Wolfgang U.) 8. 4. Semantically-marked root morphemes in diachronic morphology (by Malkiel, Yakov) 9. 5. From propositional to textual and expressive meanings some semantic-pragmatic aspects of grammaticalization (by Traugott, Elizabeth Closs) 10. 6. Romance Etymology (by Dworkin, Steven N.) 11. 7. Indo-european etymology with special reference to grammatical category (by Justus, Carol F.) 12. Bibliography 13. Subject index 14. Author index

Perspectives on historical linguistics

1. In a 1979 paper on compensatory lengthening (CL), DE CHENE and ANDERSON (D & A) make two major claims: (a) CL is one of the many terms of traditional historical linguistics which label diachronic correspondences without explaining them; (b) the correct phonetic explanation is that 'such changes always involve the loss of a consonant immediately adjacent to the vowel in which length subsequently appears, and . . . the change can be analysed quite generally into the two independently-motivated processes of weakening of a consonant to a glide (either semivocalic or laryngeal) and subsequent monophthongization of a complex syllable nucleus. (505) That is, CL is a misnomer. A first step toward a rebuttal of this position is found in CLEMENTS (1982; cf. also 1984). While more or less sharing D & A's negative evaluation of traditional linguistics (3), he proposes a phonological explanation of CL äs serving to 'maintain the quantitative integrity of the syllable.' (6) Unfortunately, however, most of CLEMENTS' examples are of doubtful cogency: A fair number involve consonant gemination which, äs shown in HOCK (1976a) and MTJKRAY and VENNEMAN (1983), may result from a variety of other, non-CL developments. The Bantu example of mun$tu to munSntn (my notation), with CL aUegedly resulting from the shift of n from the first to the second syllable, can be attributed also to lengthening before sonorant + consonant which, äs OE cild > clld, NE child shows, may take place without a shift in syllable boundary. The dialectal American English Variation between [kamt] and [kse:t] is of doubtful usefulness, since äs far äs I can teil, the vowel is long not only in the n-less form, but also in the form with n. The regional American English Variation between forms like [ka:t] and [kart] is

Hans Henrich Hock

Papers

Principles of historical linguistics

Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship: An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics

Perspectives on historical linguistics

Compensatory lengthening: In defense of the concept ‘mora’

Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship