Diachronica 

About: Diachronica is an academic journal published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Grammaticalization & Historical linguistics. It has an ISSN identifier of 0176-4225. Over the lifetime, 584 publications have been published receiving 6879 citations.

The founder principle in creole genesis

Abstract: SUMMARYIn this paper, the author discusses one of the aspects of creole genesis from a population genetics perspective, analogizing 'language' with 'population' (rather than 'organism', the tradition in linguistics) and 'linguistic feature' with 'gene'. With language contact analogized to population contact, individual speakers are given a greater role than traditionally accorded them in the literature and variation within language is made more natural. Like genes, linguistic features are shown as competing with each other for selection into creoles' systems, in the different, though similar, ecologies of individual language contacts. It is argued here that the founder populations, including speakers of both lexifiers and substrate languages, played greater roles than hitherto considered in determining which specific features received selective advantage over their competitors during the formation of creoles. The Founder Principle explains why some European languages in their nonstandard forms became the principal lexifiers when others could have and why some specific features prevailed in the new systems. The competition-of-features perspective allows deterministic influences of both the lexifiers and substrate languages, thanks to convergence and other markedness principles, with the bioprogram qua Universal Grammar serving as the body of principles regulating the development of the new vernaculars.RESUMEDans cet article l'auteur discute un des aspects de la genese des creoles du point de vue de la genetique des populations. Il y compare la notion de 'langue' a celle de 'population' (plutot qu'a celle d"organisme', la tradition en linguistique) et celle de 'trait linguistique' a celle de 'gene'. Cette comparaison du contact de langues a celui de populations accorde aux locuteurs un role plus grand qu'il n'est de coutume dans la litterature; la variation dans la langue se montre ainsi plus naturelle. Comme les genes, les traits linguistiques se presentent en competition mutuelle pour etre selectionnes dans les systemes des creoles, dans des ecologies differentes, bien que semblables, des contacts langagiers individuels. Selon mon hypothese, la population fondatrice, y compris les locuteurs autant des langues lexificatrices que des langues substrates, ont joue des roles plus importants qu'on leur reconnait a present en determinant quels traits specifiques ont eu un avantage selectif par rapport a leurs alternatives pendant la formation des creoles. Le Principe Fondateur explique pourquoi quelques langues europeennes dans leurs formes non standard sont devenues les principales lexificatrices, plutot que d'autres langues qui auraient pu faire autant, et pourqoi quelques traits specifiques se sont imposes dans les nouveaux systemes. La perspective de la competition des traits rend possible des influences deterministes a la fois des langues lexificatrices que des langues substrates, etant donne la convergence de certains de leurs traits et grace a d'autres principes sur lesquels est base l'opposition marque/non marque. La Grammaire Universelle fonctionne dans mon hypothese comme un corps de principes regissant le developpement des nouveaux vernaculaires.ZUSAMMENFASSUNGIm vorliegende Beitrag diskutiert der Autor einen Aspekt der Genese von Kreolsprachen aus der Sicht einer Bevolkerungsgenetik, dabei eine Analogie zwischen 'Sprache' und 'Population' (anstelle von 'Organismus', wie es in der Linguistik Tradition ist) und zwischen 'sprachlicher Erscheinung' und 'Gen' herstellend. Wenn Sprachkontakt mit Populationskontakt in Analogie gesetzt wird, erhalten die Einzelprecher eine grosere Rolle als ihnen gewohnlich in der Forschung zuerkannt werden, und Variation innerhalb einer Sprache wird auf diese Weise ein weit naturlicherer Vorgang. Genen vergleichbar, konkurrieren linguistische Eigenschaften untereinander um die Auswahl fur das System einer Kreolsprache innerhalb der verschiedenen, wenngleich ahnlichen, 'Okologien' individueller Sprachkontakte. Es wird hier die Behauptung aufgestellt, das die 'Grundungspopulationen', inklusive der Sprecher von sowohl lexifizierenden als auch Substratsprachen, grosere Rollen spielen als man bisher bei der Bestim-mung berucksichtigt hat, welche besondere Eigenschaften selektive Vorteile gegenuber anderen bei der Herausbildung von Kreolsprachen erhalten haben. Das 'Grunderprinzip' erklart, weshalb einige europaische Sprachen in ihren nicht-standardisierten Formen die hauptsachlichen Lieferanten von Wortstruk-turen geworden sind, wenn andere es hatten werden konnen, und weshalb gewisse Eigenschaften in diesen neuem System die Oberhand gewannen. Der Gesichts-punkt eines Wettkampfs zwischen Eigenschaften ermoglicht bestimmbare Ein-flusse auf sowohl von lexifizierenden als auch Substratsprachen, und zwar dank einer Konvergenz und anderer Merkmalprinzipien, wobei ein 'Bioprogramm' oder eine Universaliengrammatik als die Grundlage dazu dient, die Entwicklung neuer Volkssprachen zu regulieren.

Contact-induced changes Classification and processes *

Abstract: Traditionally, contact-induced changes in languages have been classified into two broad categories: those due to ?borrowing? and those due to ?interference? by an L1 or other primary language on an L2 in the course of second language acquisition (SLA). Other terms used for ?interference? include ?substratum influence? and ?transfer.? Inconsistencies in the use of these terms pose a problem for the classification and analysis of the outcomes of contact-induced change. Moreover, labels like these, unfortunately, have been used to refer both to the outcomes of language contact and to the processes that lead to such results. This imprecision in the use of key terms poses serious problems for our understanding of what is actually involved in the two types of crosslinguistic influence. Moreover, it has led to inaccuracy in our assignment of changes to one or the other category. The aim of this paper is to reassess the conventional wisdom on the distinction between borrowing and ?interference,? and to clarify the vehicles of change as well as the outcomes characteristic of each. My approach is based on Van Coetsem's (1988) distinction between two transfer types ? borrowing under RL agentivity, and imposition under SL agentivity, with their shared but differently implemented processes of imitation and adaptation. Crucially, this approach recognizes that the same agents may employ either kind of agentivity, and hence different transfer types, in the same contact situation. It is the failure to recognize this that has sometimes led to inaccuracy in accounts of the nature and origins of contact-induced changes, as well as to conflicting classifications of the outcomes of contact. The present paper proposes a more rigorous and consistent classification, based on the kinds of agentivity involved.

Dative and genitive variability in Late Modern English: Exploring cross-constructional variation and change

Abstract: We present a cross-constructional approach to the history of the genitive alternation and the dative alternation in Late Modern English (AD 1650 to AD 1999), drawing on richly annotated datasets and modern statistical modeling techniques. We identify cross-constructional similarities in the development of the genitive and the dative alternation over time (mainly with regard to the loosening of the animacy constraint), a development which parallels distributional changes in animacy categories in the corpus material. Theoretically, we transfer the notion of ‘probabilistic grammar’ to historical data and claim that the corpus models presented reflect past speakers’ knowledge about the distribution of genitive and dative variants. The historical data also helps to determine what is constant (and timeless) in the effect of selected factors such as animacy or length, and what is variant.

Borrowability and the notion of basic vocabulary

Abstract: This paper reports on a collaborative quantitative study of loanwords in 41 languages, aimed at identifying meanings and groups of meanings that are borrowing-resistant. We find that nouns are more borrowable than adjectives or verbs, that content words are more borrowable than function words, and that different semantic fields also show different proportions of loanwords. Several issues arise when one tries to establish a list of the most borrowing-resistant meanings: Our data include degrees of likelihood of borrowing, not all meanings have counterparts in all languages, many words are compounds or derivatives and hence almost by definition non-loanwords. We also have data on the age of words. There are thus multiple factors that play a role, and we propose a way of combining the factors to yield a new 100-item list of basic vocabulary, called the Leipzig-Jakarta list.