Transcript Languages in Contact - OHLL

Languages in Contact
Maarten Mous
Leiden University
Structure of talk
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why talk about language contact here
historical linguistics
models for language contact
linking results of language contact to prior
socio-linguistic situations
• prehistoric contact
Linguistics-Genetics
The link between linguistics and genetics is the
speaker. Speakers speak different languages,
shift to another language, become member of
a different speech community. This is one
obvious reason why the issue of language
contact is important for this conference.
The linguistic genetic tree is an abstraction that
has filtered out the admixture part of the
linguistic history. 15
what to correlate to
• speech community (multilingualism:
everybody belongs to several)
• ≠
• ethnic unit: relevance varies, not constant,
multiple (clan affiliations)
Community
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speaker’s community
ethnic community tribe-clan; caste
economic community
geography of settlement
what do we compare?
Historical linguistics
• = study of language change
• basis is reconstruction of language change
through the comparative method
• added result is a genetic tree of related
languages; not central aim and an abstraction
• contact linguistics deals with the influence of
other languages on change
Historical linguistics2
• Contact linguistics presumes the comparative
method and does not aim at questioning it
• contact linguistics adds to a fuller
understanding of the linguistics history;
comparative method shows only part of the
story and may give wrong impression of neat
split15
• scientific robustness of regular sound change in
comparative method is absent in contact
linguistics
comparative method
• strong in sound laws
• lexicon reconstruction; issue of conservative
basic vocabulary (sometimes precisely
unstable; what is basic?)
• morphology (word structure): most resistant to
language induced change; levelling;
grammaticalization (lexical sign>grammar
sign; can it predict?
• syntax: difficult, often linked to typology,
fossilised in morphology
Dating by glottochronology
• retention rate as measure for time depth
based on percentage of cognate forms in
standard list of basic vocabulary of related
languages
• heavily criticised for premise that change is
constant over time. E.g. Blust showed
important variation in change within branches
of Austronesian.6
• retention rate different across vocabulary
• look-a-like rather than cognate form
Starostin’s modification25
• exclude borrowings (=“chance mutations”)
• variable factor over time (words become more
stable with age)
• etymological roots from texts in stead of basic
word list
• newly calibrated value for factor
• only works when one knows linguistic history
• evaluation: still problematic for revolutions of
language change (quite common)
Factors affecting rate of change
• literacy (more borrowings)
• existence of a standard
• size of language community (more tolerance
to variation; quicker spread of change)
• attitude of speakers (blocks recognizable
borrowings)
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language mixture
processes of transfer
sociolinguistic situation
demographic situation
restrictions on borrowability
• Moravcsik (1978)
• Heath (1978)
• Matras (2000)
Proposed restrictions
Campbell (1993)
• structural-compatibility requirement (counter-examples)
• fit with innovation possibilities of the borrowing language
(counter-examples)
• grammatical gaps tend to be filled by borrowings (but not all)
• morphological borrowing as replacement (but not all)
• free standing grammatical forms are more easily borrowed
than bound morphemes (but cases of borrowed bound
morpheme replacing free standing)
• borrowability according to ranking of categories
• principle of functional load: if embedded in system then not
easily borrowed
• etc
Everything can be borrowed
• Both Campbell7 and Thomason27 hold the view that all
proposed constraints in borrowing are nothing but
tendencies. There are always exceptions
• Interpretation of counter-examples sometimes open
for dispute. Mixed language Ma’a as example of
borrowing of Bantu grammar29 is no longer valid
counterexample if one accepts that language shift
took place.
• distinction between concept and content is needed.
emergence of a noun class system through contact
has been proposed but no Bantu noun class system
(with the typical markers) has ever happened.
Thomason
• anything is possible
• implicational/chronological scales
• ordinary processes extra-ordinary results
Basic vocabulary
• in certain circumstances prone to change:
language/register creation for identity or
fear/respect
• stable vocabulary: Leipzig project to establish
it empirically; lists on basis of retained items in
various families (Lohr 1999)
• can be different across language family
Shift
• complete shift (very common)
• shift with effect of original language on
recognizable community; with effect on
language as a whole
• shift with carry over of vocabulary (e.g. pygmy
technical vocabulary)
• arrested shift, u-turn when too late, reborrowing of original vocabulary
Van Coetsem frame
van Coetsem 1988,2000, Winford 2003
• Differences in stability across language
components (grammar more stable than
lexicon)
• Recipient language agentivity (borrowing)
• Source language agentivity (imposition)
• Linguistic dominance (not social) in
bilingualism
contact situations
1. Recipient L agentivity AB
2. Source L agentivity AB
Agents / Agentivity
imitation / adaptation
1: borrowing
2: imposition
processes in individual
Examples
• RecL activity, borrowing, extreme case Media
Lengua Quechua with every lexeme borrowed
from Spanish
• SourceL activity: structures of dominant
language in recipient language. Dominant
language can be the new language influencing
the language which is in process of being
abandoned in cognitive and grammatical
structure. Asia Minor Greek (RL): Turkish (SL)
dominant. (and RL activity when speaking T)
• transfer of structure under RL activity differs
from transfer of structure under SL activity
• RL: close to lexicon: function words, derivation
• SL: conceptualization, categories, structure
• result of adaptation in RL activity can be
similar to that in SL activity, e.g. pronunciation
of English borrowings in Hindi and Hindi
pronunciation of English
second language acquisition
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most studies on formal learning
few on informal learning at ages 9, 16
few on learning strategies
are there restrictions on vocabulary if >3
languages are acquired?
Individual – Community
• Model refers to the mind of the individual
• Essential is language as social construct:
establishment of the norm
(variation is larger when various SLs)
reconstructing past contact situations
• Assumption: contact situations in the past are
not different from those now
• If all things equal the simplest wins
• Propose scenario to explain present outcome
problems with the scenario game
• limits of imagination
• never are all other things equal
Proposed correlations socio-history
language change
• Guy11-Ross23 based on Van Coetsem
dominant
language of
bilinguals
Agents of
change
Social
motivation to
adopt change
to resist
change
Structural
domains
borrowing
imposition
recipient
language
source
language
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native
speakers
prestige
II
nonnative
emblema
-ticity
emblema...
ticity
words,
words
morphemes
I
non-native
II
native
communicat communicativ
ive need
e simplicity
...
emblematicity
phonology
syntax
borrowing
dominant language of recipient language
bilinguals
I
native
II
non-native
Social motivation to
adopt change
prestige
emblematicity
to resist change
emblematicity
...
Structural domains
unstable
first
words, morphemes
words
Agents of change
dominant language of
bilinguals
imposition
source
language
I
II
Agents of change
non-native
native
Social motivation to
adopt change
communicative communicative
need
simplicity
...
emblematicity
to resist change
Structural domains
stable
first
phonology
syntax
Additions by Reh21
If only migration as cause for contact
Added factors
• Intensity of contact
• Linguistic heterogeneity of community
Other factors
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identifiable group after “migration”
degree of bilingualism
language attitude
size of group
prestige
Comparable situations
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Northern Songhay
Mozambican Swahili
Pygmies
Creole studies
etc
languages of pygmies10
• speak different languages
• which probably were once language of their
patron
• also speak language of patron
• pygmy special vocabulary
• patrons and their language are link and
obstacle to outside world (forest pygmies have
better knowledge of languages of wider
communication)
Creole languages
• study link socio-history and outcome of
language change
• similar sociolinguistic situations for a number
of them
• similar outcome
• separate field of study
Mixed Languages5
• grammar and (basic) lexicon not from the same
source
• originate in new communities of systematic
mixed marriage: mother’s grammar with
father’s lexicon
• originate as extended argot of itinerant and
other groups who maintain identity under
pressure: grammar of dominant language,
deviant lexicon
• note the genetic difference for the two
scenario’s
Contact situations
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multilingualism in the city,
re-settlements,
migration,
seasonal work,
etc., etc.
gene flow (and language contact)
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expulsion (ostracism as punishment)
occasional sex (e.g. ritual: outside group)
ritual expert (high status, founder of group)
marriage pattern (e.g. women from outside)
war (women from outside)
refugees (e.g. masters in problems in client
hunter group, pygmies, Aasax)
contact situations in prehistoric times
• symbiosis of hunters - farmers / cattle people
• agriculture / cattle stratification in limited area
(East Turkana)
• reconstitution of bands of hunters
• war
• marriage outside group
• expulsion
hunter-cattle
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Dorobo
division of labour across gender
speech patterns in settlement
ethnic diversity
imbalance in power
hunting and speech
• gender division
• ways of hunting: individual / cooperating
groups
• short / long hunting expeditions
• traps and ownership
• special communication during hunt
Dixon’s Rise & Fall9
• punctuation versus equilibrium
• In situations/periods of punctuation languages
diverge quickly enough for the tree model to
be valid
• In situations of equilibrium, contact is main
force for change
• Situations of equilibrium are characterised by
equality (in size, prestige)
• Periods of punctuation have external causes
(e.g. development of agriculture)
Dixon2
• External causes can be linked to archaeology,
history of climate, etc.
• provides model for Australia
• addresses pre-reconstruction period
Dixon3
• can linguistic history still be traced
• punctuation and equilibrium kind of linguistic
events are simultaneous in same area. For
example the Bantu languages are similar due
to recent spread and common ancestor, yet
the equality properties and the linguistic
diffusion are valid for Bantu
• Africa must have had many situations of
punctuation over the last millennia but also
diffusion
Time gap
• beginning of human language
• estimate of oldest families 10,000 years
• divergence in (linguistic) genetic variation in Africa
(>100,000) and in the recently inhabited areas of
Papua (50,000) and Americas (20,000)
• consequences of time gap: no linguistic knowledge
about the period; most language families in Africa
must have disappeared; can we extrapolate
knowledge about human language to earlier
periods?
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