{"title":"What multiethnolects reveal about creole genesis","authors":"Jack E McWhorter","doi":"10.1163/22105832-00902004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00902004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Recent theories of creole genesis propose that creole languages did not emerge via the expansion of pidgin varieties (DeGraff, 2001; Mufwene, 2001, 2008). This paper argues that the multiethnolects that have formed in many European cities constitute a demonstration case of the genesis scenario these new creolist theories reconstruct. Crucially, however, the multiethnolects, while displaying a modest degree of grammatical simplification and restructuring, exhibit this to nothing approaching the degree that creoles do. This supports the idea that creoles form from a break in transmission rather than simply hybridization.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2019-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105832-00902004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42028650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Games with names","authors":"A. Storch","doi":"10.1163/22105832-00902003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00902003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper discusses deliberate changes surrounding the practice of naming (people and objects). I first present a discussion of naming and healing, and then turn to the act of naming as an active agent for language change in the context of praise names and names that are used as comments on social change. There are particularly rich areas where the deliberate, creative change of language is strikingly visible, namely in tourism. The analysis of both the deliberate linguistic manipulations and the rationalization of these is informed by African philosophy and local metalinguistic discourse, as part of a project often referred to as the ‘Southern Theory’. I consider the philosophical and theoretical concepts of language and language change that stem from Kenyan and Tanzanian intellectuals and experts who are interested in emic approaches and local epistemologies, emphasizing cultural and social contexts of doing things with words. Intentional language change is seen in this contribution as complex and performative, and is analyzed as the result of individual agency as well as a community’s agreement over what might be done with words.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2019-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105832-00902003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44997687","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Motivation in pidgin and creole genesis","authors":"Mikael Parkvall","doi":"10.1163/22105832-00902005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00902005","url":null,"abstract":"Almost all creolists see creole formation as a case of (failed) second language acquisition. I argue that there are good reasons to distinguish between second language acquisition and pidginisation/creolisation, and that little is gained by equating the two. While learners have an extant language as their target, pidginisers typically aim to communicate (in any which way) rather than to acquire a specific language. In this sense, pidginisation represents, if not “conscious language change”, at least “conscious language creation”.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2019-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105832-00902005","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41972652","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction to the special issue on intentional language change","authors":"B. Jacobs","doi":"10.1163/22105832-00902008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00902008","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2019-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105832-00902008","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45971574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The tune drives the text","authors":"Timo B. Roettger, M. Grice","doi":"10.1163/22105832-00902006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00902006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In recent years there has been increasing recognition of the vital role of intonation in speech communication. While contemporary models represent intonation—the tune—and the text that bears it on separate autonomous tiers, this paper distils previously unconnected findings across diverse languages that point to important interactions between these two tiers. These interactions often involve vowels, which, given their rich harmonic structure, lend themselves particularly well to the transmission of pitch. Existing vowels can be lengthened, new vowels can be inserted and loss of their voicing can be blocked. The negotiation between tune and text ensures that pragmatic information is accurately transmitted and possibly plays a role in the typology of phonological systems.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2019-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105832-00902006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45552369","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Intentional language change and the connection between mixed languages and genderlects","authors":"P. Bakker","doi":"10.1163/22105832-00902001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00902001","url":null,"abstract":"This paper links genderlects and mixed languages. Both may have their roots in a gender dichotomy, where two distinct populations come together and blend into a new one, with different linguistic consequences. Mixed languages are generally assumed to be the result of deliberate or conscious language change and often come about as the result of an act of identity, connected to the birth of a new social or ethnic group. Societies or ethnic groups that are the result of mixed marriages may develop a mixed language or a genderlect. I show that there is a connection between the two, as proven in one specific case: a mixed language developed into a genderlect over several centuries. Typically, mixed languages combine elements from two languages with results that are so unusual that they are clearly not the result of normal language change, i.e. they are not outcomes of regular transmission between generations. Certain combinations found in genderlects show parallel patterns, for example in having personal pronouns or deictic elements that derive from other languages. Comparative evidence based on structural parallels suggests that some such genderlects (though not necessarily all) derive from deliberate changes by earlier generations. In this paper, I also investigate whether there is a link between societies with socially quite different roles for men and women, and societies with a genderlect, and find that such a link does not seem to exist.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2019-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105832-00902001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49566280","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Metalinguistic comments as a tool for bottom-up language policy","authors":"M. Dorleijn","doi":"10.1163/22105832-00901002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00901002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article demonstrates that analyzing evaluative metalinguistic comments on linguistic features can be a valuable diagnostic tool in understanding how emergent varieties develop and conventionalize. The paper provides a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of metalinguistic activity as part of the diverse sociolinguistic research disciplines. It then discusses what constitutes an evaluative metalinguistic comment, and classifies metalinguistic comments. Subsequently, the paper discusses data of a developing variety (Turkish-Dutch mixed speech). These data suggest that insiders monitor implicit norms, and reprimand transgressors, and/or deliberately transgress these norms (mostly in a humorous way), which amounts to the same thing: a keen awareness of these norms. Outsiders notice linguistic elements which contrast with their own variety.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2019-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105832-00901002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45768249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Areal dependency of consonant inventories","authors":"Dmitry Nikolaev","doi":"10.1163/22105832-00901001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00901001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper discusses the impact of linguistic contact on the make-up of consonantal inventories of the languages of Eurasia. New measures for studying the importance of language contact for the development of phonological inventories are proposed, and two empirical studies are reported. First, using two different measures of dissimilarity of phonemic inventories (the Jaccard dissimilarity measure and the novel Closest-Relative Cumulative Jaccard Dissimilarity measure), it is demonstrated that language contact—operationalized as languages being connected by an edge in a neighbor network—makes a significant contribution to between-inventory differences when phylogenetic variables are controlled for. Second, a novel measure of the exposure of a language to a particular segment—the Neighbor-Pressure Metric (NPM)—is proposed as a means of quantifying language contact with respect to phonological inventories. It is shown that addition of NPM helps achieve higher prediction accuracy than using bare phylogenetic data and that distributions of different consonants display a different degree of dependence on language-contact processes. Finally, more complex models for predicting consonant inventories are briefly explored, demonstrating the presence of complex non-linear relationships between inventories of neighboring languages.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2019-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105832-00901001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46673203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dynamic preferences and self-actuation of changes in language dynamics","authors":"Jérôme Michaud","doi":"10.1163/22105832-00901003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00901003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 A puzzling fact about linguistic norms is that they are mainly stable, but the conventional variant sometimes changes. These transitions seem to be mostly S-shaped and, therefore, directed. Previous models have suggested possible mechanisms to explain these directed changes, mainly based on a bias favoring the innovative variant. What is still debated is the origin of such a bias. In this paper, we propose a refined taxonomy of mechanisms of language change and identify a family of mechanisms explaining self-actuated language changes. We exemplify this type of mechanism with the preference-based selection mechanism that relies on agents having dynamic preferences for different variants of the linguistic norm. The key point is that if these preferences align through social interactions, then new changes can be actuated even in the absence of external triggers. We present results of a multi-agent model and demonstrate that the model produces trajectories that are typical of language change.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2019-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105832-00901003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48820635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What speakers know—or don’t know—about history and about typology","authors":"B. Joseph","doi":"10.1163/22105832-00802003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00802003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 I explore here how aware speakers are of the history of their language as they use it and how aware of typology they are. I advocate for a speaker-oriented viewpoint and argue ultimately that speakers know little to nothing about language history and less about typology, and yet they behave in ways that essentially create typology and history. I offer a number of examples, mainly from Sanskrit and Greek, covering sound change and grammatical change and discuss issues regarding naturalness, gradualness, and social indexing.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2019-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105832-00802003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45784469","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}