fbpx
Wikipedia

Lexical diffusion

January 08, 2023

Lexical diffusion is the hypothesis that a sound change is an abrupt change that spreads gradually across the words in a language to which it is applicable.[1] It contrasts with the Neogrammarian view that a sound change results from phonetically-conditioned articulatory drift acting uniformly on all applicable words, which implies that sound changes are regular, with exceptions attributed to analogy and dialect borrowing.

Similar views were expressed by Romance dialectologists in the late 19th century but were reformulated and renamed by William Wang and coworkers studying varieties of Chinese in the 1960s and the 1970s. William Labov found evidence for both processes but argued that they operate at different levels.

Neogrammarians and dialectologists

 
Schematic diagram of a uniform sound change[2]

A key assumption of historical linguistics is that sound change is regular. The principle was summarized by the Neogrammarians in the late 19th century in the slogan "sound laws suffer no exceptions" and forms the basis of the comparative method of reconstruction and the tree model of linguistic evolution.[3] Inspired by the Uniformitarian Principle of geology, Neogrammarians such as Hermann Paul described regularity as a consequence of the operation of sound change as an imperceptible articulatory drift conditioned by the phonetic environment.[4][5]Leonard Bloomfield later summarized this view:[6][7]

sound change is merely a change in the speaker's manner of producing phonemes and accordingly affects a phoneme at every occurrence, regardless of the nature of any particular linguistic form in which the phoneme happens to occur.

He summarized the mechanism as "phonemes change".[8] Despite the unequivocal form in which these slogans are often quoted, the Neogrammarians admitted two exceptions to regular sound change: analogy and dialect borrowing.[9]

 
The vowel of the word sun in England

Uniform sound change was first challenged by Hugo Schuchardt, a dialectologist of Romance languages, who wrote in his criticism of the Neogrammarians:[10][11]

Rarely-used words lag behind; very frequently used ones rush ahead. Exceptions to the sound laws are thus formed on both sides.

Dialectologists studying the Romance languages found many apparent exceptions to uniformity, as reflected in their slogan, chaque mot a son histoire ('every word has its own history'). This is commonly ascribed to Jules Gilliéron but also originated with Schuchardt.[12] An example is the shortening of English 'u' (the foot-strut split), resulting in different vowels in the words cut and put. When the isogloss defining this feature in England is examined closely, it emerges that individual words are moving from /ʊ/ to /ʌ/ over time, and individual speakers fluctuate in their pronunciation of the same words.[13]

Some sound changes, such as metathesis or haplology, are inherently discontinuous and hence incompatible with gradual, imperceptible change.[14]

Wang's reformulation

 
Schematic diagram of lexical diffusion[15]

In 1962, Peking University published the Hanyu Fangyin Zihui, containing transcriptions of 2444 morphemes in 17 modern varieties of Chinese.[16] The DOC project at the University of California, Berkeley, headed by William Wang, attempted to apply the comparative method to a computerized form of this data.[17] However, the Chinese data revealed pervasive irregularities.[16]

For example, Middle Chinese words in the third tone class (the "departing" tone) with voiced initials have two reflexes in the modern Teochew dialect, but no phonetic factor has been found to condition the split.[18][19] Cheng and Wang list 12 pairs of words that were homophonous in Middle Chinese but have different modern pronunciations.[20] Similar examples were found on other Chinese varieties and other language families.[21] Wang accounted for such irregularities by positing a form of lexical diffusion:[22]

we hold that words change their pronunciations by discrete, perceptible increments (i.e. phonetically abrupt), but severally at a time (i.e. lexically gradual) rather than always in a homogeneous block.

In his view, a sound change would be regular if the change had completed its progress through the lexicon, but irregularity would be seen if the change were still incomplete or if it were interrupted by another change.[23][24]

Other linguists responded that the explanation of the irregularities should be sought in dialect mixture.[25][26][27] Indeed, Wang and Lien discovered that the Teochew phenomenon was the result of borrowing from the local literary reading tradition.[28] They present a revised model that distinguishes between the initial "actuation" of a sound change by language contact or internal factors, and its "implementation" by lexical diffusion.[29]

Evaluation

Labov found evidence for both processes, but argued that they operate at different levels:[30]

  • Regular sound change occurs when the phonetic realization of a phoneme varies gradually and continuously. The process affects all words containing the phoneme uniformly. Examples include vowel shifts and diphthongization, weakening of glides and unstressed vowels, vocalization of liquids, and changes in the manner of articulation of consonants.
  • Lexical diffusion represents a change in the phonemes in a word (substitution, metathesis, elision, epenthesis). It is abrupt and applies to words selected by lexical, grammatical or social criteria.

Paul Kiparsky argues that under a proper definition of analogy as optimization, lexical diffusion is a non-proportional type of analogy similar to leveling, rather than a type of sound change.[31]

References

  1. ^ Crystal (2008), p. 145.
  2. ^ Wang & Cheng (1977), p. 149, Fig. 1.
  3. ^ Campbell (2013), pp. 15, 188.
  4. ^ Labov (1994), pp. 21–23.
  5. ^ Kiparsky (1982), p. 1.
  6. ^ Bloomfield (1933), p. 353.
  7. ^ Labov (1994), p. 441.
  8. ^ Bloomfield (1933), p. 354.
  9. ^ Labov (1994), p. 440.
  10. ^ Schuchardt (1885), p. 25.
  11. ^ Phillips (2015), p. 361.
  12. ^ Campbell (2013), p. 188.
  13. ^ Chambers & Trudgill (1998), pp. 106–113.
  14. ^ Labov (1994), p. 539.
  15. ^ Wang & Cheng (1977), p. 154, Fig. 4.
  16. ^ a b Labov (1994), p. 424.
  17. ^ Streeter (1972).
  18. ^ Cheng & Wang (1977).
  19. ^ Labov (1994), pp. 425–426.
  20. ^ Cheng & Wang (1977), p. 97.
  21. ^ Labov (1994), pp. 426–428.
  22. ^ Wang & Cheng (1977), p. 150.
  23. ^ Wang (1969), p. 9.
  24. ^ Wang & Cheng (1977), p. 151.
  25. ^ Egerod (1982).
  26. ^ Pulleyblank (1982).
  27. ^ Mazaudon & Lowe (1993).
  28. ^ Labov (1994), p. 451.
  29. ^ Wang & Lien (1993), p. 382.
  30. ^ Labov (1994), pp. 542–543.
  31. ^ Kiparsky (1996).

Works cited

  • Bloomfield, Leonard (1933), Language, New York: Henry Holt, ISBN 0-226-06067-5.
  • Campbell, Lyle (2013), Historical Linguistics: An Introduction (3rd ed.), Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, ISBN 978-0-7486-4601-2.
  • Chambers, J. K.; Trudgill, Peter (1998), Dialectology (2nd ed.), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-59646-6.
  • Cheng, Chin-Chuan; Wang, William S-Y. (1977), "Tone change in Chao-zhou Chinese: a study in lexical diffusion", in Wang, William S-Y. (ed.), The Lexicon in Phonological Change, Monographs on Linguistic Analysis, vol. 5, Mouton De Gruyter, pp. 86–100, ISBN 978-3-11-177423-7.
  • Crystal, David (2008), A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics (6th ed.), Blackwell, ISBN 978-1-4051-5296-9.
  • Egerod, Søren (1982), "How not to split tones – the Chaozhou case", Fangyan, 3: 169–173.
  • Kiparsky, Paul (1982), Explanation in phonology, Foris, ISBN 978-90-70176-37-2.
  • ——— (1996), "The phonological basis of sound change", in Goldsmith, John A. (ed.), The Handbook of Phonological Theory, Blackwell, pp. 640–670, ISBN 978-0-631-18062-3.
  • Labov, William (1994), Principles of Linguistic Change, Volume 1: Internal Factors, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell, ISBN 978-0-631-17913-9.
  • Mazaudon, Martine; Lowe, John B. (1993), "Regularity and Exceptions in Sound Change", in Domenici, Marc; Demolin, Didier (eds.), Annual Conference of the Linguistic Society of Belgium, Brussels, pp. 1–25.
  • Phillips, Betty S. (2015), "Lexical Diffusion in Historical Phonology", in Honeybone, Patrick; Salmons, Joseph (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Historical Phonology, pp. 359–373, ISBN 978-0-19-923281-9.
  • Pulleyblank, Edwin G. (1982), "The Lexicon in Phonological Change. Monographs on Linguistic Analysis, no. 5 by William S-Y Wang", Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 10 (2): 392–416, JSTOR 23767018.
  • Schuchardt, Hugo (1885), Ueber die Lautgesetze – Gegen die Junggrammatiker, Berlin: Oppenheim.
  • Streeter, Mary L. (1972), "DOC, 1971: A Chinese Dialect Dictionary on Computer", Computers and the Humanities, 6 (5): 259–270, JSTOR 30199498.
  • Wang, William S-Y. (1969), "Competing Changes as a Cause of Residue", Language, 45 (1): 9–25, doi:10.2307/411748, JSTOR 411748.
  • Wang, William S-Y.; Cheng, Chin-Chuan (1977), "Implementation of phonological change: the Shuāng-Fēng Chinese case", in Wang, William S-Y. (ed.), The Lexicon in Phonological Change, Monographs on Linguistic Analysis, vol. 5, Mouton De Gruyter, pp. 148–158, ISBN 978-3-11-177423-7.
  • Wang, William S-Y.; Lien, Chinfa (1993), "Bidirectional diffusion in sound change", in Jones, Charles (ed.), Historical Linguistics: Problems and Perspectives, London: Longman, pp. 345–400, ISBN 978-0-582-06085-2.

Further reading

  • Phillips, Betty (2006), Word Frequency and Lexical Diffusion, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, ISBN 978-1-4039-3232-7.
  • Phillips, Betty S. (2015), "Lexical Diffusion in Historical Phonology", in Honeybone, Patrick; Salmons, Joseph (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Historical Phonology, pp. 359–373, ISBN 978-0-19-923281-9.
  • Wang, William S-Y., ed. (1977), The Lexicon in Phonological Change, Monographs on Linguistic Analysis, vol. 5, Mouton De Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-177423-7.
    • Hashimoto, Mantaro J. (1981), "The lexicon in phonological change Edited by William S-Y. Wang (review)", Language, 57 (1): 183–191, doi:10.1353/lan.1981.0053, JSTOR 414291.
    • Walker, Douglas C. (1979), "The lexicon in phonological change: W.S.Y. Wang, Mouton, The Hague, 1977 Monographs on Linguistic Analysis 5. 278 pp. 112 DM", Lingua, 49 (4): 361–363, doi:10.1016/0024-3841(79)90050-0.

January 08, 2023
lexical, diffusion, hypothesis, that, sound, change, abrupt, change, that, spreads, gradually, across, words, language, which, applicable, contrasts, with, neogrammarian, view, that, sound, change, results, from, phonetically, conditioned, articulatory, drift,. Lexical diffusion is the hypothesis that a sound change is an abrupt change that spreads gradually across the words in a language to which it is applicable 1 It contrasts with the Neogrammarian view that a sound change results from phonetically conditioned articulatory drift acting uniformly on all applicable words which implies that sound changes are regular with exceptions attributed to analogy and dialect borrowing Similar views were expressed by Romance dialectologists in the late 19th century but were reformulated and renamed by William Wang and coworkers studying varieties of Chinese in the 1960s and the 1970s William Labov found evidence for both processes but argued that they operate at different levels Contents 1 Neogrammarians and dialectologists 2 Wang s reformulation 3 Evaluation 4 References 5 Further readingNeogrammarians and dialectologists Edit Schematic diagram of a uniform sound change 2 A key assumption of historical linguistics is that sound change is regular The principle was summarized by the Neogrammarians in the late 19th century in the slogan sound laws suffer no exceptions and forms the basis of the comparative method of reconstruction and the tree model of linguistic evolution 3 Inspired by the Uniformitarian Principle of geology Neogrammarians such as Hermann Paul described regularity as a consequence of the operation of sound change as an imperceptible articulatory drift conditioned by the phonetic environment 4 5 Leonard Bloomfield later summarized this view 6 7 sound change is merely a change in the speaker s manner of producing phonemes and accordingly affects a phoneme at every occurrence regardless of the nature of any particular linguistic form in which the phoneme happens to occur He summarized the mechanism as phonemes change 8 Despite the unequivocal form in which these slogans are often quoted the Neogrammarians admitted two exceptions to regular sound change analogy and dialect borrowing 9 The vowel of the word sun in England Uniform sound change was first challenged by Hugo Schuchardt a dialectologist of Romance languages who wrote in his criticism of the Neogrammarians 10 11 Rarely used words lag behind very frequently used ones rush ahead Exceptions to the sound laws are thus formed on both sides Dialectologists studying the Romance languages found many apparent exceptions to uniformity as reflected in their slogan chaque mot a son histoire every word has its own history This is commonly ascribed to Jules Gillieron but also originated with Schuchardt 12 An example is the shortening of English u the foot strut split resulting in different vowels in the words cut and put When the isogloss defining this feature in England is examined closely it emerges that individual words are moving from ʊ to ʌ over time and individual speakers fluctuate in their pronunciation of the same words 13 Some sound changes such as metathesis or haplology are inherently discontinuous and hence incompatible with gradual imperceptible change 14 Wang s reformulation Edit Schematic diagram of lexical diffusion 15 In 1962 Peking University published the Hanyu Fangyin Zihui containing transcriptions of 2444 morphemes in 17 modern varieties of Chinese 16 The DOC project at the University of California Berkeley headed by William Wang attempted to apply the comparative method to a computerized form of this data 17 However the Chinese data revealed pervasive irregularities 16 For example Middle Chinese words in the third tone class the departing tone with voiced initials have two reflexes in the modern Teochew dialect but no phonetic factor has been found to condition the split 18 19 Cheng and Wang list 12 pairs of words that were homophonous in Middle Chinese but have different modern pronunciations 20 Similar examples were found on other Chinese varieties and other language families 21 Wang accounted for such irregularities by positing a form of lexical diffusion 22 we hold that words change their pronunciations by discrete perceptible increments i e phonetically abrupt but severally at a time i e lexically gradual rather than always in a homogeneous block In his view a sound change would be regular if the change had completed its progress through the lexicon but irregularity would be seen if the change were still incomplete or if it were interrupted by another change 23 24 Other linguists responded that the explanation of the irregularities should be sought in dialect mixture 25 26 27 Indeed Wang and Lien discovered that the Teochew phenomenon was the result of borrowing from the local literary reading tradition 28 They present a revised model that distinguishes between the initial actuation of a sound change by language contact or internal factors and its implementation by lexical diffusion 29 Evaluation EditLabov found evidence for both processes but argued that they operate at different levels 30 Regular sound change occurs when the phonetic realization of a phoneme varies gradually and continuously The process affects all words containing the phoneme uniformly Examples include vowel shifts and diphthongization weakening of glides and unstressed vowels vocalization of liquids and changes in the manner of articulation of consonants Lexical diffusion represents a change in the phonemes in a word substitution metathesis elision epenthesis It is abrupt and applies to words selected by lexical grammatical or social criteria Paul Kiparsky argues that under a proper definition of analogy as optimization lexical diffusion is a non proportional type of analogy similar to leveling rather than a type of sound change 31 References Edit Crystal 2008 p 145 Wang amp Cheng 1977 p 149 Fig 1 Campbell 2013 pp 15 188 Labov 1994 pp 21 23 Kiparsky 1982 p 1 Bloomfield 1933 p 353 Labov 1994 p 441 Bloomfield 1933 p 354 Labov 1994 p 440 Schuchardt 1885 p 25 Phillips 2015 p 361 Campbell 2013 p 188 Chambers amp Trudgill 1998 pp 106 113 Labov 1994 p 539 Wang amp Cheng 1977 p 154 Fig 4 a b Labov 1994 p 424 Streeter 1972 Cheng amp Wang 1977 Labov 1994 pp 425 426 Cheng amp Wang 1977 p 97 Labov 1994 pp 426 428 Wang amp Cheng 1977 p 150 Wang 1969 p 9 Wang amp Cheng 1977 p 151 Egerod 1982 Pulleyblank 1982 Mazaudon amp Lowe 1993 Labov 1994 p 451 Wang amp Lien 1993 p 382 Labov 1994 pp 542 543 Kiparsky 1996 Works cited Bloomfield Leonard 1933 Language New York Henry Holt ISBN 0 226 06067 5 Campbell Lyle 2013 Historical Linguistics An Introduction 3rd ed Cambridge Massachusetts The MIT Press ISBN 978 0 7486 4601 2 Chambers J K Trudgill Peter 1998 Dialectology 2nd ed Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 59646 6 Cheng Chin Chuan Wang William S Y 1977 Tone change in Chao zhou Chinese a study in lexical diffusion in Wang William S Y ed The Lexicon in Phonological Change Monographs on Linguistic Analysis vol 5 Mouton De Gruyter pp 86 100 ISBN 978 3 11 177423 7 Crystal David 2008 A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics 6th ed Blackwell ISBN 978 1 4051 5296 9 Egerod Soren 1982 How not to split tones the Chaozhou case Fangyan 3 169 173 Kiparsky Paul 1982 Explanation in phonology Foris ISBN 978 90 70176 37 2 1996 The phonological basis of sound change in Goldsmith John A ed The Handbook of Phonological Theory Blackwell pp 640 670 ISBN 978 0 631 18062 3 Labov William 1994 Principles of Linguistic Change Volume 1 Internal Factors Cambridge Massachusetts Blackwell ISBN 978 0 631 17913 9 Mazaudon Martine Lowe John B 1993 Regularity and Exceptions in Sound Change in Domenici Marc Demolin Didier eds Annual Conference of the Linguistic Society of Belgium Brussels pp 1 25 Phillips Betty S 2015 Lexical Diffusion in Historical Phonology in Honeybone Patrick Salmons Joseph eds The Oxford Handbook of Historical Phonology pp 359 373 ISBN 978 0 19 923281 9 Pulleyblank Edwin G 1982 The Lexicon in Phonological Change Monographs on Linguistic Analysis no 5 by William S Y Wang Journal of Chinese Linguistics 10 2 392 416 JSTOR 23767018 Schuchardt Hugo 1885 Ueber die Lautgesetze Gegen die Junggrammatiker Berlin Oppenheim Streeter Mary L 1972 DOC 1971 A Chinese Dialect Dictionary on Computer Computers and the Humanities 6 5 259 270 JSTOR 30199498 Wang William S Y 1969 Competing Changes as a Cause of Residue Language 45 1 9 25 doi 10 2307 411748 JSTOR 411748 Wang William S Y Cheng Chin Chuan 1977 Implementation of phonological change the Shuang Feng Chinese case in Wang William S Y ed The Lexicon in Phonological Change Monographs on Linguistic Analysis vol 5 Mouton De Gruyter pp 148 158 ISBN 978 3 11 177423 7 Wang William S Y Lien Chinfa 1993 Bidirectional diffusion in sound change in Jones Charles ed Historical Linguistics Problems and Perspectives London Longman pp 345 400 ISBN 978 0 582 06085 2 Further reading EditPhillips Betty 2006 Word Frequency and Lexical Diffusion New York Palgrave MacMillan ISBN 978 1 4039 3232 7 Phillips Betty S 2015 Lexical Diffusion in Historical Phonology in Honeybone Patrick Salmons Joseph eds The Oxford Handbook of Historical Phonology pp 359 373 ISBN 978 0 19 923281 9 Wang William S Y ed 1977 The Lexicon in Phonological Change Monographs on Linguistic Analysis vol 5 Mouton De Gruyter ISBN 978 3 11 177423 7 Hashimoto Mantaro J 1981 The lexicon in phonological change Edited by William S Y Wang review Language 57 1 183 191 doi 10 1353 lan 1981 0053 JSTOR 414291 Walker Douglas C 1979 The lexicon in phonological change W S Y Wang Mouton The Hague 1977 Monographs on Linguistic Analysis 5 278 pp 112 DM Lingua 49 4 361 363 doi 10 1016 0024 3841 79 90050 0 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Lexical diffusion amp oldid 1085070158, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.