Journal of Historical Linguistics - Current Issue

Abstract

This paper explores the operation of child language acquisition as a critical factor in some forms of language change. It proposes a sociohistorical model that incorporates the potential for young children to function as linguistic agents in certain environments, characterized by unpredictable variation in the input, lack of normative mechanisms, and the possibility for the emergence of peer networks among children. The model is then applied to explain a well-documented but poorly understood phonological change in the history of Latin American Spanish: the simplification of the system of sibilants in 16th-century Colonial Spanish. This change was nestled in ecological environments characterized by intense contact among L1 and L2 speakers of several varieties of Iberian and non-Iberian languages, as well as the rapid breakdown and reshaping of social networks. We argue that, in the absence of strong normative pressures, the advantages of certain options for early acquisition were crucial in the eventual creation and generalization of a new sociolinguistic norm. This study is methodologically innovative in that it combines not just archival evidence and sociohistorical information, but also present-day acquisitional data. The latter offers a piece often missing in sociohistorical accounts of language change.

Summary

The paper proposes a novel structural analysis of Hittite determinate relative clauses on the basis of a corpus study considering a wider and fuller array of Hittite data than ever before. In Hittite, relative wh-phrases attest a wide range of linear positions: first/initial, clause-second, immediately preverbal or even postverbal. We build upon the current assumption that wh-pronouns are clitics and thus their placement is determined by the syntax-prosody interface. As for the syntactic component, we argue against the in situ construal of wh-elements. Instead, we propose that what linearly appears to be clause-second, preverbal or postverbal position of the wh-pronoun is structurally associated with Spec, FinP. The prosodic component is provided by the standardly acknowledged prosodic inversion, but the prosodic domain for the placement of wh-clitics is not clausal (CP), it is rather to be identified with a smaller domain within CP, namely, FinP. We also provide the first ever systematic treatment of split wh-phrases which are highly problematic for existing approaches but are fully accounted for by our analysis.

Abstract

The aim and scope of this article is to take a closer look at the functions and semantics of the three relative particles da, so, and wo, and to show that they have developed differently over a period from 1350 to 1800, continuing up to our modern dialects and the standard language. We will focus on wo because it is the only relativizer which is attested both as locative relative and as general relative clause marker, and we will propose that wo has extended its functional domain from a locative relative to a general relative marker. We will furthermore discuss if there has been a grammaticalization path “relative locative > general relative clause marker” in German diachrony or not. Finally, we will suggest that standardization processes are responsible for the different degrees of functional extension of wo attested in the historical/modern varieties and the standard language.

Abstract

Some North American indigenous languages have names for ‘common nighthawk’ (Chordeiles minor)’, ‘robin’, and ‘bird’ that are strikingly similar phonetically and have served to advocate long-distance genetic relationships among language families. While the Algonquian proto-form for ‘nighthawk’ has a rather straightforward pedigree, this is not the case for Siouan languages. Despite their phonetic resemblance, the ornithonyms for ‘nighthawk’ in half a dozen Siouan languages are unrelated; some are mimetic innovations and others are borrowed. This article analyses how and why ornithonyms are problematic in the application of the comparative method, a reality that affects the validity of long-distance claims, and offers alternative ways to deal with this issue. While ornithonyms can be inherited and undergo all the regular sound changes (or not) like other words, they are also problematic in many respects. First, they can be onomatopoetic and imitate the cry or call of the bird in question – a feature that accounts for their cross-linguistic similarity. Second, they can undergo ad hoc mimetic reshaping or become lexically contaminated based on phonetic similarity with other ornithonyms or words with which they are associated culturally. Third and last, they can be borrowed internally or externally. However, despite these comparative pitfalls (i.e., that some phonetically similar forms in a language family are not cognates), the analysis shows that our understanding of ornithological nomenclature can be enhanced by considering elements of ornithology, mythology, ethnographic knowledge, sayings, and puns pertaining to birds.

This article reviews The NP-strategy for Expressing Reciprocity: Typology, History, Syntax and Semantics