- Home
- e-Journals
- Journal of Historical Linguistics
- Fast Track Listing
Journal of Historical Linguistics - Online First
Online First articles are the published Version of Record, made available as soon as they are finalized and formatted. They are in general accessible to current subscribers, until they have been included in an issue, which is accessible to subscribers to the relevant volume
-
-
Balancing social determinism vs. sound change
Author(s): Roslyn BurnsAvailable online: 18 September 2023More LessAbstractThis paper investigates the relationship between social and phonetic motivations for language change in Fang (Bantoid). While previous research has proposed that innovations in Fang arose due to social need and lack phonetic motivation ( Mve et al. 2019 ; Good, Di Carlo & Tschonghongei 2020 ), I propose that there is a phonetic motivation and the social situation, at best, was a pathway for the innovation to gain wider adoption in the population. I provide comparative and language-internal evidence that the Fang innovations are driven by two interconnected processes, palatalization and spirantization, triggered by high vowels. These processes have been obscured synchronically in part due to the phonemic merger of *i > ə in some parts of the paradigm, thus making the alternations look phonetically unmotivated.
-
-
-
On the traces of “apples”, “plums”, and “pears”
Author(s): Marwan KilaniAvailable online: 28 August 2023More LessAbstractWanderwords are a very common phenomenon among the languages of the world, but they are rarely discussed in detail. Their paths of spreading are often considered hardly reconstructible and their origins beyond reach, and being non-inherited, they are often ignored by the linguists working on the history of the languages involved. The present article questions both these tendencies, as it aims at exploring, as far as possible, the origins and interconnections of a series of related words referring to “apples”, “plums”, and other fruits attested in various languages and language families of the Near East. The article has two goals. First, to try to reconstruct the borrowing chains and general spread of these terms, thus going as close as possible to their putative origin. Second, to provide a test case and an illustration of a general methodological framework that can be used to study the history of such wanderwords.
-
-
-
Old English perspectives on the complement shift
Author(s): Ana Elvira Ojanguren LópezAvailable online: 21 August 2023More LessAbstractThis article gathers a motivated inventory of Old English self-manipulative verbs, including Abstain verbs and Refrain verbs, analyses their semantics and syntax and offers diachronic perspectives on the replacement of that-clause complementation with the from + -ing construction. Such perspectives go in two directions. Firstly, the semantics of the that-clause remains intact throughout the change to the from + -ing construction. Secondly, deverbal nominalisations contribute to the semantics and syntax required by the gerund. The main conclusion is that Refrain verbs are exceptional because the competition leading to the Complement Shift does not hold between finite and non-finite clauses, but between finite clauses and deverbal nominalisations. This has two important consequences: the status of derived nominal linked predications must be acknowledged, and deverbal nominalisations must occupy the top of the syntactic ranking of clause linkage.
-
-
-
Development of the word order of the reflexive enclitic sě/se dependent on a finite verb in Czech translations of the Gospel of Matthew from the 14th to the 21st century
Author(s): Radek Čech, Pavel Kosek, Olga Navrátilová and Ján MačutekAvailable online: 17 August 2023More LessAbstractThe paper studies the development of several properties of the reflexive enclitic sě/se dependent on a finite verb in the Czech language. We focus on the word order position of the reflexive and on the influence which the length of the initial phrase has on the position. We also investigate the shift of the reflexive from an enclitic into a prosodically indifferent clitic. Nine Czech translations of the Gospel of Matthew from the 14th to the 21st century are used as language material.
-
-
-
Individual variation and frequency change in Early Modern Spanish
Author(s): José Luis Blas ArroyoAvailable online: 17 August 2023More LessAbstractBased on a corpus of private correspondence written by twelve influential political and cultural figures in eighteenth-century Spain, this article discusses several hypotheses about the role of individual variation in language change. The study analyses five variables undergoing change in early modern Spanish and examines the idiolectal use of the traditional variants. Several conclusions are drawn from the results. The first is that idiolectal patterns vary considerably from one variable to another. Those variants that were clearly in the majority at the time or have undergone slower change processes are more consistent with in-between profiles.
On the other hand, those variants that are more clearly declining or undergoing abrupt changes are represented by more refractory patterns. Still, these profiles are not uniform, so a specific type of variation in one variant does not exclude others. The results concerning the most decisive period in the configuration of the idiolectal distributions are less conclusive, mainly due to the imbalances in the representativeness of the samples. However, among the variables better represented in the corpus, the end of adolescence – set at 18 in this study – seems to be the most significant, in line with some well-known hypotheses in the literature. Nevertheless, we have also detected a few cases of changes in adulthood. Finally, the data support the dominance of stability in syntactic variation, suggesting that speakers change little once their idiolectal distributions have been established. Even so, some longitudinal changes are found, albeit in a recurrent direction: the replacement of traditional forms by alternative, more prestigious variants.
-
-
-
Alignment variations in the diachrony of Basque
Author(s): Céline MounoleAvailable online: 15 August 2023More LessAbstractBesides highly grammaticalized analytic verb forms that constitute the system’s main tense, aspect, and mood forms, Basque has a handful of less grammaticalized periphrases for secondary aspectual and modal meanings. In both older and more recent texts, some of these periphrases have been reanalyzed as monoclausal and readjusted in accordance with the auxiliated verb’s argument structure. This readjustment or actualization process involves changes in two respects: case-marking and indexation through auxiliary change. The reanalysis and actualization of theses periphrases seem to be driven by analogy with highly extended and frequent analytic verb forms. With regard to their actualization, it seems to depend on three factors: word order, valency of the auxiliated verb, and plural patient agreement.
-
-
-
The spread of participial clauses in Biblical Greek
Author(s): Edoardo NardiAvailable online: 27 June 2023More LessAbstractIn this study, a construction marginally found in Ancient Greek is addressed, namely the participial clause, which is a clause whose main verb is a participle. This construction displays a considerable increase in frequency in Biblical Greek (mainly between the 2nd century bce and the 2nd century ce), which is the language found in Judaeo-Christian literature and which features, in various ways and to various degrees, the influence of Semitic languages. Since the participial clause is a very common construction in these tongues, wherein it even exhibits increasing productivity and frequency at the time at issue, I suggest that the frequency increase observed in Greek should be attributed to the influence of these Semitic languages, with a crucial role played by multilingualism. The issue is addressed from the perspective of language contact, which provides the theoretical and terminological frame by which the phenomenon is individuated and defined.
-
-
-
The tonal morphology of the potential in Coatec Zapotec (Di′zhke′)
Author(s): Rosemary G. Beam de AzconaAvailable online: 30 May 2023More LessAbstractWhile the phenomenon of tonogenesis is well represented in the literature, diachronic tone change in already-tonal languages has received less attention. This paper considers two types of tonal morphology used to mark the “potential” inflectional category on verbs in Coatec Zapotec (aka Di′zhke′). Some verbs are marked with upstep. Coatec upstepped tones are emergent tonal contrasts that are developing out of high register allotones which assimilated to a historical high tone on a now-deleted preceding syllable. Other verbs display patterns of tone ablaut such that a verb with underlying low or falling tone surfaces with high or rising in the potential. Both upstep and tone ablaut in Coatec can be traced to an earlier floating high tone that could dock onto different syllables according to a set of ranked constraints. Using a combination of internal and comparative reconstruction, details of the earlier tonal system are revealed. This is the first published treatment of Proto-Zapotec tone since Swadesh (1947) and the first paper to address tone in Proto-Zapotecan and Proto Core Zapotec. *ʔ is revealed to have been a consonant through the Core Zapotec period, suggesting that the complex systems of phonation contrasts found in some Central Zapotec languages are a recent development. Cases of tonal contrasts developing out of phonation contrasts are known from Southeast Asia, but Zapotec phonation contrasts arose out of interaction between the glottal consonant and pre-existing tonal contrasts. An exploration of the morphological environments conducive to upstep leads to new discoveries about Zapotecan derivational voice prefixes and reveals the origins of perfective allomorphy.
-
-
-
Vowel shifts in Middle Wichi (Mataguayan family, South America)
Author(s): Verónica Nercesian and Nicolás ArellanoAvailable online: 23 May 2023More Less
-
-
-
From oblique to core case in the Southern Min languages
Author(s): Hilary ChappellAvailable online: 16 May 2023More Less
-
-
-
Construct types in language change
Author(s): Stefan SchneiderAvailable online: 25 April 2023More Less
-
-
-
Polarity reversal constructions and counterfactuals in Ancient Greek
Author(s): Ezra la RoiAvailable online: 30 March 2023More Less
-
-
-
Different functions of ‘rā’ in New Persian
Author(s): Mohammad Rasekh-Mahand and Mehdi ParizadehAvailable online: 21 February 2023More LessAbstractPersian has a polyfunctional case marker, ‘rā’, which diachronically varies greatly in the range of functions it covers. In this paper, we give an account of different case functions of ‘rā’, in New Persian, an era from the 8th century (C.E.) to present. To analyze the functionality of ‘rā’ in different texts, we selected 78 books from the New and Contemporary Persian eras and studied one thousand tokens of ‘rā’ from each century. The data show that ‘rā’ has been a polyfunctional case marker in New Persian, marking about 13 different case roles. Its main role was to mark direct objects, and gradually it has become its sole function in Contemporary Persian. However, during the time span, some of the ‘rā’-marked roles remained constant and some of them replaced ‘rā’ with other adpositions. We follow a historical semantic map approach as a typological grid to examine our data. The findings show that ‘rā’ has shifted from animate to inanimate concepts gradually. While in the 12th century about 750 out of 1000 (about 75%) roles marked with ‘rā’ were animate, it has decreased to about 400 out of 1000 (about 42%) in the 19th century and less than 30% in the 20th century. Our data show that ‘rā’ has not gone further to mark inanimate relations, and it has gone toward core case roles, specifically direct object.
-
-
-
The ups and downs of relative particles in German diachrony
Author(s): Ann-Marie MoserAvailable online: 21 February 2023More LessAbstractThe 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.
-
-
-
A diachronic analysis of Spanish alg- series and n- series items in negated clauses
Author(s): Aaron YamadaAvailable online: 21 February 2023More LessAbstractWhile previous studies have analyzed the changing nature of polarity items (PIs) in Latin (see Gianollo 2018 , 2020 ) and the licensing conditions of PIs in modern languages (see Homer 2021 ), less research has analyzed the diachronic behavior of PIs in the development of the Spanish language. The present study takes a quantitative approach to historical corpus data in showing that in older varieties of Spanish, there was an increased degree of competition between items of the alg- series (i.e., alguno ‘some’) and items of the n- series (i.e., ninguno ‘none’) in negated clauses which later decreased as the language entered its modern age. We find that the competition between these items in negated clauses is influenced by factors such as register, the syntactic role of the PI, and activation status (following Larrivée 2012 , 2017 ). These data provide quantitative support for Martins (2000) , who suggested that earlier forms of Spanish exhibited more versatile licensing conditions of PIs, and that this variation gradually decreased over time due to a greater salience of the n- series in negated clauses. In total, the present work aims to use corpus data to connect historical linguistic research to theoretical approaches regarding the contemporary usage of PIs.
-
-
-
‘Common nighthawk’ (Chordeiles minor) in Algonquian and Siouan languages
Author(s): Vincent ColletteAvailable online: 21 February 2023More LessAbstractSome 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.
-
-
-
Review of Bar-Asher Siegal (2020): The NP-strategy for Expressing Reciprocity: Typology, History, Syntax and Semantics
Author(s): György RákosiAvailable online: 06 February 2023More Less
-
-
-
Relative construction in Hittite
Author(s): Ekaterina Lyutikova and Andrei SideltsevAvailable online: 22 November 2022More LessSummaryThe 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.
-
-
-
Children as agents of language change
Author(s): Israel Sanz-Sánchez and María Irene MoynaAvailable online: 21 September 2022More LessAbstractThis 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.
-
Most Read This Month Most Read RSS feed
-
-
Save the trees
Author(s): Guillaume Jacques and Johann-Mattis List
-
- More Less