Computer simulations of language change notes
This website collects my personal notes on Computer simulations of language change. These notes are provided to bring full transparency to my research process. Of course, since they are only notes, they do not reflect my final thoughts on a topic, and should not be interpreted as such. To read finished papers, please consult my website. Do not use these notes as a basis for your own scientific research. Start from high-quality, peer-reviewed scientific literature instead.
Principles of linguistic change 2 - social factors
p. 3
p. 4
The social effects of language change
p. 5
why does language change?
- on the communicative side, there is little benefit for an ever-changing language system
p. 6
The parallels between biological and linguistic evolution
p. 9
‘natural selection’ in linguistics
- the better, the shorter and the easier forms survive
- ↳ no support for this idea!
p. 10
Taking linguistic change as a whole, there seems to be no discernible movement toward greater efficiency such as might be expected if in fact there were a continuous struggle in which superior linguistic innovations won out as a general rule. (Greenberg 1959:69)
↳ universal view of linguists
- reverse of Darwin’s natural selection
- major agent of linguistic change – sound change – causes a loss of information of the original forms
Language change as a destructive force
(sound change used to be seen as a negative process, even by people like Rasmus Rask and Jakob Grimm and Alexander von Humboldt)
p. 11
The linguistic consequences of sound change
p. 12
loss of phonological information
- also leads to a loss of information
- e.g. French plural -s no longer pronounced
p. 15
Earlier proposals for the causes of sound change
causes of sound change
- very difficult to find
Three basic arguments for the causes of sound change (👁 ↓)
p. 16
Principle of least effort
It is safe to say that we speak as rapidly and with as little effort as possible, approaching always the limit where our interlocutors ask us to repeat our utterance, and that a great deal of sound-change is in some way connected with this factor. (Bloomfield 1933 : 386)
p. 17
principle of least effort
- “the reduction of phonetic forms, exactly before the point where the information would be lost”
- often associated with pace of speaking
- primarily applies to change of manner (not place of articulation) (p. 25)
On the other hand, ignorance has no direct relationship either to tempo or to the principle of least effort. If the speakers described by Whitney are indeed ignorant of classical and time-honored usages and of valuable distinctions, the changes in their language cannot be ascribed to the principle of least effort. Thus in the course of a merger, speakers who are aware of the distinction between whale and wail might neglect it through carelessness or laziness; it is their children who would then complete the sound change through ignorance of the distinction.
- ↳ (nvda). you need a generational gap to complete sound changes → children have no notion of the distinctions from the past
p. 18
Speech tempo
tempo of speech
- may be a distinct factor in sound change
p. 19
potential for sound change
- over time, some of the contractions become institutionalised in the more formal structure of the language, or as underlying forms
Principle of density
The reason for this intense local differentiation is evidently to be sought in the principle of density. Every speaker is constantly adapting his speech habits to those of his interlocutors; he gives up forms he has been using, adopts new ones, and perhaps oftenest of all, changes the frequency of speech-forms without entirely abandoning any old ones or accepting any that are really new to him. The inhabitants of a settlement, village, or town, however, talk much more to each other than to persons who live elsewhere. When any innovation in the way of speaking spreads over a district, the limit of this spread is sure to be along some lines ofweakness in the network of oral communication, and these lines of weakness, in so far as they are topographical lines, are the boundaries between towns, villages, and settlements. (Bloomfield 1933:476)
↳ limitation of spreading
- you talk more to people you are close to
- this concentrates innovations around that area
p. 23
Principle of imitation
It appears to me almost beyond dispute that language is a phenomenon of imitation: its propagation from high to low, from superior to inferior, whether it be without or within the nation, the acquisition of foreign words by fashion and their assimilation by custom, the contagion of accent, the tyranny of usage in itself, suffices to show at one glance its imitative character. (Tarde 1873: ch. 5)
p. 25
Different kinds of sound change
Sound shifts
sound shifts
- shifts that change the place of articulation
motivation?
- not principle of least effort
- not an optimisation of rule systems
- not an imitation of a dominant group (probably)
p. 26
Lenition
lenition
- “a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous” (Wikipedia)
Mergers and splits
p. 27
Deletions
p. 28
The narrow interface between language and society
p. 29
The social location of the innovators
p. 30
Where are the innovators who start sound change?
p. 30-31
| lower social classes | higher social classes |
|---|---|
| Whitney | Tarde, Wundt |
| unculturedness, carelessness of lower classes | rapid speech, a sign of intelligence |
p. 31
The curvilinear pattern
(based on Labov research)
upper class
- very rarely the source of an innovation
lower class
- innovate, but these changes do not spread to the highest class
middle class
- where the magic happens
↓
curvilinear hypothesis
- NO EXPLANATION !!!
| monotonic function | curvilinear function |
|---|---|
 |
 |
p. 33
Individual, group, community
p. 261
The Gender Paradox
p. 263
Gender differentiation of stable sociolinguistic variables in Philadelphia
p. 266
The general linguistic conformity of women
For stable sociolinguistic variables, women show a lower rate of stigmatised variants, and a higher rate of prestige variants than men.
p. 274
In linguistic change from above, women adopt prestige forms at a higher rate than men.
Why?
1. power and status differential
(Labov, Trudgill)
- “women have less economic power than men, and therefore rely more on symbolic capital”
- ⇒ “reflection of socioeconomic weakness, and of a psychological as well as a sociological insecurity”
- (a lot of evidence for this)
p. 276
2. linguistic skill
(Chambers 1995)
- women have a wider range of style shifting as the product of their superior linguistic skills
- (hardly any evidence for this)
p. 277
3. women as more accurate observers and reporters of their own speech
- (this is not the case)
p. 279
Gender differentiation of changes from below
The major tendency: women in advance
p. 292
In linguistic change from below, women use higher frequencies of innovative forms than men do.
p. 290
General explanations for the leadership of women
Conservative and innovative behaviours of women → how to marry the two ideas?
1. women’s superior sensitivity to the social evaluation of language
- in stable situations, women perceive and react to prestige or stigma more strongly than men do
- when change begins, women are quicker and more forceful in employing the new social symbolism
2. verbal superiority of women
- little evidence
Juxtaposing the principles
Women conform more closely than men to sociolinguistic norms that are overtly prescribed, but conform less than men when they are not.
p. 415
Transmission
The transmission problem
p. 416
Children must learn to talk differently from their mothers, and these differences must be in the same direction in each succeeding generation.
- ↳ the transmission problem → vernacular re-organisation
p. 417
The transmission of stable sociolinguistic variables
simple transmission
- children reproduce parents’ invariant pattern
↕
real pattern
- children need to reproduce parent’s pattern, which includes random unconditioned variation
p. 421
The transmission of change
Directional change
sound change independent of grammar
- transforms, as changes progress, into a trend
- ⇒ how are such directional changes transmitted?
p. 422
Proposals for change at first acquisition
How can the process of language acquisition lead to language change?
1. adults
- possess a variable grammar that is not fully integrated
2. children
- learn the language, then simplify it with more efficient schemata
- ⇒ cf. Lightfoot 1997
p. 427
The relationship between children and parents
Directional language change among Philadelphia children
p. 432
Transmission among adolescents in Detroit
p. 446
Incrementation
incrementation
- near-linear, decade-by-decade advances
- how does this process work?
Stabilisation
p. 447
A model of linear sound change
Linear incrementation
p. 448
A linear model of incrementation for a single female speaker from 1 to 45 years of age
p. 449
Age profiles of a linguistic change in progress with uniform incrementation of the change
Logistic incrementation
p. 450
100-year progress of a change with logistic incrementation
p. 451
Rise and fall of rate of incrementation of a logistic curve
- each year, the increment over the preceding year is plotted
- small at the outset, and rise to a maximum midway in the change before declining in a symmetrical manner
p. 453
Age profiles for females of a linguistic change in progress with logistic incrementation of the change
p. 498
Conclusion
Computer simulations of language change notes
This website collects my personal notes on Computer simulations of language change. These notes are provided to bring full transparency to my research process. Of course, since they are only notes, they do not reflect my final thoughts on a topic, and should not be interpreted as such. To read finished papers, please consult my website. Do not use these notes as a basis for your own scientific research. Start from high-quality, peer-reviewed scientific literature instead.