Transcript Hodge, Jespersen, and Sapir and the Linguistic Cycle

LIN 617:
Hodge, Jespersen, Sapir,
the Linguistic Cycle, and more
April 2015
What is Historical Linguistics?
What: Typical (phonological) change
Why: due to language acquisition or
external influence
Methods: CM, IR, OED, DOE, etc
Interdisciplinary: genetics, language
families, migrations
Greenberg, Cavalli-Sforza, Bickerton
Early Migrations
MtDNA and Migrations
Pre-Lg > Proto-Lg
Argument structure
Demonstratives
Merge
Function words < grammaticalization
Grammaticalization
H&Tr: Grmmz is the “process whereby
lexical items and constructions come in
certain linguistic contexts to serve
grammatical functions, and, once
grammaticalized, continue to develop new
grammatical functions”. (2003: xv)
EvG: Grmmz is reanalysis by the language
learner of lexical items in a more
economical way.
Then: OE > Modern English
Ormulum 1200, lines 3494 >
(both B and O from wiki)
Main changes
Demonstratives > articles
V > Aux
Loss of Case
Loss of verb endings
Loss of ge- > more phrasal verbs
EMOD:
Grammaticalization is unidirectional
on the cline in (1).
(1) lexical phrase/word > grammatical item
> clitic > affix > zero
Andersen (2008: 15) points out that this
clines contains semantic change (lexical >
grammatical), morphological (word > clitic >
affix), and phonological change (especially
in the later stages):
Other possibilities (morphosyntax
vs argument hood):
(2)
a. phrase
clitic >
affix
b. adjunct >
(argument) >
>
word/head >
>
0
argument >
agreement > 0
Examples of grammaticalization in
English
On, from P to ASP
VP Adverbials > TP/CP Adverbials
Like, from P > C (like I said)
Negative objects to negative markers
Modals: v > ASP > T
To: P > ASP > M > C
PP > C (for him to do that ...)
Chinese
bei
gei
mei
shi
‘cover’
‘give’
‘die
D>T
liao > le ‘finish’
lai > le ‘come’
ba/jiang ‘hold’
V>AUX
P>AUX
go motion > future
to direction>mood
for location>time>cause
have possession>perfect
on location>aspect
after location>time
P>C
The Linguistic Cycle
- Hodge (1970: 3): Old Egyptian
morphological complexity (synthetic stage)
turned into Middle Egyptian syntactic
structures (analytic stage) and then back
into morphological complexity in Coptic.
- “today’s morphology is yesterday's syntax“
(Givón 1971)
Synthetic (Hodge sM) is:
Dependent marking
or
Head marking
Dryer’s map on Case
Analytic (Hodge Sm) is:
• Word order
• prepositions rather than case
VO and OV
Macro and micro-cycles
A Macro-Cycle
synthetic
analytic
Macroparameters à la Baker 2001
•
•
•
•
Synthetic-analytic
Head-dependent
Argument Structure
Possibly head-parameter
Sapir (1921: 128)
“the terms [analytic and synthetic] are
more useful in defining certain drifts than
as absolute counters”.
Some Micro-Cycles
Negative (neg):
neg indefinite/adverb > neg particle > (neg particle)
Definiteness
demonstrative > article > class marker
Agreement
emphatic > pronoun > agreement
Auxiliary
V/A/P > M > T > C
Clausal
pronoun > complementizer
PP/Adv > Topic > C
Negative Cycle in English
a.
no/ne
early Old English
b.
ne
c.
(ne) not
d.
not
(na wiht/not)
>
How renewed?
after 900, esp S
after 1350
-not/-n’t
after 1400
The Linguistic Cycle,
e.g. the Negative Cycle
HPP
XP
Spec
na wiht
Late Merge
X'
X
not > n’t
YP
…
Hodge, Jespersen, and Sapir
focus on macrocycles, though they do not
use that term.
Heine, Claudi & Hünnemeyer (1991: 246)
argue that there is “more justification to
apply the notion of a linguistics cycle to
individual linguistic developments” rather
than to changes from analytic to synthetic
and back to analytic.
History of Egyptian
Old Egyptian: 3000 BCE – 2000 BCE
Middle Egyptian: 2000-1300 BCE
Late Egyptian: 1300 BCE – 700 BCE
Demotic Egyptian: 600 BCE – 400 CE
Coptic: 300 -1300 CE
Rosetta
Stone
Hieroglyphic
Demotic
Greek
Ptolomis and Kleopatra
Older to later Egyptian
(1) rmc
`the man’
snt `a sister’
(2) pʔ rmt
wʕ(t) sn(t)
(3) p-romə
wə-sonə
(adapted from Loprieno)
Old Egyptian … Coptic
(1)
(2)
scm-f
n-k
listen.prosp-3MS to-2MS
`May he listen to you.’
mare-f-so:tem
əro-k
OPT-3MS-listen
to-2MS
`May he listen to you.’
(Loprieno 2001: 1743)
Early > Late > Coptic
(1)
(2)
(3)
jw
scm-n-j
indeed
hear-PRET-1S
jr-j-stm
wʕ xrw
do-1S-hearing a-voice
a-i-setm-wə-xrou
PRET-1S-hear-a-voice
`I heard a voice.’
xrw
voice
Spiral or Cycle:
Spiral is another term for cycle (see von
der Gabelentz 1901: 256; Hagège 1993:
147); it emphasizes the unidirectionality of
the changes: languages do not reverse
earlier change but may end up in a stage
typologically similar to an earlier one.
Jespersen (1922: chapter 21.9) uses
spirals when he criticizes the concept of
cyclical change.
vd Gabelentz 1901
immer gilt das Gleiche: die Entwicklungslinie
krümmt sich zurück nach der Seite der
Isolation, nicht in die alte Bahn, sondern in eine
annähernd parallele. Darum vergleiche ich sie
der Spirale.
"always the same: the development curves
back towards isolation, not in the old way,
but in a parallel fashion. That's why I
compare them to spirals" (my translation,
EvG).
Criticisms
Not precise
Jespersen
Newmeyer (2006) notes that some
grammaticalizations from noun/verb to
affix can take as little as 1000 years, and
wonders how there can be anything left to
grammaticalize if this is the right scenario.
Hopper & Traugott (2003: 124)
The cyclical model is “extremely
problematic because it suggests that a
stage of a language can exist when it is
difficult or even impossible to express
some concept” (p. 124).
Unidirectional and overlap
• always something around to express, for
instance, negation or the subject.
• usually not the same element, e.g. ne >
not
• if the same element, this is due to layering
Sapir (1921) on drift
P. 150: “a current of its own making”. Even if
there is no split into dialects, languages
drift.
P. 154: what is drift/change?
P. 155: “The linguistic drift has direction”.
e.g. who did you see?
Sapir, 158 ff.
Loss:
• who/whom are “psychologically related to
when, what, etc.
• the only one to show Case in its group
Scale of hesitation (162)
Three drifts: loss of Case, fixing of WO,
invariable word.
The Copula and DP Cycles
(1)
dani (hu) ha-more
Dani he the-teacher
‘Dani is the teacher.’
Hebrew
(2)
hu malax
'al jisra'el
‘He ruled
over Israel.’
(Katz 1996: 86)
Hebrew
Synthetic-analytic Cycle
Greenberg, Hodge, Schwegler, Haselow,
Szmrecsanyi, and others.
Issues: calculation word+morph/word
Clitics
Pronouns
Derivational
unmarked
HL (at ASU)
Workshop ...
Possibly workshop on analytic-synthetic