campbell_lyle_mixco_mauricio_j_a_glossary_of_historical_ling

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whereas ease of comprehension decreases as one approaches the most distant extremes of the chain or continuum. For example, it was said that in medieval times a traveler from Paris to Rome, progressing through that part of the Romance dialect continuum, would never experience anything but the gradual adjustments needed in communicating from stop to stop. However, speakers from the extremes encountering each other abruptly might experience considerable difficulty in communicating due to greater differences. See also cline, dialect geography, mutual intelligibility.

dialect formation see new-dialect formation

dialect geography The study of regional dialects, particularly to explain their distribution, usually presented in dialect maps. Along with historical linguistics, dialect geography was one of the earliest fields to arise in the scientific study of language in nineteenth-century Europe. Among its originators and earliest practitioners were Georg Wenker (Germany) and Jules Gilliéron (France). They created the field that studies regional language variation, typically determining the nature and degree of the geographical limits of speech varieties within a common language. These studies typically result in dialect maps and dialect atlases that focus on any number of diagnostic features defining the regional varieties, cumulatively revealing the distribution and frequency of dialect variation for a given language. Dialectologists were often believed to be the intellectual foils of the Neogrammarians, providing seeming evidence to counter their claim of exceptionless sound change. The slogan of some dialectologists was ‘every word has its own history’, challenging the claim of regularity of sound change. See also cline, dialect atlas, new-

dialect continuum, dialect formation, dialect, variable, variation.

dialect mixing see dialect borrowing

dialectology see dialect, new-dialect formation, dialect geography

diffusion The spread of linguistic traits (words, sounds, grammatical material etc.) from one language or dialect to another. ‘Diffusion’ is often used as a near synonym of borrowing.

When diffusion of structural features across the languages of a particular region takes place, we speak of a linguistic area. See also areal linguistics, language contact, lexical diffusion.

diglossia The situation in which a speech community has two or more varieties of the same language used by speakers under different conditions, characterized by certain traits (attributes) usually with one variety considered ‘higher’ and another variety ‘lower’. Well-known examples are the high and low variants in Arabic, Modern Greek, Swiss German and Haitian Creole. Arabic diglossia is very old, stemming from the difference in the classical literary of the language of the Qur’an, on one side, and the modern colloquial varieties, on the other side. These languages just named have a superposed, high variety and a vernacular, lower variety, and each languages has names for their high and low varieties, which are specialized in their functions and mostly occur in mutually exclusive situations. To learn the languages properly, one must know when it is appropriate to use the high and when the low variety forms.

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Typically, the attitude is that the high variety is the proper, true form of the language, and the low variety is wrong or does not even exist. Often the feeling that the high variety is superior derives from its use within a religion, since often the high language is represented in a body of sacred texts or esteemed literature. Diglossia is associated with the American linguist Charles A. Ferguson. Sometimes, following Joshua Fishman, diglossia is extended to situations not of high and low variants of the same language, but to multilingual situations in which different languages are used in different domains, for example, English is regarded as ‘high’ in areas of India and of Africa and local languages as ‘low’ or vernacular. This usage for diglossia in multilingual situations is resisted by some scholars.

diphthongization Change in which a single vowel turns into a diphthong; that is, a pure vowel changes so that it takes on an additional vowel quality within a syllable or, a single, simple vowel changes into a sequence of two or more vocalic articulatory gestures that together occupy the nucleus of a single syllable. For example, in the Great Vowel Shift, English original long high vowels /i:/ and /u:/ diphthongized to /ai/ and /au/ respectively, as in /mi:s/ > /mais/ ‘mice’ and /mu:s/ > /maus/ ‘mouse’. See also breaking; see monophthongization.

directionality of change The typical or expected direction of a linguistic change. Some kinds of changes, found repeatedly in independent languages, typically go in one direction (A > B) but usually do not (sometimes never) go in the other direction (B > A). For example, numerous languages have changed s > h, but change in the other direction, h > s, is almost unknown. Cases such as this illustrate the ‘directionality’ of the change. There is a

known directionality to many grammatical changes, as well. For example, the change of Postposition > Case affix is frequent, but a change of Case affix > Postposition is extremely rare.

Known directionality of change helps in linguistic reconstruction. If, for example, in two sister languages, s of Language1 correspondences to h in Language2, *s is reconstructed for the parent sound in the protolanguage, and the change is postulated that *s > h in Language2. The alternative with *h for the original sound and a sound change of *h > s in Language1 is unlikely, since it goes against the known direction of change. Similarly, if in two sister languages a postposition ‘with’ in Language1 correspondences to a commitative case affix (also meaning ‘with’) in Language2, then the postposition is reconstructed for the protolanguage, with the change of postpostion ‘with’ > commitative case in Language2, since the known directionality of this change makes the alternative (with a reconstructed commitative case and a postulated change of commitative case > postposition ‘with’) highly improbable.

dispersal of languages see language dispersal

displacement A kind of synecdoche (also called ellipsis) in which one word absorbs part or all of the meaning of another word with which it is linked in a phrase (usually Adjective–Noun, typically with loss of the absorbed or ‘displaced’ part), for example, capital from capital city, where the notion of ‘city’ has been absorbed into the word ‘capital’. Contact(s) < contact lens(es) and private

‘ordinary, regular soldier’ < private soldier are other examples.

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dissimilation (sometimes also called dissimilatory change) Change in which a sound becomes less similar to another sound. Dissimilation (increased difference between sounds) is the opposite of assimilation (increased similarity among sounds). For example, Latin arbore ‘tree’ changed to árbol in Spanish, where the change r > l in this word made the two r’s less similar to one another (r … r > r … l). Similarly, Latin libellum ‘level’ changed to nivel in Spanish, in which sequence of two l’s was made less similar by changing one to n (l … l > n … l). In some English dialects the sequence of two nasals is dissimilated in chimney to become chimley (or chimbley). Grassmann’s Law is a famous case of dissimilation.

distant genetic relationship A genetic relationship between languages that are only remotely related. Many distant genetic relationships have been postulated among languages not known to be related, where, owing either to the lack of convincing evidence or to doubts about the methods used (or both), the hypotheses are disputed. Some examples of these controversial proposals of distant genetic relationship are Altaic, Amerind, Eurasiatic, Nostratic, Proto-World, and many others (see Campbell 2003, Campbell and Poser in press). Also spoken of in terms of macro-family, remote relationship, long-range hypothesis of relationship. See also multilateral comparison.

divergence Process by which languages or dialects (sometimes, sounds, constructions etc.) become more different from one another. See also diversification.

diversification (sometimes also called divergence) The process by which languages split up into related languages

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Dravidian The language family that embraces most of the languages of South Indian, as well as a few others elsewhere on the Indian subcontinent – some twenty-five languages spoken by about 200 million speakers.

drift Development in which related languages (or varieties of languages) come to share some similarities due to parallel innovations after diversifying from a common source. Sapir (1921: 150) introduced ‘drift’ by saying that ‘language moves down time in a current of its own making. It has a drift’. Of examples of drift, he wrote:

The momentum of ... drift is often such that languages long disconnected will pass through the same or strikingly similar phases ... The English type of plural represented by foot: feet, mouse: mice is strictly parallel to the German Fuss: Füsse, Maus: Mäuse ...

Documentary evidence shows conclusively that there could have been no plurals of this type in Primitive Germanic ... There was evidently some general tendency or group of tendencies in early Germanic, long before English and German had developed as such, that eventually drove both of these dialects along closely parallel paths. (Sapir 1921: 172.)

Sapir’s lack of elaboration left room for interpretations. In some interpretations of what Sapir meant by ‘drift’, the related languages share some linguistic characteristics because they are believed to have inherited a shared tendency or propensity to development in a similar fashion after separation, though what linguistic facts might explain such inherited shared tendencies are left unspecified. In other interpretations, drift seems almost mystical, and in any case imprecise and abstract. More modern interpretations hold that drift is just expected change, given the typical direction-

ality of many changes and the structural properties sister languages share through inheritance from their parent language. Scholars following these interpretations find that, given the same set of starting circumstances (shared inherited structural properties) and the frequent directionality of change in particular typological contexts, there is nothing mystical about the parallel but independent changes that related languages may undergo; rather, in many cases, given the shared attributes related languages start out with and the directionality of many changes, these changes are not at all unexpected.

E

ease of articulation (as a cause of sound change) The idea that certain sound changes (or other changes that, among other things, also involve the phonetic shape of forms) take place to make this part of the language easier to pronounce. A tendency towards ease of pronunciation has often been thought a major factor in the explanation of linguistic change. Often there are natural explanations lying behind changes said to be for ease of articulation. For example, the frequent change of voicing of intervocalic stops seen in many languages facilitates pronunciation, but lying behind that are apparently the workings of the human speech organs – it is just easier to allow the vocal cords to continue vibrating for the vowels (voiced) and for the stop between them than to have to vibrate for one vowel, stop the vibration of the vocal cords for the stop, and then start up the vibration again for the following vowel. See also simplification.

economy A concept akin to the philosophical and scientific principle embodied in Okham’s Razor, which states that a hypothesis that employs fewer entities and simpler

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logic is superior to one that does not. The criterion of economy in reconstruction holds that when multiple alternatives are available the one that requires the least number of reconstructed elements with the fewest independent changes is most likely to be correct. For example, in phonological reconstruction economy is achieved in a proto-system with smaller numbers of phonemes, involving the fewest changes to account for the reflexes found in the cognates of daughter languages. See also ease of articulation, simplicity.

e-grade see ablaut

elaboration Johanna Nichols’ term for language diversification, the splitting of a language into distinct daughter languages. Nichols (1990) asserts that characteristically at the initial split up of a language, the number of branches will tend to be two (two to three prior to extinction of some of the branches, and 1.6 afterward).

Elamite-Dravidian, Elamo-Dravidian (also called DravidianElamite) A controversial hypothesis of distant genetic relationship between Elamite and Dravidian. David McAlpin (1974, 1981) presented a reasonable though not thoroughly convincing case for a genetic relationship between Dravidian and Elamite (an ancient, long-extinct isolate of the Persian Gulf).

elevation (also called amelioration) Semantic changes in which the meaning of a word shifts towards a more positive value in the minds of the language’s users; an increased positive value judgment, as in pretty, which in its Old English form meant ‘crafty, sly’. Also called amelioration.

ellipsis see clipping

embedding problem Concerns the question, how is a given language change embedded in the surrounding system of linguistic and social relations? How does the greater environment in which the change takes place influence the change? That is, the parts of a language are tightly interwoven, often in complex interlocking relationships, so that a change in one part of the grammar may impact on (or be constrained by) other parts of the grammar. Also, language change takes place in a social environment, where differences in a language may be given positive or negative sociolinguistic status, and this sociolinguistic environment plays an important role in change. See also Weinreich–Labov–Herzog model, explanation of linguistic change.

emphatic foreignization Change in the pronunciation of a word to make it seem more foreign-sounding. Cases of emphatic foreignization usually involve slang or high registers, and often place names, as in the pronun-

pronounced without the final s, as /ku də gra/, rather than as /ku də gras/ because many English speakers expect French words spelled with an s to lack it in the pronunciation; on this basis they have eliminated the sound even though it is pronounced in French. See also hypercorrection.

endangered language Language (also dialect) in danger of