Dialect Changes in the Polynesian Languages

This paper investigates an information structure category (focus) in the Polynesian languages, as it relates to language stability on the one hand and language change on the other. The study concentrates on *ko structures, which are striking because, in VSO languages, they allow a *ko-marked nominal to precede the verb under certain pragmatic conditions. We propose that *ko-marked nominals are focused, according to a precise semantic definition of focus as a syntactic feature that triggers a semantic object (discourse alternatives). First, we show that this semantic account of focus predicts a range of *ko structures found in verb-initial Polynesian systems, including clefts, equatives, topics, wh-questions and forms with focus-sensitive expressions like ‘only'. We propose that *ko structures allow nominals to surface in the initial focus position in the VSO Polynesian languages: in other words, the initial position is both a strict predicate position as well as a focus position, and the maintenance of this information structure–syntax link is remarkably consistent across space and time; in addition, *ko-marked topics precede predicates, but also contain a focus marking. The rest of the paper turns to Polynesian languages that have shifted to SVO word order. We show that once the link between initial position and predicate/focus is lost, *ko structures are eroded or lost. *ko structures are thus a diagnostic for information structure-related language stability or change, as it is correlated with VSO or SVO word order.

Introduction 1. Arabic Urban Vernaculars: Development and Changes Catherine Miller Part 1: Migration, Urbanization and Language Change 2. The (r)urbanisation of Mauritania: Historical Context and Contemporary Developments Catherine Taine Cheikh 3. The Formation of the Dialect of Amman: from Chaos to Order Enam Al-Wer 4. Urbanization and Dialect Change: the Arabic Dialect of Tripoli (Libya) Christophe Pereira 5. Becoming Casablancan: Fessis in Casablanca as a Case Study Atiqa Hachimi 6. Two Cases of Moroccan Arabic in the Diaspora Angeles Vicente Part 2: Urban Vernaculars: Convergence and Divergence 7. Greetings in Beirut : Social Distribution and Attitudes towards Different Formulae Marie Aymee Germanos 8. Linguistic Levelling in Sanf ani Arabic as Reflected in a Popular Radio Serial Janet Watson 9. The Urban and Suburban Modes: Patterns of Linguistic Variation and Change in Damascus Hanadi Ismail 10. Segmental and Prosodic Aspects of Ksar el Kebir's Neo-Urban Variety Mohamed Embarki 11. The Use of Kashkasha/kaskasa and Alternative Means among Educated Urban Saudi Speakers MuniraAl-Azraki Part 3: Multilibualism, Codeswitching and New Urban Cultures 12. Close Encounters of a Different Kind: Two Types of Insertion in Nigerian Arabic Codeswitching Jonathan Owens 13. Development and Linguistic Change in Moroccan Arabic-French Codeswitching Karima Ziamari 14. The Language of Cairo's Young University Students Sherin Rizk 15. Rap and Rappers in Nouakchott. (Mauritania) Aline Tauzin 16. Uses and Attitudes towards Hassaniyya Language among Nouakchott's Negro-Mauritanian Population Alassane Dia

Language change and contact in Vietnam has recently intensified among some demographic groups. As such, certain sociolinguistic patterns help to describe these changes in language and society. This study is aimed at observing and measuring dialect change in Vietnam influenced by urbanization, with evidence from a rural community in Hanoi, a speech community in Xuan Canh commune, Dong Anh district. The study investigates the ways in which dialect change in this region has developed according to specific social and cultural factors. The Xuan Canh speech community evidences a narrowing usage of local variants. For its method, the study employs fieldwork, and subsequent quantitative methods to aid in the analysis. The data set includes 34 informants, randomly selected, which were categorized into certain social variables. The study also released 34 questionnaires, 11 recorded files of natural speech, from which emerged two sets of 34 recorded files of word lists and a text. The results indicate a gradual reduction in the frequency of use of local variants, a decrease in the number of lexical forms with rural characteristics, and an increase in certain types of urban variants. This trend can be seen by observing changing social variables sensitive to urbanization, such as youths, officials, students, and hence people who have out-community communication scope. Here, the quantitative correlations prove statistically significant. The state of dialect change in this community thus signifies a phenomenon common to Vietnamese rural communities under the effect of the urbanization; that is, a tendency following language urbanization in Vietnam.

This monograph is a collection of selected papers on Oceanic languages. For the first time, aspects of the morphology and syntax of Oceanic languages such as the encoding of sentence types, the structure of the noun phrase, noun incorporation, constituent order, and ergative vs. accusative alignment are discussed from a comparative point of view, thus drawing attention to genetic, areal and language-specific features. The individual papers are based on the field work of the authors on lesser-described and endangered languages and are basically descriptive studies. At the same time they also explore the theoretical implications of the data presented and analyzed, as well as the historical development of certain morpho-syntactic phenomena, without basing these explorations on a single theoretical framework. The book provides new insights into the morphosyntactic structures of Oceanic languages andis of interest primarily for linguists working on Austronesian, in particular Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian languages, but also for typologists and linguists working on language change.

The sociolinguist William has worked for decades on change in progress in American dialects and on African American Vernacular English (AAVE). In Dialect Diversity in America, Labov examines the diversity among American dialects and presents the counterintuitive finding that geographically localized dialects of North American English are increasingly diverging from one another over time. Contrary to the general expectation that mass culture would diminish regional differences, the dialects of Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, Birmingham, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and New York are now more different from each other than they were a hundred years ago. Equally significant is Labov's finding that AAVE does not map with the geography and timing of changes in other dialects. The home dialect of most African American speakers has developed a grammar that is more and more different from that of the white mainstream dialects in the major cities studied and yet highly homogeneous throughout the United States. describes the political forces that drive these ongoing changes, as well as the political consequences in public debate. The author also considers the recent geographical reversal of political parties in the Blue States and the Red States and the parallels between dialect differences and the results of recent presidential elections. Finally, in attempting to account for the history and geography of linguistic change among whites, highlights fascinating correlations between patterns of linguistic divergence and the politics of race and slavery, going back to the antebellum United States. Complemented by an online collection of audio files that illustrate key dialectical nuances, Dialect Diversity in America offers an unparalleled sociolinguistic study from a preeminent scholar in the field.

The remarkable divergences and alterations which a very slight difference in locality causes to exist in the tongues of the Tibeto-Burman hill-tribes have been frequently adverted to, and are, in fact, one of the stock examples of the birth and growth of dialectic change in language. In truth, it must be admitted that in no part of the world are the conditions more favourable to such growth than in the mass of mountains which extends from the Himalayas to Cape Negrais, and which forms the habitat of many of the most interesting of these tribes. Favoured by an abnormally heavy rainfall, the dense jungles which everywhere cover these hills would successfully defy the efforts of even civilized people for their destruction. As it is, except for temporary clearings for cultivation, and somewhat more permanent ones immediately round the villages, these forests remain practically intact, forming, together with the extraordinarily broken character of the ground, one of the most powerful obstacles conceivable to intercourse between the various villages. Such intercourse, therefore, except when it partakes of a raid or foray, is usually on a very limited scale; nor, as a matter of fact, was anything more extended desired by the villagers until quite recently. As McCabe says of the Nagas: “They have remained isolated on their hill-tops, only deigning to visit their immediate neighbours when a longing for their heads has become too strong to be resisted.”

This research explores the extent to which the speech of Appalachian migrants in Ypsilanti, Michigan has been affected by the emerging local norm, an ongoing dialect change labeled the Northern Cities Shift (NCS). Recorded speech from these migrants was acoustically analyzed to determine whether the NCS feature of low-front vowel raising of was present. Index scores derived from formant values were then subjected to statistical analysis to determine the degree to which the respondents' use of this vowel reflects participation in the NCS. The respondents' use or nonuse of this feature was correlated with their sex, social status, age, and social network characteristics to determine which, if any, have influenced respondents' participation, or lack of participation, in the NCS. The results show that social network and sex are statistically significant predictors of acquisition, or lack of acquisition, of the feature in question, whereas age and socioeconomic status are not.This research is part of a National Science Foundation Grant titled “Accommodation in Language Variation and Change.” This research owes much to the support and commitment of Dennis Preston. I am also grateful to Diane Aleksa, Annabelle Mooney, and anonymous reviewers who provided valuable input on earlier versions of this article.

The establishment of new towns in the twentieth century in many parts of the world is a test bed of koineization, the type of language change that takes place when speakers of different, but mutually intelligible language varieties come together, and which may lead to new dialect or koine formation. This article presents the case of Milton Keynes, an English new town designated in 1967. Our study investigated the speech of a sample of 48 working-class children divided into three age groups: four, eight, and twelve years of age, along with one caregiver for each. We hypothesize that the formation of a new dialect is in the gift of older children. We also hypothesize that dialect leveling, which is part of koineization, will be more rapid in a new town than in an old-established town. Detailed quantitative results for four vowels strongly support these hypotheses. At the same time, we investigate the social network types contracted by new town residents. We found many to be socially isolated locally, but that they maintained contacts with their place of origin. We show that migrants violate what the Milroys argue to be the normal inverse relationship between socioeconomic class and social network density: migrants have uniplex networks, while still having a low socioeconomic status. The consequences for dialect change are considered.

The most obvious tendency in modern Norwegian dialect change is regional levelling. The aim of this paper is to discuss the pattern of this levelling process, and I aim to test a hypothesis of urban jumping. This will be tested in detail for the region of Mid-Norway, with Trondheim at the top of a hierarchy and other towns and centres as subordinated nodes. The noun morphology of five dialects in Mid-Norway is compared, and we see that the regional capital of Trondheim has a fairly complex system compared to its subordinated towns and centres. The subordinated towns have been exposed to simplifications independent of the Trondheim dialect. The modern changes themselves are dependent on the urbanisation process, which has prevailed at different times in the various communities. Linguistically ‐ in our case in noun morphology ‐ the process seems to be more in the nature of simplification than of adapting the prestigious standard or central system. Accordingly, the new hypothesis suggests the following: Within a region, the dominating centre exerts some influence on the direction of language change, but the simplification processes manifest themselves first in new centres, i.e. in subordinated nodes in the regional hierarchy. Today the Trondheim dialect seems to be adopting certain simplifications. In the other towns and centres these changes were known generations ago. From these bare facts one could perhaps deduce that the regional centre of Trondheim is sensitive to changes in the subordinated towns. This conclusion is strengthened by data from Northern Norway, but not from Eastern Norway, where the changes seem to follow a different route.