Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T16:39:45.842Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rule exceptions, functionalism, and language change*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Martha Laferriere
Martha Laferriere*
Affiliation:
Southeastern Massachusetts University and Universität Tübingen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In certain cases the difference between consecutive stages of a language may be explained as a change in the system of rules of the grammar of that language (Chomsky & Halle 1968, 249-252; King 1969; Kiparsky 1968). Between consecutive stages a rule may be added, lost, structurally simplified, or reordered relative to the earlier order. Such changes among phonological rules, when phonetically conditioned, represent an increase in grammatical simplicity in a measurable sense (King 1969, 39-63, 65; Kiparsky 1968; Halle 1962).

It has also been recognized that grammatical categories can condition phonological rules. The function of such conditioning appears to be the preservation of surface structure organization defined by grammatical categories, or what Kiparsky has termed “paradigm coherence” (1972, 208). Yet grammatical (non-phonetic) conditioning of phonological rules has been regarded as decreasing, rather than increasing, simplicity (King 1969, 134-139). In this paper I shall be concerned with the historical development of grammatical conditioning on phonological rules, and the role which paradigm coherence, or paradigmatic regularization, plays in grammatical simplification.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , Fall 1975 , pp. 161 - 182
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

A preliminary version of this paper, entitled “Rule Addition and Rule Loss: Surface Phonetic Structure in Language Change,” was read at NELS III in Amherst, 1972. I wish to thank Paul Kiparsky, William G. Moulton, and John Ross for reading and criticizing this paper, and Dan Laferriere for stimulating discussions.

References

Anderson, Stephen R. & Kiparsky, Paul (eds.) 1973 A Festschrift for Morris Halle. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Bach, Emmon & Harms, Robert T. (eds.) 1968 Universals in Linguistic Theory. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Berko, Jean 1958 The child’s learning of English morphology. Word 14.150–77. Reprinted in Saporta, 1961:359–75.Google Scholar
Braune, Wilhelm & Mitzka, Walther 1967 Althochdeutsche Grammatik. 12th edition. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Brown, Roger & Bellugi, Ursula 1964 Three processes in the child’s acquisition of syntax. In Lenneberg, 1964:131–61.Google Scholar
Campbell, A. 1959 Old English Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, R., Goldin, M. & Wang, M. C. (eds.) 1974 Linguistic Studies in Romance Languages. Washington: Georgetown U. P. Google Scholar
Cazden, Courtney 1968 The acquisition of noun and verb inflections. Child Development 39.433–48.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam 1965 Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge: MIT.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam & Halle, Morris 1968 The sound pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Dingwall, William Orr (ed.) 1971 A survey of linguistic science. College Park: University of Maryland.Google Scholar
Dressler, Wolfgang 1972 In support of extrinsic ordering: German /ng/. Wiener Linguistische Gazette 2.17–20.Google Scholar
Dressler, Wolfgang & Mareš, F. V. (eds.) 1975 Phonologica 1972. Munich: Wilhelm Fink.Google Scholar
Flores D’Arcais, G. B. & Levelt, W. (eds.) 1970 Advances in psycholinguistics. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Francis, W. Nelson 1958 The structure of American English. New York: Ronald Press.Google Scholar
Halle, Morris 1962 Phonology in generative grammar. Word 18.54–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, James 1973 On the order of certain phonological rules in Spanish. In Anderson & Kiparsky, 1973:59–76.Google Scholar
Harris, James 1974 Morphologization of phonological rules: an example from Chicano Spanish. In Campbell, Goldin & Wang, 1974: 8–27 Google Scholar
Hermann, Eduard 1931 Lautgesetz und Analogie. Berlin.Google Scholar
King, Robert D. 1969 Historical linguistics and generative grammar. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
King, Robert D. 1972 A note on opacity and paradigm regularity. Linguistic Inquiry 3.535–8.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul 1968 Linguistic universals and linguistic change. In Bach & Harms, 1968:171–202.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul 1971 Historical linguistics. In Dingwall, 1971:576–642.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul 1972 Explanation in phonology. In Peters, 1972:189–227.Google Scholar
Kuryłowicz, Jerzy 1949 La nature des procès dits ‘analogiques.’ Acta Linguistica 5.15–37.Google Scholar
Labov, William 1972 The internal evolution of linguistic rules. In Stockwell & Macaulay, 1972:101–71.Google Scholar
Labov, William, Cohen, Paul, Robins, C. & Lewis, J. 1968 A study of the non-standard English of the Negro and Puerto Rican speakers of New York City. New York: Columbia University. [Cooperative Research Report 3288, Vol. 1].Google Scholar
Laferriere, Martha 1971 Grammatical simplification and unidirectional paradigmatic change. Paper read at NELS II, Montréal.Google Scholar
Laferriere, Martha 1972a Analogical change: problems from Germanic dialects. Ph.D. thesis, Brown University.Google Scholar
Laferriere, Martha 1972b The importance of surface phonetic structure in language change. In Dressler and Mareš 1975:327–8.Google Scholar
Laferriere, Martha 1974 A note on alternate rule ordering. Linguistic Inquiry 5.628–31. Three problems in Old High German unstressed vowel phonology. (forthcoming: to appear in Lingua).Google Scholar
Lakoff, George 1970 Irregularity in syntax. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Lamb, Anthony J. 1969 A phonological study of the Spanish of Havana. Ph.D. thesis, University of Kansas.Google Scholar
Lehmann, W. P. & Malkiel, Yakov (eds.) 1968 Directions for historical linguistics. Austin: U. Texas Press.Google Scholar
Lenneberg, Eric H. (ed.) 1964 New directions in the study of language. Cambridge: MIT.Google Scholar
Leopold, Werner 1953 Patterning in children’s language learning. Language Learning 5.1–14 (1953-54). Reprinted in Saporta, 1961:350–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lopez Morales, Humberto 1970 Estudios sobre el español de Cuba. New York: Las Americas.Google Scholar
Malkiel, Yakov 1968 The inflectional paradigm as an occasional determinant of sound change. In Lehmann & Malkiel, 1968:21–64.Google Scholar
Mańczak, W. 1958 Tendances générales des changements analogiques. Lingua 7.298–325, 387–420.Google Scholar
Paul, Hermann 1920 Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte. Halle a.S.: Max Niemeyer, 1880; 1920 5.Google Scholar
Paul, Hermann & Mitzka, Walther 1963 Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1963 19.Google Scholar
Peters, Stanley (ed.) 1972 Goals of linguistic theory. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Postal, Paul 1968 Aspects of phonological theory. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Saporta, Sol (ed.) 1961 Psycholinguistics; a took of readings. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Schatz, Josef 1927 Althochdeutsche Grammatik. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.Google Scholar
Schindler, Jochem 1974 Fragen zum paradigmatischen Ausgleich. Die Sprache 20.1.1–9.Google Scholar
Sievers, Eduard & Brunner, Karl 1942 Altenglische Grammatik. Halle/Saale: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Schützeichel, Rudolf 1969 Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Slobin, Dan I. 1966 The acquisition of Russian as a native language. In Smith & Miller, 1966:129–48.Google Scholar
Slobin, Dan I. 1970 Universals of grammatical development in children. In Flores d’Arcais & Levelt, 1970:174–86 Google Scholar
Smith, Frank & Miller, George A. (eds.) 1966 The genesis of language; a psycholinguistic approach. Cambridge: MIT.Google Scholar
Stockwell, Robert P. & Macaulay, Ronald K. S. (eds.) 1972 Linguistic change and generative theory. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Vennemann, Theo 1968 On the use of paradigmatic information in a competence rule of modern German phonology. Paper read at LSA summer meeting, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Vennemann, Theo 1970 The German velar nasal: a case for abstract phonology. Phonetica 22.65–81.Google Scholar
Wang, William S.-Y. 1969 Competing changes as a cause of residue. Language 45.9–25.Google Scholar
Wheeler, Benjamin Ide 1887 Analogy, and the scope of its application in language. Ithaca.Google Scholar