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In search of stability

In search of stability. Pieter Muysken Centre for Language Studies Radboud University Nijmegen. Contact-induced language change. Languages change when their speakers also speak another language However : Some languages change faster than others

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In search of stability

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  1. In search of stability Pieter Muysken Centre forLanguage Studies Radboud University Nijmegen

  2. Contact-induced languagechange Languages changewhentheir speakers alsospeakanotherlanguage However: • Somelanguageschangefasterthanothers • Somecomponents of languagechangefasterthanothers

  3. Stability What factors contribute to the Stability of languages? Stability of components of language?

  4. Whystudystability? Links languagechange to cross-linguisticpriming Allowspotentialinsightintodeep time relationships

  5. Withthanks to the Languages in Contact group (www.ru.nl/linc). Suzanne Aalberse Margot van den Berg JoshuaBirchall Bob Borges Rik van Gijn HaraldHammarström PabloIrizarri v. Suchtelen Simon van de Kerke Gerrit Jan Kootstra OlgaKrasnoukhova Linda van Meel Neele Müller LorettaO’ConnorKofiYakpo FrancescaRomanaMoroHülya Sahin AnaVilacy

  6. Sponsors and partners Radboud University Nijmegen European Research Council NetherlandsOrganizationfor Research (NWO) Royal NetherlandsAcademy of Sciences (KNAW) Max PlanckInstituteforPsycholinguistics MuseuGoeldiBelem Leiden University LundUniversity

  7. STUDIES ON CONTACT: Convergence of disciplines and scenarios?

  8. Scenario the organized fashion in which multilingual speakers, in certain social settings, deal with the various languages in their repertoire Maintenance, shift, creation, ... (Thomason & Kaufmann)

  9. Contradictoryearlierresults shallow/person extensivecross-linguisticpriming micro/community verylimitedconvergence meso/language some, butlimitedconvergence macro/deep time extensivearealeffects

  10. Papiamentu Turkish TMApre-verbal particlesverbal suffixes Evidentialityweakly grammaticalizedstrongly grammaticalized Arg Realizationzero marking; few prepositionsrich case marking fixed orderfree order bos-nan no a miranos biz-igor-me-di-niz-mi? 2-PL NEG PA see 1PL 1PL-AC see-PA-NEG-2PL-Q ‘Didn’t you see us?’ ‘Didn’t you see us?’ Multilingual processing: Papiamentu and Turkish in contact with Dutch - experience with these communities; existing corpora - both show strong internal cohesion and relatively high language maintenance - languages are maximally different

  11. Dativestructures in Dutch and Papiamento Dutch:twopossibilities • Prepositional object (PrepO):‘De vrouw geeft de bal aan de man’ ‘The womangives the ballto the man’ • Double object (DblO):‘De vrouw geeft de man de bal’ ‘The womangivesthe man the ball’ Papiamento:onepossibility • Double object (DblO):‘E muhétadunae homber e bala’ ‘The womangivesthe man the ball’

  12. Video clip description: Baseline experiment DUNA [In Papiamento, using the depicted verb] RESPONSE * [The stimuli are movie clips from Rochester University]

  13. Priming experiment 1. PRIME (DblO condition) 2. TARGET “De jongen geeft het meisje de mand” ‘the boy gives the girl the basket’ (DblO) DUNA DUNA RESPONSE Match? (Yes / No) [In Papiamento, using the depicted verb]

  14. Priming experiment 1. PRIME (PrepO condition) 2. TARGET “De jongen geeft de mandaan het meisje” ‘the boy gives the basketto the girl ’ (PrepO) DUNA DUNA RESPONSE Match? (Yes / No) [In Papiamento, using the depicted verb]

  15. Results: Baseline experiment on Aruba DO structure is almost always used (98.2 %) Percentage

  16. p = .006 Results: Priming experiment on Aruba Percentage (De jongen geeft de sleutel aan het meisje) (De jongen geeft het meisje de sleutel)

  17. Baseline: Describe ditransitive movie clips in Papiamento (without priming) Papiamento speakers on Aruba: 98.2% Double Object used; 1.8% Prepositional Object used.

  18. Baseline: Describe ditransitive movie clips in Papiamento (without priming) Baseline Papiamento speakers in the Netherlands: • 87% Double Object used; 13% Prepositional Object used. • Variation between participants about twice as high as Aruba. • Variation stimulates / lies at the foundation of change

  19. Conclusions Production of ditransitives in Papiamento • General tendency to use DO-structure • But more at Aruba than in NL • More variation in NL • Cross-linguistic priming influenced syntactic choices • Recent exposure to other language changes one’s own language behavior • Priming as a potential mechanism of contact-induced language change • Priming effect in NL influenced by age and length of stay in NL • Higher cross-language flexibility in younger people • Length of stay  onset exposure to Dutch  language contact

  20. Next 1: world paradigm, anticipatory eye movements e bala na e muchamuhé E muchahombertaduna e muchamuhé e bala • Whenpeoplehear ‘taduna’  what object willthey look at?

  21. Next 2: studies with other variables Amañalo mi bay playa Tomorrow FUT I go beach Morgengaiknaar het strand. Tomorrow go I to the beach.

  22. Idealresultsshallow time Clear understanding of the conditions on, and effects of, syntactic priming Grammatical component factors Similarity factors Markedness factors Type of bilingualism factors Directionality factors Priming and change

  23. Methodsforfindingstability Experiments Meta-analysis of language contact processes in real time Meta-analysis of historical data forindividuallanguage families Phylogenetic modeling on large data sets (e.g. WALS)

  24. Heritage language communities Spontaneous & video elicitation paradigms: Chilean Spanish Turkish Moroccan Arabic Papiamentu Chinese languages Sranan Creole Malay Sarnami Hindustani

  25. Ideal results micro settings (heritage language communities) Clear understanding of the degree to which and way in which heritage languages in the Netherlands change Different linguistic structures and typological factors, such degree of word complexity Time depth community Age on onset, bilingual competence

  26. Case study: Languagediversity in Surinam: Late colonial period to now (1880 – 2010) Warao Arawakan Cariban Maroon Creole Sarnámi Javanese Dutch, Guyanese, Portuguese, Kejia Sranan Tongo

  27. Functions of multilingualism by domain TV, Radio National politics Music: lovers rock Local politics Family: same generation Radio Informal: friends generation SRANAN DUTCH Music: roots reggae, traditional Family:-1/ -2 generation ETHNIC Informal: friends Formal politics Family:+1/ +2 generation Family:+ 1 generation Relationship Informal: colleagues Flirting Symbolic politics Contact with institutions

  28. Neigbournet analysis So far 81 features So far 10 languages Kikongo early Sranan English Ewegbe cont. Sranan Dutch Gungbe cont. Saramaccan Portuguese Fongbe

  29. Idealresultsmeso settings Clearunderstanding of the ways in which the various languages of Suriname have influencedeachother Respective different roles of Dutch (superstrate) and Sranan (adstrate) Different linguisticstructures Typological factors Bilingualcompetence factors Time depth

  30. Externalstability factors Strength of transmission between G(i) > (Gj) Number of L2 learners Amount of bilingual usage (strong priming) Register differentiation Focussing versus diffusion Language ideology and emblematic role of differences

  31. Internalstability factors:lexical borrowability Syntactic markers > discourse markers (que ‘that’ > pues‘then’) Sorphology> lexicon (diminutive > adjective) Core vocabulary > non-core vocabulary > animal and plant names > technical vocabulary (hand > computer) Articles > verbs, adpositions > nouns, adjectives > names Low numbers > high numbers (two > million) First, second person pronouns > third, fourth (inclusive) person pronouns Basic colours > peripheral colours (white > orange) Phonological organization > phonetic realization (/i/ : /e/ contrast > velar r)

  32. Internalstability factorsVan Hout and Muysken (1995) Frequency (weak) -Paradigmatic organization in L(recipient) -Inflection L(donor) +Peripherality in L(donor) N name < adv compconjexcl neg P < A auxcop V < num Q wh < dem det p+det posspronpron-cl

  33. Internal stability factors Frequency + Pagel, M., Atkinson, Q. D., and Meade, A. (2007) Frequency of word-use predicts rates of lexical evolution throughout Indo-European history.- for language contact: donor/recipient Systemic cohesion (?) automatized interlocking processing systems Interface grammar-pragmatics

  34. Lexicon versus syntax? Traditional perspective: Items versus rules New with Word grammar, Construction Grammar, etc. : Languages as inventories of {items}, where {items} are form/meaning mappings

  35. Lexicon versus syntax 2 Winford, consensus view: “… certain domains or components of linguistic structure tend to be more stable and resistant to change than others. For instance, phonology and grammar (and to some extent semantics) are more stable, while vocabulary is less stable.”

  36. Challenge settlement ~12K BP South America (Terrence Kaufman 1990) ~ 450 languages ~ 118 genetic units 48 groupings 70 isolates/unclassified

  37. time depths: CHIBCHAN ~6700 YBP Paya - Chibcha~6100 YBP OtherCAmerican~4300, 3700, 1000 YBP Central Chibchan~5100 YBP Eastern Chibchan~4200 YBP chibchanl x time depths: CHOCOAN ~2100 YBP internal splits 700 YBP at latest 3.2-3.7 million BP land bridge 14000-11000 BP humans, changed vegetation 9000-7000 BP domesticated crops added 7000-4500 BP maize, manioc; materials 4500 BP better pottery 2000 BP gold-working 2500-1300 BP chiefdoms established general impression small populations long-term stable settlement great ecological diversity genetic research low genetic diversity many common haplotypes

  38. Puzzlefor SA: settlement 12 K BP (A) Why so many language families (110+) , and why so many isolates? What is the distribution both of larger families and of isolates? (B) Why is there areal spread of specific typological patterns, some characterizing most of the continent as a whole, and some individual parts of the continent? (C) What can we learn about the relation between the issues in (A) and (B) from the perspective of language history and language contact ?

  39. Idealresultsfordeep time Broadtypological patterns in different groups of SAILs (South American Indian Languages) Possibleinterpretation in terms of ‘deep’ linguistic families Possibleinterpretations in terms of arealconvergence Possibleinterpretations in terms of specific contact scenarios

  40. Specificity versus stabilityscales the specificity continuum: {items} in language can be arranged on a specificity scale, from specific content words [maison ‘house’] to binary grammatical features [P NP] ? Vs. the stability continuum: the most specific {items} change most rapidly, the least specific items much more stable

  41. Scale of {items}? • Domesticated and ritual plant and animal vocabulary • General vocabulary • Swadesh list of words • hihi lists of frequent words from the Swadesh list (McMahon et al. 2005) • 41 word list in the Wichman and Holman ASJP project • Grammatical morpheme inventories • Notional categories realized as morphemes • Binary features (phonology, morphology, syntax) • Broad typological features

  42. Greenhill et al. (2010) WithinbothAustronesian and Indo-Europeanlexical data fit traditional trees betterthantypological data

  43. Dunn ondeep time Papuan 748 Dunn et al. 2008 The results of the structural phylogenetic analysis of the Papuan languages, however, suggests a possible historical signal.

  44. Donohue • 2011: 377In short, linguistic geography, rather than phylogenetic identity, determines typological clusters.21 IE languages, with between 50 and 128 features coded

  45. Consensus re: Dunn et al.? Structural features canrevealgenealogicalrelationships Areal influences play a role, particularly locally

  46. Example: Central America Nahua (< Uto-Aztecan) Otomanguean Maya Mixe-Zoque MisumalapanChibchan Chocoan Barbacoan Aymaran Paezan

  47. Features Constenla (1991) data base 39 Phonological (vowel contrasts) 42 Syntactic (orders, distinctions, categories) 81 in total Ca. 80 languages Selected by the author on the basis of expert knowledge of the languages of the area

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