Material For Seminar

Universidad chileno-británica de cultura
July 2015
LANGUAGE CHANGE AND

HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS
John Charles Smith,

University of Oxford
(St Catherine’s College
& Research Centre for Romance Linguistics)
COURSE NOTES
Note:
Bibliographical references throughout are to the section on ‘References and Bibliography’ at
the end of these notes.
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© John Charles Smith 2015 Language Change and Historical Linguistics
0. Introduction and suggestions for general reading
The general issues involved in language change are discussed from a rather basic viewpoint in
Aitchison (2000), and, more thoroughly, in a dated but still worthwhile book, by Bynon (1977).
Useful notions can also be gleaned from Hock (1991), Lehmann (1992), and Jeffers & Lehiste
(1979). Three good fairly recent introductions to historical linguistics are McMahon (1994), Trask
(2007), and Campbell (2013). Also interesting is Crowley & Bowern (2010) — written by an
Austronesianist and an Australianist, it eschews the Eurocentric approach of most introductory
works. A more advanced theoretical introduction is Ringe & Eska (2013). Lucid discussion of
sources and methods and the problems associated with them can be found in the following more
advanced works: Lass (1997), especially chapter 2: ‘Written records: evidence and argument’, pp.
44-103; Labov (1994), especially chapter 1: 'The use of the present to explain the past’, pp. 9-27;
and Fleischman (2000). Good specialized dictionaries of historical linguistics are Trask (2000) and
Campbell & Mixco (2007), and relevant terminology can also be found in the standard general
dictionaries of linguistics, such as Matthews (2014) and Crystal (2008), and encyclopædias of
linguistics, such as Frawley (2003), Crystal (2010) and the monumental 14-volume compilation of
Brown (2005).
1. Theoretical Preliminaries
1.1. Two ‘axes’
synchrony (the study of) a phenomenon at one point in time
‘vs.’?
diachrony (the study of) a phenomenon through time
A topical problem... In recent years, diachronic linguistics has returned to prominence, after
almost a century of relative neglect (largely the result of Saussure’s understandable but over-
zealous distinction between synchrony and diachrony in the Cours de linguistique générale,
published posthumously in 1916). This trend has appeared in various guises. Work on
grammaticalization1 and subjectification2 has led to the suggestion that grammars should be viewed
principally as dynamic systems; sociolinguistics has stressed the link between variation and change
and has canvassed ‘the use of the present to explain the past’;3 attention has been drawn to possible
analogies between language change and biological evolution;4 claims about affiliation have led to
major re-evaluations of the aims and techniques of linguistic reconstruction;5 and the application of
contemporary formalisms to language change has not only elucidated the diachronic processes
involved, but has also enlightened us about the formalisms themselves.6 In this, as so often,
linguistics is simply in step with the age; many disciplines, from physics to economics, have also
come to treat phenomena previously considered static as dynamic processes. It’s all very well to
say, as Saussure did, that we can’t study language change properly until we’ve first defined
1
The literature on grammaticalization is vast. Convenient introductions are: Hopper & Traugott (2003) and Lehmann
(2002), available on line at: http://www.christianlehmann.eu/publ/ASSidUE09.pdf . We return to this issue below.
2
See, for instance, Traugott (1982; 1989; 2003); Sweetser (1990). Compare, as an example of subjectification, the
semantic evolution of the English word still, from a spatial item (‘stable in space’: still water, a still day), through
metaphorical (‘space for time’) interpretation as a temporal item (‘stable in time’: He’s still there), to a modal
‘concessive cancellative’ (‘stable in the attitude of the speaker’: Even if it rains, we can still go for a walk). Compare
also the development of English whilst (temporal to adversative), since (temporal to causal), etc.
3
William Labov has used this phrase in many of his publications.
4
See especially Croft (2000); McMahon & McMahon (2012).
5
See, for instance, Ringe, Warnow & Taylor (2002).
6
Compare the following claim by Kiparsky (2008): ‘If language change is constrained by grammatical structure, then
synchronic assumptions have diachronic consequences. Theories of grammar can then in principle contribute to
explaining properties of change, or conversely be falsified by historical evidence.’ (‘Universals constrain change;
change results in typological generalizations.’
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language; but what if change were an essential part of the definition of language...? We can now
appreciate anew the perceptive ‘pre-Saussurian’ observation that Hugo Schuchardt (1842-1927)
made 130 years ago: ‘Jedes Stadium der Sprache ist ein Uebergangsstadium’ [‘Every stage of
language is a transitional stage’] (see Schuchardt 1885).
1.2. Various areas of study

phonetics (the study of) speech sounds
phonology (the study of) linguistic sound-systems7
morphology (the study of) grammatical exponence, or ‘minimal meaningful units’
syntax (the study of) relationships between words (or between morphemes)
lexis (the study of) vocabulary
semantics (the study of) linguistic meaning
pragmatics (the study of) the relationship between language and the ‘real world’
etc.
1.3. Three levels of enquiry

observation what changes occur (in this case, in the history of French)?
description how do they occur?
explanation why do they occur?
1.4. Variation as the seed of change; change as the consequence of variation

Languages are not monoliths
How languages don’t change (despite the impression given by many books on the history of French
and other languages!) — the ‘metachronic fallacy’:
A → B ✘
In other words, people don't suddenly wake up one morning to find that a language has changed
overnight! Malcolm Bradbury’s fictional Stalinist state of Slaka, in which this sort of thing
happens, is, of course, a parody...
‘But on the third day, when he rises, and goes down to the lobby, to collect, on his way to breakfast, the
red-masted newspaper, he senses that something has changed. Then, over the slow breakfast, he sees
what the change is, a perfectly small one: P’rtyuu Populatuuu has become P’rtyii Populatiii again.’
Malcolm Bradbury, Rates of Exchange (London: Secker & Warburg, 1983)
How languages do change: A → A/B → B ✔︎

How languages sometimes ‘stay the same’: A → A/B → A ✔︎
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In fact, Chambers & Trudgill (1998), looking at dialect differences, distinguish between pronunciation (neither
systematic nor systemic), phonetics (systematic, but not systemic), and phonology (both systematic and systemic).
Compare: pronunciation, English schedule [ʃedjuəәl] vs. [skedjuəl], but shed [ʃed] vs. *[sked], etc. (just affects one
word, so unsystematic); phonetics Spanish la semana [la semana] vs. [la hemana], English better [betə] vs. [beʔəә]
(systematic, but does not impinge on lexical distinctions, therefore not systemic); phonology Spanish arrollo ([aroʎo]
or [arojo]) vs. arroyo (only ever [arojo]), or cierra ([θjera] or [sjera]) vs. sierra (only ever [sjera]), English putt [pʌt] or
(Northern) [pʊt] vs. put (only ever [pʊt] (systematic and does impinge on lexical distinctions, so also systemic).
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1.5. Two stages of change: actuation and propagation
A change emerges, giving rise to variation (‘actuation’). Subsequently, this change may spread
through the language (‘propagation’).8
An analogy from evolutionary biology: Mutations arise, selection favours certain mutations, which
thrive at the expense of others.
The analogy is not exact, as linguistic ‘mutations’ are in general less random than biological ones
(they can be motivated — see below) and linguistic ‘selection’ generally has a greater element of
randomness (although it may to some extent be socially determined — again, see below).
However, it is thought-provoking.
FURTHER READING: For the relationship between (random) mutation and natural selection in
evolutionary biology, see almost any book by Richard Dawkins — for instance, Climbing Mount
Improbable (London: Viking, 1996; paperback edition, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1997).
A high-level discussion of the analogies between linguistic change and biological change can be
found in Croft (2000). Croft argues, inter alia, that plant evolution, which allows cross-
fertilization and hybridization (see §1.7.2 below), may be a more relevant analogy for language
change than animal evolution.
A typology of language variation
diachronic variation variation through time (what historical linguistics is all about)
diatopic variation variation according to place; geographical variation
diastratic variation variation according to social class
diagenic variation variation according to sex/gender
diaphasic variation variation according to register or style
diamesic variation variation according to medium (written vs. spoken, etc.)9
1.5.1. The propagation of change as a social phenomenon

Sociological factors creation of identity (generally with respect to a ‘reference group’)
move towards élite norms (‘overt prestige’)
move away from élite norms (‘covert prestige’)
conscious change (‘change from above’)
unconscious change (‘change from below’)
These factors may work on an intralinguistic level (i.e., dialect contact) or an interlinguistic level
(i.e., language contact).10
1.5.2. The uniformitarian hypothesis

See Labov (1994), especially chapter 1: ‘The use of the present to explain the past’, pp. 9-27.
Uniformitarianism is succinctly defined as follows by Ringe, Warnow & Taylor (2002: 60-61):
8
On this crucial point, see Weinreich, Herzog & Labov (1968).
9
In practice, the distinction between written and spoken language is often more diaphasic than diamesic.
10
Classic studies of the use of linguistic variables to express or create social identity include Labov (1963), Milroy
(1987), and Eckert (1989; 2000). On overt and covert prestige, see Trudgill (1983a), chapter 4
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‘The U[niformitarian] P[rinciple] holds that we can constrain our hypotheses about the structure and
history of languages of the past only by reference to what we know of contemporary language structures,
linguistic behaviour and changes in progress, since the recoverable information about any language or
speech community of the past is always far more limited than what we can know about languages whose
native speakers we can still observe; and, further, that we can extrapolate into prehistory (and across gaps
in the historical record) only on the basis of what we know from the study of contemporary languages and
the actually documented past. Positing for any time in the past any structure or development inconsistent
with what is known from modern work on living languages is unacceptable, and positing for prehistory
any type of long-term development that we do not observe in documented history is likewise
unacceptable, unless it can be demonstrated that there has been some relevant change in the conditions of
language acquisition or use between the past time in question and later periods which can be observed or
have been documented.’
1.6. Internal and external change

1.6.1. Internal change
physiological factors production (articulation) i.e., speaker
perception ([acoustics], audition) i.e., hearer
psychological factors ease of processing

sense of pattern (‘regularity’ — but in fact more complicated!)
FURTHER READING: The idea that speakers have a role in language change is not hard to grasp.
On the role of the hearer in language change, see Ohala (1989; 1992; 1993).
1.6.1.1. What is regularity? Synchronic regularity vs. diachronic regularity

Sturtevant’s paradox (Edgar H. Sturtevant, 1875-1952), first articulated in Sturtevant (1947):
‘Phonetic laws are regular but produce irregularities.
Analogic creation is irregular but produces regularity.’
Diachronic regularity often produces synchronic irregularity, whilst diachronic irregularity often
produces synchronic regularity.
The dominant view of sound change in the nineteenth century (echoed in the quotation from
Sturtevant) was that it was exceptionless — that is, a given change took place whenever its
structural description was met, regardless of the particular word involved. This position was
associated with the Neogrammarians (Junggrammatiker), a group of German scholars, of whom the
most famous are probably Karl Brugmann (1849-1919), Berthold Delbrück (1842-1922), Hermann
Osthoff (1847-1909), and Hermann Paul (1846-1921). However, Hugo Schuchardt (1842-1927)
disagreed, and, following pioneering work on linguistic geography (especially the work on the Atlas
linguistique de la France by Gilliéron & Edmont) at the turn of the twentieth century, a rival
hypothesis grew up, according to which sound change took place according to the model of lexical
diffusion — in other words, a sound change took place in some words before others. The ‘slogan’
of the lexical diffusion camp was: ‘Chaque mot a son histoire’ [‘Every word has its [own] history’].
A problem for historical linguists with access to only scant data is that the end result of a sound
change which applies ‘across the board’ at the same time and the end result of a sound change
which is lexically diffuse but which does eventually propagate right through the lexicon are
identical, and the data may not permit the two processes to be distinguished.
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Throughout much of the twentieth century, the lexical diffusion hypothesis was rather airily
dismissed. In fact, there is some evidence that at least some sound changes are lexically diffuse.
Examples of such changes are not hard to find. Extremely frequent items (such as Spanish Vuestra
Merced > Usted, French Mon Sieur > Monsieur) may undergo irregular sound change ([bwestra
meɾθeð] > [usteð], [mɔ̃sjør] > [məsjø]); although ‘one off’ changes are not generally regarded as
examples of lexical diffusion, they do indicate that sound change may affect individual words (this
type of development may be especially frequent when the item in question becomes
grammaticalized: compare Usted, Monsieur, and English do not > don’t, is > ’s, has > ’s, isn’t it? >
innit?, etc.).
The best recent discussion of the Neogrammarian hypothesis vs. lexical diffusion can be found in
William Labov Principles of Linguistic Change: volume 1, internal factors (Oxford: Blackwell,
1994), Part D ‘The regularity controversy’, chapters 15-18, pp. 419-543.
Consider now the following example overleaf of regular changes operating on regular forms to
produce irregularity. Regular and transparent masculine/feminine adjective pairs in Latin (here
given in the accusative case) undergo regular sound change to yield opaque outcomes in French.
Latin sound change(s) French gloss

ROTVNDVM/ROTVNDAM rond/ronde ‘round’
[rotʊndʊm]/[rotʊndam] ➔ apocope, lenition, ... ➔ [rɔ]̃ /[rɔ̃d]
BONVM/BONAM bon/bonne ‘good’
[bɔnʊm]/[bɔnam] ➔ apocope, (de)nasalization, ... ➔ [bɔ]̃ /[bɔn]
SICCVM/SICCAM sec/sèche ‘dry’
[sɪk:ʊm]/[sɪk:am] ➔ apocope, palatalization, ... ➔ [sɛk]/[sɛʃ]
As an example of irregular change leading to regularity, we might take the past tense of certain
verbs in English. Strove has become strived for many speakers; throve has become thrived for most
speakers. This change makes the past tense of these verbs more regular — strive, strived and
thrive, thrived, just like arrive, arrived. But it’s not a regular, ‘across the board’ change — there’s
no sign of drove becoming *drived, for instance (possibly because of its high frequency; see
below).
However, the waters appear to be muddied by the fact that, in many varieties of American English,
dived, the regular past tense of the verb dive, has been replaced by the irregular from dove. How
can we account for a variety in which strove becomes strived, yet dived becomes dove? Is this
simply random or chaotic?
Probably not. The arguments here lead us to distinguish between global and local environments.
Globally, most English verbs are regular, forming their past tense in -ed. The shift from strove to
strive is therefore regularization in a global sense. But, if we take English verbs indicating manner
of motion with an /aɪ/ in their stem, we find that, fairly systematically, they form their past tense by
Ablaut or apophony — i.e., by changing their vowel, in this case to /əʊ/: compare drive, drove; ride,
rode; write, wrote; rise, rose, etc. Seen within this local environment, dive becoming dove is a
regularization.
1.6.1.2. Frequency and language change

Frequency is also an important issue here. In general, very frequent items are both more
susceptible to irregular sound change and less likely to undergo analogical regularization. In
other words, as a rule of thumb, the more frequent an item, the more likely it is to exhibit
irregularity (although some very frequent items are none the less regular).
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It is important when discussing frequency to distinguish between types and tokens. Types are
individual items, tokens are occurrences of those items. You might like to think about how many
words there are in the sentence The cat sat on the mat (there are two correct answers!). We
sometimes get different answers according to which class of items we are dealing with. For
instance, the statement that ‘most English verbs are regular’ is almost a truism (that’s what ‘regular’
means) — but only as a statement about types (i.e., most of the verbs listed in the Oxford English
Dictionary, etc. form their past tense and past participle in -ed). If we look at tokens, the situation
changes, and the statement is probably false, because, in an extended sample (say, a million words)
of English text, most of the verb forms are going to be of common verbs like be, have, go, make,
do, etc., all of which are irregular.
1.6.1.3. Inferential reasoning and language change

At this point, it is worth considering how mechanisms of language change relate to the mechanisms
of inference familiar from philosophy.
Deduction takes a case, applies a law to it, and reaches a conclusion (or result). If the law is valid,
then the conclusion is of necessity valid. Example:
Case: Daphne is a cat
Law: All cats like milk
Conclusion: Daphne likes milk
Induction infers laws by generalization from observed phenomena. Example:
Observation 1: Daphne is a cat
Observation 2: Daphne likes milk
Conclusion = Law: (Therefore) All cats like milk
Induction is our natural way of forming hypotheses about the world; it is how human knowledge
advances. Of course, the hypotheses are not certain and can be falsified by further observation —
but they are normally plausible.
Both deduction and induction (often jointly) play an important role in language change. If we take
the relevant locus of change to be the child’s acquisition of the language, then the child is
constantly formulating hypotheses (induction) and then applying them (deduction). Clearly, the
inferential reasoning involved is not conscious in these cases; but it equally clearly exists.
For instance, it is clear how a combination of induction and deduction can account for analogical
change of the type described above. Just as a child observes Daphne the cat drinking milk with
gusto and concludes that cats in general like milk, so it hears a verb form wanted, and realizes that
this is the past tense of the verb want. By induction:
Observation 1: Want is a verb

Observation 2: Want forms its past tense by adding -ed at the end
Conclusion = Law: (Therefore) All verbs from their past tense by adding -ed at the end
and thence by deduction
Case: Fight is a verb

Law: All verbs form their past tense by adding -ed at the end
Conclusion: (Therefore) The past tense of fight is fighted
In this case, subsequent evidence modifies the hypothesis, and the child comes to learn the form
fought. But in certain circumstances (see the section on analogy above), it may be that the child’s
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hypothesis is not overridden, resulting in an analogical extension of the regular form and a change
in the language — hence, for instance, throve > thrived.
There is a third logical possibility, abduction, which, unlike deduction and induction is logical only
in the sense that it exists — it does not result in a conclusion that can be sustained in logic.
Consider the following
Case: Daphne likes milk

Law: All cats like milk
Conclusion: (Therefore) Daphne is a cat
Clearly, this conclusion does not hold — Daphne may indeed be a cat, but she could just as well be
a woman, a mongoose, or a hippopotamus.
Despite being logically flawed, abduction does seem to play a significant role in language
acquisition, and hence in language change. A relevant example concerns the ‘prepositional object’
of Spanish. Contrast Vi la pared / *Vi a la pared with Vi a la mujer / *Vi la majer. As a rule,
definite human objects in Spanish require the preposition a, even when they are direct objects. This
state of affairs is not found in Latin — how did it arise?
The dative is the rarest case in Latin — almost its only function is to encode participants who are
affected by an action: beneficiaries or ‘maleficiaries’. The Latin case system does not survive into
Spanish, and the functions of the dative are taken over by the preposition a (< AD). (Note that we
must distinguish this dative use of a from the lative [sic] use, encoding motion to or towards: in
Spanish they behave differently with respect to pronominalization: compare Di un libro a Santiago
[person] > Le di un libro with Voy a Santiago [place] > *Le voy.) The overwhelming majority of
participants affected by an action are definite and human — a trawl through texts will confirm this,
as will a moment’s reflection (one generally gives presents, sings songs, reads letters, etc. to an
identifiable human being rather than an inanimate object). Consider, therefore, the following
abductive reasoning:
Case: This object is definite and human

Law: Dative objects are definite and human
Conclusion: (Therefore) This object is a dative object
A child reasoning along these lines will make all definite human objects, regardless of heir function
in the sentence (direct or indirect ibject) daive. In other words, the semantic and pragmatic
characteristics of the object come to determine its grammatical form through a process of abduction.
On abduction in language change, see especially Andersen (1973), and, for a rejoinder, Deutscher
(2002).
1.6.2. External change — language contact
Some definitions... A substratum (or substrate) language is one that is already spoken in an area
when speakers of another language arrive and become dominant — socially, culturally, politically,
and linguistically — but which none the less influences this new language. A superstratum (or
superstrate) language is one that is spoken by new arrivals in an area who, however dominant
socially and politically, ultimately fail to dominate linguistically, but still influence the language
which is already spoken in the area. An adstratum (or adstrate) language is one that influences
another ‘from the side’, as it were, without any mass geographical displacement of speakers.
Schematically:
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SUPERSTRATUM
↓
language ‘L’ ← ADSTRATUM
↑
SUBSTRATUM
Substratum hypotheses come with a health warning! Let us take Romance as an example. The
major problem is that the languages invoked as influences were in most cases displaced by Latin
and often had no written form; we therefore have little evidence of them, and cannot assess the
claims with any confidence. Sometimes, the only ‘knowledge’ we have of a substratum language is
its alleged influence on Latin! Beware of this type of circular argument.
FURTHER READING: A sober rehearsal of the problems associated with substratum hypotheses in
Romance is Wanner (1977).
Even superstratum and adstratum languages may present this type of difficulty (although normally
to a lesser degree; but see the comments on Frankish below). The fact that we often have modern
languages that are ‘related to’ (for this metaphor, see §1.7.1) the earlier ones doesn’t always help us
to disentangle the problems: Spanish is ‘related to’ Latin, but is very different from it!
A particularly interesting language from this point of view is French. The major substratum
influence invoked for French is Celtic, specifically the Gaulish language which is known to have
been spoken in Gaul before (and for some time after) the arrival of the Romans. Our knowledge of
this language is limited to several hundred largely fragmentary inscriptions. It is related, at some
distance, to Welsh and Irish, but also has some affinities with the Italic languages, of which Latin is
one. The major superstratum influence is Germanic, specifically the Western Germanic Frankish
language spoken by the Germanic tribe which occupied the northern part of what is now France.
We have even less direct knowledge of this language, although it is assumed to be the ancestor of
modern Dutch. Other parts of Gaul were occupied by tribes speaking Eastern Germanic languages
— the Visigoths (albeit briefly) in the south and the Burgundians in the east. It has been argued
that the tripartite linguistic division of Gaul/France into French (langue d’oïl), Occitan (langue
d’oc) and Franco-Provençal (map on facing page) can be attributed to these different superstratum
influences — see George Jochnowitz (1973), who also points out that the linguistic boundaries
correlate with non-linguistic differences such as traditional legal systems, patterns of crop rotation,
and the pitch of roofs on houses. The major adstratum influences in the history of French have been
Latin (as the language of the church, law, and scholarship), Italian (through cultural and court
influence in the sixteenth century), and, more recently, Arabic (as spoken in France’s North African
colonies) and English.
Different types of ‘colonization’ and ‘invasion’:
The colonizers send an administrative élite, but don’t really populate the new territory
(the Romans in Gaul? — compare the British in India)
The colonizers populate the new territory
(the Romans in Dacia (now Romania)? — compare the British in Australia)
The colonizers settle in the new territory, but adopt its language
(the Franks in Gaul — compare the Normans in England)
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Map of the Gallo-Romance area, showing major language and dialect divisions. From Günter
Holtus, Michael Metzeltin & Christian Schmitt (eds.), Lexikon der romanistischen Linguistik: Band
V, (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1990), adapted from Pierre Bec, Manuel pratique de philologie romane (2
tomes) (Paris: Picard, 1970-1971).
Note that this neat map, with its well-behaved boundaries between ‘languages’, ‘dialects’, and
‘dialect areas’, represents a massive simplification of the true picture. In fact, there is a multitude
of transitional zones (some of which are represented by the hatching on the map). Isoglosses (lines
which separate areas with different linguistic characteristics) are at best an idealization. See
Chambers & Trudgill (1998), chapter 7: ‘Boundaries’ and chapter 8: ‘Transitions’.
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Why, by the way, did the Franks, who were the socially dominant group and had their own
language, adopt Latin? Latin was the language of an established culture and civilization, which
could certainly be seen as more advanced than that of the Franks; but this sort of argument is
ultimately subjective. The Franks had laws and literature, too. There is, however, one striking
objective cultural difference between the two languages — unlike Frankish, Latin was written.
Compare Toon’s comments on Old English (Toon 1983:2):
‘A preliterate people had conquered a new land and had established there a new social order. [...]
Members of a culture as pervasively literate as our own need to be reminded of the magnitude of that
change. In oral societies, culture and history reside exclusively in memory; social and political structures
depend entirely upon present and immediate balances of power. Spoken agreements are valid only as
long as those who spoke them choose to remember them; material possessions are limited to what an
individual can grasp and defend. Literacy makes possible a past independent of memory. Written
documents outlive convenience and document ownership; bookkeeping makes possible more complex
administrative structures; a king can make a permanent ally by granting a privilege for all time in a
written charter.’
However, this can’t be the whole story, as many Germanic languages that came into contact with
Latin (such as the Old English that Toon is talking about) evolved their own written form as a
result. There must have been other cultural and/or demographic factors at work, as well. For
instance, it’s possible that — like the Normans in England — the Franks, despite their power and
influence, just weren’t numerous enough to impose their language in the long term.
1.6.2.1. L1 and L2 in language contact — borrowing and imposition

We may distinguish two different types of language change through contact, according to whether
the initiators of the change are first- or second-language speakers (L1 vs. L2). One of these is
borrowing, which is defined as transfer due to recipient-language agentivity. In this case,
speakers of a language adopt elements of a foreign language into their own. This is perhaps most
characteristic of adstratum, but is also found to an extent with superstratum (the Latin-speakers of
Gaul, for instance, will have adopted Frankish words into their speech). Contrasting with this
mechanism is imposition, defined as transfer due to source-language agentivity. Here, speakers
of a language attempt to speak a foreign language; but, as L2 speakers, they are unable to master the
new language fully, and so inevitably transfer elements of their native speech into it. This process
is characteristic of both substratum and superstratum — in terms of the history of French, of Celts
learning Latin and of Franks learning Latin.
FURTHER READING: Although similar ideas are to be found in earlier work on language contact
(see, for instance, Thomason & Kaufman 1988), the theory of contact outlined above is
especially associated with two scholars — Frans van Coetsem and Donald Winford. See
especially van Coetsem (1988; 2000) and Winford (2003; 2005; 2010).
1.7. Two simple models of language change — trees and waves

1.7.1. The Stammbaumtheorie
All of the above should make us slightly suspicious of the traditional view of language change,
embodied in the metaphor of the ‘family tree’ (the Stammbaumtheorie of August Schleicher (1821-
1868); see Schleicher 1853, 1863, 1865), which is probably still the dominant view — at least
amongst non-linguists — of the historical relationships amongst languages). In this model,
Spanish, French, Italian, etc. are all ‘related to’ the other Romance languages, of which they are
‘sisters’ or ‘cousins’, and all of them are ‘descended’ from Latin (note the extensions of the ‘family’
metaphor).
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Latin
Ibero-Romance Gallo-Romance Italo-Romance Daco-Romance
Portuguese Catalan Occitan Franco- ... ... ... ...

Provençal
Spanish French Italian Romanian etc.
1.7.1.1. An arguably more accurate ‘family tree’
Latin fragmented into many different dialects, essentially a continuum; subsequently a handful of
these dialects were ‘selected’ to become ‘standard’ languages.
Latin
Spanish French Italian Romanian etc.
(In fact, even this representation is not strictly accurate, because the ‘standard’ language is often
based on a dialect which has been koineized through contact — see §1.9 below.)
1.7.2. The Wellentheorie

Contrast the Wellentheorie (‘wave theory’) pioneered by Johannes Schmidt (1843-1901) (see
Schmidt 1872)) and taken up by Hugo Schuchardt (1842-1927) (whom we’ve already met in §1.1),
partly as a result of his interest in pidgins and creoles, in which he was well ahead of his time. In
this view, changes are ‘waves’ or ‘ripples’, which propagate through a language from different
points, at different rates, and to different extents, yielding a highly differentiated pattern over time.
By extension, a given language can be seen as the intersection of different influences, or successive
‘waves’.
Gaulis h
Latin
French
Frankis h
11
1.7.3. Are they both right?
Recent work by Labov (2007) seeks to reconcile these two approaches to change in an interesting
way, by claiming that the ‘family tree’ model accounts for linguistic changes which are the result of
child language acquisition, whilst the ‘wave’ model must be invoked to explain change resulting
from imperfect learning by adults. Once again, the L1/L2 distinction turns out to be crucial.
1.7.3.1. Transmission and diffusion

Transmission, involving first-language (L1) learners (by definition, children), is monotonic — i.e.,
by and large, each generation continues to move the language in the same direction. The ‘ratchet
principle’ of Lieberson (2000), regarding monotonicity in fashion, is relevant here. Through
transmission, speakers acquire both structures and systems, even though the systems may
undergo modification from one generation to the next. That change proceeds in a particular
direction is largely the result of social cohesion. Groups that are socially separated
(characteristically through distance) will tend to develop differently, and their speech will grow
apart — hence the splits typical of the ‘family tree’. This view of the differentiation of speech
varieties through the separation of communities had already been articulated by Paul (1880). It
bears obvious resemblances to the arguments for speciation through separation put forward by
evolutionary biologists. Transmission represents continuity in change.
Diffusion, involving second-language (L2) learners (who may be adults or children beyond the
‘critical period’ for L1 acquisition), is not necessarily monotonic. Through diffusion, speakers
acquire structures, but, crucially, fail to acquire the systems which go with them and determine
their distribution. The result is the piecemeal influence of one language or dialect on another —
hence the rather random intersections which characterize the ‘wave model’. Diffusion represents
discontinuity in change.
1.7.3.1.1. Transmission (internal change; first-language acquisition)

Transmission, as we have just seen, crucially involves native-language acquisition as the locus of
change. For this reason, it has been particularly investigated within the generative tradition, with its
notions of the innateness hypothesis, the ‘language acquisition device’ (‘LAD’), and parameter
setting. See (especially) two works by Lightfoot (1991; 1995). If we accept that variability is the
seed of change, then a particularly important issue is the acquisition of variability, through variable
rules and/or competing grammars at the level of the individual (Anthony Kroch calls the latter
phenomenon ‘diglossia’, an unfortunate choice of term, as the word had already been used in a
totally different sense by Ferguson 1959 and Fishman 1967) — see Kroch, (1989; 2001).
1.7.3.1.2. Diffusion (external change; language contact)

Diffusion, as we have seen, represents discontinuity in change. An extreme example of this
discontinuity can be found in creole languages, which, in one sense have no transmission element.
Creoles, viewed as nativized pidgins, are languages which, in the words of Muysken (in Arends et
al. 1995), we can see coming into being. If we ask: ‘What was the language that the present-day
Spanish or French speech community spoke two thousand years ago?’, the answer is clearly:
‘Latin’. There has been diffusion of other elements into that original Latin, which has also been
altered by transmission — but there is an unbroken thread of transmission over thousands of years.
The same is not true of creoles. If we ask: ‘What was the language that the present-day Haitian
creole speech community spoke two thousand years ago?’, the answer is: ‘There wasn’t one’.
Haitian, like other creoles, came into existence when a generation which was exposed to a pidgin
(nobody’s native language, and arguably not a language at all) acquired it as a native language, and,
in so doing, vastly expanded it, possibly through the ‘bioprogram’ — for this concept, see
especially Bickerton (1991). Creoles, in this sense, are pure contact languages, representing
12
absolute diffusion and total discontinuity. Of course, once they exist as native languages, they
undergo transmission, just like all other languages.
1.8. ‘Central’ vs. ‘peripheral’ languages — ripples in the pond?

The Italian linguist Matteo Bartoli suggested many years ago that language change took place
differentially, according to whether the variety involved was central or peripheral to the linguistic
area involved (in the case of the Romance languages, the Roman Empire). His idea was that
language change spread from the centre of a linguistic area towards the periphery rather in the way
that ripples spread in a pond when you throw a stone into it. (The similarities with the
Wellentheorie, above, should be obvious.) According to this theory, central areas should be more
innovating and peripheral areas more conservative. This works well for some features in a variety
of languages, including Romance; unfortunately, there are also many examples of the peripheral
area innovating and the central area remaining conservative. So, if this sort of distinction does
exist, it probably isn’t for Bartoli’s reasons.
FURTHER READING: Bartoli’s main statements of his theory are Bartoli (1925; 1929; 1933;
1945). Hall (1946) is a fairly comprehensive hatchet-job on Bartoli — it’s also useful if you
don’t read Italian, because it contains a summary of Bartoli’s main ideas in English. Hall’s
paper provoked a rather pained reaction in the form of Bonfante (1947) — see especially pp.
368-374. Two subsequent commentaries are Mańczak (1965; 1976), which support Bartoli’s
findings, but reject his explanation of them.
1.9. Simplification and complexification
A lot of ink has been spilt on trying to answer the question: Do languages grow more simple or
more complex? Hand in hand with this debate, some scholars have argued that languages evolve in
the direction of greater ‘efficiency’. However, we don’t really know what an efficient language
looks like, and, if we were to try to define the concept, we’d probably begin by saying that an
efficient language was one that stood still — change in itself is communicatively inefficient.
Needless to say, that doesn’t help us! There’s another problem, too — what’s efficient for the
speaker isn’t what’s efficient for the hearer. For the speaker, the ideal language would be some
form of telepathy — expend no physical energy at all and still have your interlocutor understand
every nuance of what you want to say. What hearers would find helpful, on the other hand, is
repetition and redundancy (you’ll observe that I’ve used two words there), so that if they miss
something first time round, they can find it elsewhere in the message. In other words, what
speakers ideally want is incompatible with what hearers ideally want — and, just to make matters
worse, we are all both speakers and hearers, so this battle is constantly being fought out in the mind
of every one of us.
However, the debate on simplification vs. complexification has recently been placed on a firmer
footing by Trudgill (2010; 2011), who begins by pointing out a paradox. Sociolinguists claim that
language contact leads to simplification (often through the process known as koineization or
dialect levelling — see, for instance, Siegel 1985), whereas linguistic typologists see contact as a
cause of complexification. Who is right?
Trudgill suggests the following typology:

Isolation (little or no contact): These languages are conservative and retain existing complexity.
Icelandic is a good example. The mainland Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian,
Swedish), which derive from the same ancestor, but which have had much greater contact with
other languages (especially Low German during the Hanseatic period), have lost the nominal case
system, ‘quirky’ subject constructions, and a host of other complexities. Many (but not all) of their
dialects have also reduced the number of genders from three to two.
13
Short-term contact involving L2 learning by adults: These languages will exhibit simplification,
often drastic. The extreme example is pidgin.
Long-term contact where territory is shared, and involving child bilingualism: These languages
will exhibit complexification, mainly through additive borrowing. The extreme example is the
Sprachbund or ‘linguistic area’, such as the Balkan Sprachbund (see Sandfeld 1930), where a
variety of unrelated (or, in some cases, only very distantly related) languages — Romanian
(relevant for our purposes as a Romance language), Greek, Albanian, Bulgarian, and, to some
extent, Turkish — share a number of characteristic features which are not found in much more
closely related languages.
Note that, as was the case with the transmission/diffusion distinction discussed in §1.7.3 above (to
which Trudgill’s discussion is clearly related), the distinction between L1 and L2 speakers is
crucial.
Note, too, that an interesting (and mildly controversial) conclusion to be drawn from Trudgill’s
work is that languages are not equally complex. The ‘equal complexity’ hypothesis has been an
article of faith for many linguists. But, as Ruhlen (1994:148) notes: ‘all extant human languages
are today considered of equal “complexity” by virtually all linguists, despite the fact that there is no
recognized way of measuring complexity in language’. Compare also Lewontin (1990:740): ‘We
would all agree that a human being is more complex than a soap bubble [...] but we cannot all agree
that a dog is more complex than a fish, although fishlike forms preceded doglike forms by 500
million years and were their ancestors. [...] What in fact do we mean with complexity?’
1.10 Social structure and language change
It is clear from the foregoing that language change is not independent of the type of society in
which the language is spoken.
1.10.1 Social networks and language change
Milroy (1987) investigated the role of social networks in language variation and change, studying a
number of communities in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland. Speakers will characteristically
have interchanges with: i) members of their family; ii) their friends; iii) their neighbours, and iv)
their workmates. The greater the overlap between these categories of people (i.e., the denser the
network), the higher the network strength score of the individual involved. The broad finding
from Milroy’s work is that the greater an individual’s social network strength score, the more likely
that person is to exhibit local (i.e., non-standard) variants. This has a number of important
consequences. One of these is that the role of variables such as social class, gender/sex, etc. in
language variation and change may be epiphenomenal. In some of the areas studied by Milroy,
men went out to work, whilst women did not; moreover, when they married, women tended to
move to live with their husbands rather than vice versa. Women therefore had a lower network
strength score on two counts (no interchanges with workmates; fewer interchanges with family). In
these communities, Milroy observed the ‘expected’ pattern of sociolinguistic variation — men used
more local variants and women more standard variants. However, in one area, there was high male
unemployment and most women went out to work (in the same place). Women therefore had a
higher network strength score than men. Here, the ‘expected’ pattern was not observed — rather
the reverse. Women used more local non-standard variants than men. It appears therefore that
linguistic behaviour, at least in the communities studied by Milroy, is not directly correlated with
variables such as social class, gender/sex, etc., but rather with network strength score.
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1.10.2 Societal typology and language change
Andersen (1988) and Røyneland (2004), Kerswill (2015), building on the work of Milroy and
others, distinguish two typological parameters of societal variation: a sociocommunicational or
demographic parameter (open vs. closed) and an attitudinal or ideological parameter
(endocentric vs. exocentric).
Closed societies are essentially societies in which the majority of the population have high network
strength scores (à la Milroy).
Open societies are essentially societies in which the majority of the population have low network
strength scores (à la Milroy).
Endocentric societies set great store by solidarity within the community and are suspicious of or
hostile to outside influence.
Exocentric societies accept or even welcome outside influence and regard solidarity within the
community as secondary.
This yields a four-way typology, as follows.
Closed endocentric societies. Characteristically, these are isolated rural communities, although
many metropolitan inner cities now also conform to this definition. Inner London, where a strong
sense of community holds amongst people of many different ethnic and geographical origins has
led to a high degree of linguistic contact and the emergence of ‘new London English’ or
‘multicultural London English’ (see Cheshire et al. 2011, Kerswill 2015).
Open endocentric societies. These are typically urban centres with both a strong sense of
community and strong external contacts. They tend to be sources of innovation, from which new
forms diffuse outwards; they are ‘optimal senders’ of language change. Cities such as London and
Paris have played, and to some extent continue to play, this role, which is also played at a regional
level in Britain by Manchester, Liverpool, and Glasgow.
Closed exocentric societies. These are low-contact communities which none the less have a
positive orientation to outside norms. Because of this orientation, they are receptive to change, but,
in Kerswill’s phrase (Kerswill 2015), this is essentially ‘change driven by ideology, not change
driven by contact’. A good example in the U.K. is inner-city Glasgow.
Open exocentric societies. These are typically very small communities, which are being subsumed
into another community’s identity. They are therefore likely to be transitional and unstable. These
are often rural communities (compare Marshall 2004 on the village of Huntly in Aberdeenshire in
Scotland), but may also be mobile suburban areas (such as outer-city Belfast). They are ‘optimal
receivers’ of language change.
What emerges with some force from these recent studies, is that endocentricity and exocentricity
(i.e., attitudes) appear to be more significant determinants of language than closed vs. open
networks. Note that there had been indications that this may be the case since Labov (1963).
1.11. A problem of focus — the microscope and the telescope

A characteristic feature of the working-class speech of south-east England is the vocalization of
‘dark’ [ł] (i.e., /l/ in non-prevocalic position) to [u]. Recently, this (together with some other
features of this variety) has been spreading through the speech of young people of all classes in
most parts of the country. In other words, it is becoming a marker not of a particular class and/or
geographical area, but of a particular age-group. This phenomenon, which originally entered the
national consciousness and was remarked upon in the 1980s debate over so-called ‘Estuary English’
(the spread of new demotic speech patterns along the River Thames), may have had its origin in the
‘Punk Rock’ movement. Until the mid-1970s, as shown by Trudgill (1983b), it had been
15
fashionable for British rock musicians to attempt (and often fail) to imitate an American accent.
With the success of British rock music, the reverse became fashionable. It was at about this time
that ‘Punk Rock’ bands, made up of young working-class south Londoners came to the fore. Many
of their speech habits began to propagate through the community as a result of ‘covert prestige’ —
very schematically, they came to mark groups of adolescents and young people who wished to
distinguish themselves from (or even rebel against) the generation of their parents. Subsequently,
they came to mark an identity as a young person in a broader sense.
That seems to be that — a specific, circumscribed change, which has taken place in the last thirty or
forty years, and which has a specific, almost punctual, social motivation. But if, instead of looking
at this change through a microscope, we shift focus and use a telescope, an interestingly different
picture emerges. At some stage in the mid- to late seventeenth century — certainly by 1700 —
non-prevocalic [r] started to disappear from British English. This was a gradual development; it
appears to have started in London and spread slowly through the country. There are pockets of
resistance to this day — south-west England, parts of Lancashire, and parts of Northumberland are
still rhotic, as, of course, are most of Scotland and Ireland. The change did not affect much of
North America, which was separated from England by a vast distance (and much of which would
shortly become politically separate, as well), except in a handful of words (cuss < curse, bust <
burst, etc.) — thereby indicating that the change was probably lexically diffuse. But the change
spread out from London and gradually reached most of England. It appears to have begun as a
vocalization of the [r] to schwa; thereafter, in some postvocalic contexts, the schwa fell, leaving us
with the situation we have today.
Now, [l] and [r] are members of the same small class of sounds — the liquids. Indeed, in English,
they are the only two members of this class. A linguistic historian of the year 3000 is going to tell
the following story: there was, in the history of English at the end of the second millennium, a
change which we might refer to as ‘liquid vocalization’. First of all, it affects [r], beginning in the
late seventeenth century. Only about three hundred years later is [l] affected; but we are clearly
dealing with a single, if somewhat drawn out, change.
The microscope offers us a detailed sociolinguistic account. The telescope gives us a structural and
systemic account. The unanswered question is: how do we reconcile the two?
2. An Interlude: the name of the language

An apparently uncontentious statement...
‘2000 years ago, people spoke a language called Latin. Nowadays, people speak Spanish,
Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, etc., which are (largely) mutually unintelligible languages
related to Latin.’
This apparently anodyne analysis leads to a non-question: when did Latin become Spanish, French,
or Italian? The futility of this question becomes clearer if we consider the following equally
‘uncontentious’ statement:
‘2000 years ago, people spoke a language called Chinese. Nowadays, people speak Mandarin,
Hokkien, Hakka, Cantonese, etc., which are (largely) mutually unintelligible dialects of the same
language, which is still called Chinese.’
‘When did Latin become Spanish, French, Italian, etc.?’ and ‘Why didn’t Chinese stop being
Chinese?’ are diachronic analogues of the famous (non-)question: ‘What is the difference between a
language and a dialect?’. The answer is the same: two speech varieties are different languages
(synchronically or diachronically) if that is how speakers perceive them (or wish to perceive
them). The question is cultural and ideological, rather than linguistic stricto sensu.
16
This issue is discussed, with specific reference to Romance, by Lloyd (1991) and Janson (1991).
Janson quotes the example of a group of southern African language varieties, which were mutually
intelligible and had no separate names. However, different groups of their speakers were
proselytized by missionaries from Britain, who named the language Setswana, missionaries from
France, who called it Sesotho, and missionaries from Germany, who designated it Sepedi. There
thus grew up a new sense of linguistic separateness which had not existed previously, even though
nothing about the language itself had actually changed. Similar examples abound. Chambers &
Trudgill (1998:9-12) point out that the area known as Skåne, now the southernmost region of
Sweden, was Danish until 1658, when it was conquered by the Swedes. Until then, the inhabitants
had claimed to be speaking a dialect of Danish; a generation later, with their language practically
unchanged, they claimed to speak a variety of Swedish. The language had not changed, but social,
political, and geographical perceptions of it had (to use the appropriate technical term, it had been
heteronomous with — i.e., perceived as a dialect of — Danish, but became heteronomous with
Swedish). Equally striking is the example of Afrikaans (also mentioned by Chambers & Trudgill,
loc. cit.); until the 1920s, this variety was considered heteronomous with Dutch, but, with the
advent of greater Afrikaner nationalism, both Dutch and South Africans came to view it as an
autonomous language. A slightly different, but related, phenomenon is discussed by Gerritsen
(1999).
Crucial in this context are the Carolingian reforms of c. 800 AD. Charlemagne (c. 742-814) was
King of the Franks from 768 until his death and Emperor from 800. He was not a native speaker of
Latin/Romance, and surrounded himself with courtiers who were likewise non-native speakers (one
of the most famous of whom was Alcuin of York, c. 735-804). By this stage, the spoken vernacular
had developed considerably since the Classical Latin period (the first centuries BC and AD), but the
written language had remained more or less the same. There seems to have been a feeling that the
gulf between the written and spoken language should not be so great, perhaps coupled with a certain
nostalgia for the days of great authors such as Cæsar, Cicero, and Livy. So, whereas the obvious
resolution of the discrepancy might have been to bring writing closer to speech, the opposite path
was taken, and it was determined that the language should be pronounced as it was written. It’s as
if a new ruling class, who were not native speakers of English, arrived in twenty-first-century
Britain, observed the huge differences between the language’s phonology and its spelling system,
and decreed that, since the spelling represented the way English was spoken in a heyday of its
literature (which it does — it’s a pretty accurate reflection of the pronunciation that Chaucer would
have been used to), it should henceforth be given a literal realization. Although only a small
minority of the population could read and write during the Carolingian period, the reforms were far-
reaching. Church services, which most people attended, suddenly became incomprehensible
because of the new pronunciation; and, whilst the ritual parts of the Mass could be understood
precisely because of their ritual nature, sermons fared less well. The Council of Tours, in 813,
sought to remedy this problem by stipulating that priests should preach in rustica romana lingua —
i.e., the way ordinary people spoke, rather than a letter-by-letter pronunciation of the written
language. It is obvious that these circumstances created for the first time a situation which favoured
a conceptual distinction between ‘Latin’ and ‘the vernacular’ (although it would be several
centuries before this vernacular was given a precise name in any Romance-speaking area). An
associated issue is that it soon became necessary to write the vernacular down; and, since it wasn’t
Latin any more, a new spelling system had to be developed, by trial and error. We shall have cause
to return to these points. They are addressed most famously by Wright (1982), and, latterly, from a
different perspective, by Banniard (2013).
17
3. Methodological Preliminaries
All diachronic linguistics and the synchronic study of any language other than in its contemporary
state (even, say, something as recent as nineteenth-century English or Spanish) involves using ‘dead
data’. This fact constrains us in significant ways.
3.1. Sources denied to us
Until very recently, speech in general. We can never be certain, therefore, how a ‘dead’ language
was pronounced; this fact, in turn, can vitiate claims about its phonetics and its phonology.
By definition, native-speaker judgements and intuitions. This limits us, by depriving us of a
natural mode of investigation, and raises the fundamental issue of attestation (see below).
3.2. Sources we do have at our disposal
Essentially, written texts — a ‘dead’ language is inevitably a corpus-based language or ‘text
language’. (Even sound recordings of earlier stages of a language, whether wax cylinders or .mp3
files, constitute a finite corpus.) A corpus-based approach to any language can yield useful results.
However, some scholars have objected to the use of corpora in linguistic research. They argue that
the aim should be to investigate the system that underlies, or lies behind, the data (in other words, to
study competence rather than performance), and that a linguistic hypothesis must apply to the
potentially infinite set of sentences (etc.) of the language, not just to some subset of utterances
(etc.). This view is now rather less prevalent than it used to be. And, anyway, in the case of a
‘dead’ language, the subset (and often a rather random subset at that) is all we’ve got — if it is to
take place at all, the study of a ‘dead’ language has to adopt a corpus-based approach.
3.3. The problem of attestation and the issue of ‘negative evidence’
If a form or structure is not present in our corpus, does this mean it is absent from the
language, too; or is its absence accidental? In the case of a living language, we would go and
check with a native speaker — but, of course, with a ‘dead’ language, we can’t. We can make
intelligent guesses — but, methodologically, that is all they’ll ever be... The importance of the
‘uniformitarian hypothesis’ (see §1.5.2 above) may become clearer at this point.
3.4. The unrepresentative nature of the corpus
Most of what has survived is the result of cultural transmission — that is, texts with a
perceived literary or historical value. Such texts tend to be formal, conservative, or even archaic.
At the other extreme, they may be experimental! Compare George Steiner’s definition (Steiner
1971) of literature as ‘language in a condition of special use’. Ephemera (almost by definition!)
tend not to survive, or not to anything like the same extent. (There are, of course, famous
exceptions, such as the Pompeian graffiti. Some commercial and legal documents also survive
from the Middle Ages.) In addition, there is an element of randomness about the corpus, due
sometimes to human factors and sometimes to natural disasters — manuscripts have been lost or
destroyed in fires or floods; conversely, the inscriptions in everyday Latin scratched on walls at
Pompeii and Herculaneum have come down to us only because they were buried by the eruption of
Vesuvius in 79 A.D.
All of the foregoing means that our perception of the language is skewed — imagine a description
of contemporary English which was based almost entirely on poems, novels, and (to a lesser
degree) plays, together with a handful of wills and mortgage deeds, a shopping-list or two, and the
odd spray-paint ‘tagging’ of a railway carriage or motorway bridge, and which took no account at
all of the spoken language or of other written registers, such as journalism.
18
A majority of mediæval literature is poetry — literary prose is a relative newcomer. This clearly
causes problems, because poetic form imposes special constraints (metre, alliteration, assonance,
rhyme, etc.). However, paradoxically, these same poetic conventions can sometimes help us in
determining how something was pronounced (or even whether or not it was pronounced). For
instance, in Latin verse, when two vowels came into hiatus at a word boundary (i.e., when one word
ended in a vowel and the next word began with a vowel), this yielded a single (vowel for purposes
of scansion. Now, when the first word ended in ‘vowel + <M>’ and the second word began with a
vowel, exactly the same thing happened — the sequence ‘vowel + <M> + vowel’ was also counted
as a single vowel. Thus, schematizing, both BONA ET VERA AMICA and BONAM ET VERAM AMICAM
‘good and true (female) friend’, in the nominative and accusative, respectively, would both be
scanned as BON’ ET VER’ AMICA(M). Poetry (certainly Latin poetry) is usually formal and
conservative. The obvious conclusion to be drawn is that final [m] was no longer pronounced in
any register; and, indeed, we have evidence from other sources for this development. Likewise, we
find that, in the earliest assonating Old French verse, a vowel followed by a nasal consonant may
assonate with the same vowel in any other environment. When this ceases to be the case, and we no
longer find vowels followed by nasal consonants in assonance with vowels not followed by nasal
consonants, we may tentatively assume (despite the fact that the evidence is negative rather than
positive — see §3.3 above) that phonemic nasal vowels have emerged, distinct from their oral
counterparts.
3.5. The problem of manuscripts and editions

• Time. For example, the Serments de Strasbourg, allegedly the earliest text in French (it can be
dated with precision to 14 February, 842 A.D.!), comes down to us in a manuscript dating from 150
years later. How authentic is the text by this stage? Does it represent the language of 842 A.D., the
language of c. 1000 A.D., or some mish-mash of the two?
• Place. If scribes of manuscripts are not from the same area as the author of the text, they will
often add features of their own dialect.
• Hybridization. When there are several manuscript versions of a work, of which no two are the
same, their competing claims have to be assessed, and editors sometimes produce composite texts,
which may well correspond to no single manuscript source.
3.6. The role of editors in falsifying texts

Studer & Waters (1924): i) ‘we have eliminated later Anglo-Normanisms’; ii) ‘it [an emendation]
supplies a more homogeneous [...] text’; iii) ‘A number of Picard forms [...] have been
standardized’
Foulet & Speer (1979): ‘In order to make their texts intelligible to the reader, editors usually
regularize certain orthographical anomalies. Thus, they distinguish between ce ‘this’ and se ‘if’,
between ces ‘these’ and ses ‘his, her’, and between ci ‘here’ and si ‘so, and’ [sic — in fact a marker
of non-switch-reference (i.e., indicating that the subject of the verb is the same as the subject of the
preceding verb)]. When the scribe blurs these distinctions he is set right [my emphasis].’ Cf.
Fleischman (2000).
Many nineteenth-century editions ‘standardize’ orthography, and some even ‘regularize’ the case
flexion — a particularly insidious form of prescriptivism. It may make the text more homogeneous
and easier to read; but it obviously renders it worthless as evidence for the survival or otherwise of
the case system.
FURTHER READING: A good discussion of some of the issues raised in this section can be found
in Lass (1997), especially chapter 2: ‘Written records: evidence and argument’, pp. 44-103;
Labov (1994), especially chapter 1: 'The use of the present to explain the past’, pp. 9-27; and
Fleischman (2000).
19
4. A case-study in language-contact: Latin and Romance influences on English
4.1. Typology of contact (see §1.6.2 above)
4.1.1. Substratum
4.1.1.1. Latin in Britain
Latin was spoken in Britain before the Germanic invasions of the fifth century. It would therefore
have been possible for Latin words to have entered Old English from this source. There appear to
be few, if any, examples of this happening. One candidate is the word street, from Latin STRATA,
the feminine past participle of STERNERE ‘to lay out, pave’. Some other Romance words, such as
cross, did enter English during this period, but as adstratum elements (see §4.1.3. below).
4.1.1.2. Spanish in the United States
Many centuries later, Spanish was arguably a substratum of U.S. English; it was a language spoken
in Florida and the south-western states before they were conquered by ‘Anglos’, and some words
(pueblo, adobe) entered American English as a result. In practice, however, it is difficult to
disentangle substratum and adstratum elements here.
4.1.2. Superstratum
England was conquered by the French-speaking Normans in 1066, and Norman French (or ‘Anglo-
Norman’) was the dominant official language of the country until the late fourteenth century.
Although the ruling class eventually adopted English as their language, it was an English which had
absorbed many Norman French words. ‘Many of the words borrowed [sic] at this stage have
become so much part of the language that many modern speakers find it difficult to think of them as
loan [sic] words’ (Blake 1992:17).
4.1.3. Adstratum
Latin was the language of the church and of scholarly endeavour throughout the Middle Ages.
French remained a fashionable language in high society, and, from the eighteenth to the twentieth
century, was the major language of international diplomacy. Italian and Spanish also had a
cultural cachet. Spanish and Portuguese (and, to a lesser extent, French) existed alongside
English during the colonization of the New World. English absorbed words from all these sources.
Note that different varieties of English sometimes have different adstrata. Compare, for instance:
British English U.S. & Australian English
Cucurbita pepo iuvenis courgettes (French) zucchini (Italian)

Solanum esculentum aubergine (French) eggplant (English!)
For obvious reasons, Spanish has been a much more significant adstratum for U.S. English than it
has for British English.
4.2. Semantic typology of Latin and Romance elements in English
4.2.1. Superstratum items (Norman French)
According to Burnley (1992:429), ‘The very earliest loan [sic] words from French appear in pre-
Conquest documents, and reflect aristocratic values and tastes’. (They might therefore in fact
qualify as adstratum elements.) The social dimension of superstratum in Middle English is shown
by the well-known contrasts between the names for animals and the names for their meat: ox, sheep,
pig vs. beef, mutton, pork. The English-speaking peasant reared the living animal; the French-
speaking aristocrat was more likely to encounter it on a plate.
20
4.2.2. Adstratum items
These words are often broadly culture-bound; that is, they are (for obvious reasons) connected
with the fields in which the languages were pre-eminently used.
Latin church requiem, magnificat, etc.
law executor, arbitrator, proviso, alias, alibi, etc.
academia alma mater, viva (voce), etc.
French diplomacy chargé d’affaires, attaché, coup d’état, etc.
food gourmet, restaurant, café, menu, etc.
fashion haute couture, prêt à porter, etc.
Italian music aria, sonata, toccata, (violon)cello, etc.
Note that Italian words such as cappuccino, pasta, spaghetti are narrowly rather than broadly
culture-bound, in that they relate to specifically Italian items. Likewise, Spanish adstratum items
tend to be more narrowly culture-bound, relating chiefly to Spanish (and Latin-American) food
(e.g., tapas, gazpacho, tacos) and activities such as bull-fighting (toreador, matador, etc.);
however, note aficionado and incommunicado (Spanish incomunicado, with the <m> doubled on
the analogy of communication, etc.). Ironically, the word auto-da-fé, referring to a sentence of the
Spanish Inquisition and its execution, comes from Portuguese!
Other Romance adstratum sources are rare, and tend to be restricted to words denoting narrowly
culture-bound concepts which are difficult to translate, or where use of the original language adds
‘local colour’ to a text, e.g., Romanian securitate ‘[Ceauşescu’s] secret police’; Catalan generalitat
‘government of Catalonia’. Perhaps the best example is the Rumantsch language (spoken in eastern
Switzerland), whose sole contribution to English is its own name!
A semantic typology of French words in English (adapted from Chirol 1973)
Food
Fashion Manufacturing Terms
Types of garment
Materials
Hairdressing and Cosmetics
The Home Furniture
Architectural Terms
Motor Cars
Leisure Games and Sports
Parties, Dancing, Theatre
Travel and Tourism
Culture Literature
Art Painting
Sculpture
Architecture
Music
Society Organization
Behaviour
Relations Politeness
Conversation
Love
‘La masse des gallicismes acquiert ainsi une singulière cohérence ; ce que l’anglais emprunte [sic] à
la France à travers ses mots c’est un art-de-vivre et un savoir-vivre.’ [‘In this way, the great
21
majority of gallicisms form a strikingly coherent group; what English borrows from France through
its vocabulary is an art-de-vivre and a savoir-vivre.’] (Chirol 1973:32)
‘Déplacé du sémantique au stylistique, du dénotatif au connotatif, de l’objectif au subjectif, le statut
du mot devient entièrement verbal. [...] Il est clair qu’aujourd’hui — et sans pour autant nier
l’importance des relations et des échanges techniques, scientifiques et culturels — la majeure partie
des gallicismes de l’anglo-américain assument cette fonction purement mythique.’ [Through a shift
from semantic values to stylistic values, from denotation to connotation, from objectivity to
subjectivity, the word ends up being intrinsically just a word. [...] It is clear that today, for all the
importance of contacts and of technical, scientific, and cultural exchange, the majority of French
elements in British and American English have the function of creating or perpetuating a myth.]
(ibid:30)
However, there is a tremendous number of French words which have made their way into English
since the Renaissance without belonging to any identifiably culture-bound semantic field —
compare reservoir, cul-de-sac, secateurs
4.3. Frequency and distribution — types, tokens, and register (see §1.6.1.2 above)
4.3.1. Frequency
4.3.1.1. Middle English
Baugh (1935) notes that just over 10,000 French words were adopted by Middle English, of which
about 75% remain in use. Barber (1976:166-168) takes a 2% sample of the OED. 697 words are
recorded as arising in Middle English (derivations as well as foreign words). The number of these
items taken from French is 223, or 32%; the number from Latin is 59 (8.46%), and the number that
are ambiguous as between French and Latin 12 (1.72%). The number of new items entering
English from French peaks in the late fourteenth century (interestingly, at a period when French as a
means of communication in England had long been in decline). According to Dekeyser (1986),
91.5% of the Early Middle English lexicon consisted of etymologically ‘English’ words; by the
Later Middle English period, the figure was 78.8%. However, an analysis of tokens (occurrences)
rather than types (dictionary entries) (see the discussion in §1.6.1.2) yields figures of 94.4% and
87.5%, respectively. Although many French words had entered the language, they were not used as
frequently as ‘native’ words. In particular, relatively few functional words (prepositions,
complementizers, etc.), which are characteristically of high frequency, are of French origin (but see
§4.5.1.1. below).
4.3.1.2. Modern English
Barber’s survey contains 1,848 words which enter English between 1500 and 1700. 625 of these
are taken from other languages. 121 are from French (19.4% of foreign words; 6.55% of all new
words), 393 from Latin (62.9%; 21.3%), 16 from Italian (2.56%; 0.866%) and 16 from Spanish or
Portuguese (2.56%; 0.866%). 20 words (3.20%; 1.08%) are ambiguous as between a French origin
and a Latin one. The total number of Latin/Romance words is 566 (90.6%; 30.6%).
Estimates of the number of Latin/Romance words in contemporary English vary; but, here, too, the
proportion of types is undoubtedly greater than the proportion of tokens. (‘Although the majority
of the words contained in modern English dictionaries are, immediately or ultimately, of Latin
origin, English is nevertheless, by [...] its everyday vocabulary, a Teutonic [sic] language’ (Weekley
1924:ix).) Of the original ‘Thorndike 500’ (the 500 commonest word-tokens of English based on a
broad corpus of material, but selected with the aim of teaching children to read — see Thorndike &
Lorge 1944), 79 (or 15.8%) are of Romance (including Latin) origin, as follows:
add, ball, beautiful*, because*, blue, box¶, case, cause, certain, change, city, clear, close, colour,
company, country, course, cover, cross¶, dress, during, face, family, fine, flower, form, fresh,
front, general, hour, just, large, letter, line†, measure, mile, money, mountain, move, paper‡,
part, pass, pay, people, person, picture, piece, place, plain, plant¶, please, point, poor, power,
22
present, reason, receive, remain, remember, rest, rich†, river, rock, save, school‡¶, second, serve,
several, sound¶, state, street¶, sure, table, train, turn, use, very, visit, voice
More detailed conclusions can be drawn from more recent (computerized) word counts. Compare
the Romance items amongst the 500 most frequent words in Caroll et al. (1971) (a 5,088,721-token
cor-pus, containing 86,741 types, and comprising 500-word samples from 1,045 texts used in
schools):
people, use, very, just / used, because*, part, place, different, number, air, line†, (set), sound,
large / school‡¶, important, form, animals, page, parts, country, picture, study, second, story,
paper, sentence, during*, sure, (means), miles, example, several, change, turned, point, city,
using, usually / money, car, family, turn, move, face, group, sentences, plants¶, United States
[sic], order, lines†, really*, table, remember, course, front, space, close, idea‡, add, places, letter,
letters, able, (mean), (rest), certain / special, complete, person, state, (list), notice, voice,
probably, area, Indians, sounds, matter, box¶, class, piece, surface, river, numbers common, fine,
round, past, ball, questions, blue, finally*, animal, power, problem‡, Indian, mountains,
beautiful*, moved, system‡
(total (disregarding bracketed homonyms) = 97 or 19.4%: 4% in first 100, 10% in second 100, 24%
in third 100, 26% in fourth 100, 33% in fifth 100; first Latin/Romance word ranks no. 79)
Hofland & Johansson (1982) (Lancaster-Oslo-Bergen corpus of British English: approximately
1,000,000 tokens, consisting of 500 text samples of about 2,000 words each, all published in the
year 1961):
very, people / just, because*, used, course, part, per, fact, case, use, during*, government, place,
quite, number, sir / present, general, large, possible, point, country, face, perhaps*, school‡¶,
local, party, war, second, form, (set), important, different, national, public, (miss), council,
certain, order, round, turned, power, money, (means), really*, group, moment, able, service,
view / matter, necessary, age, system‡, air, common, interest, area, family, probably, table,
labour, reason, question, car, state, voice, effect, social, position, change, sense, company,
members, office, particular, act, problem‡, education, example, period, experience, special,
modern, usually / value, political‡, cent, certainly, particularly, terms, idea‡, turn, (mean),
committee, result, minister, line†, past, art, due, added*, difficult, century, countries, real,
society, concerned, problems‡, doubt, music, stage, human, cases, sure, increase, president, rate,
level, close, clear, except, several, story, results, development, market¶, city, control, type‡,
policy‡, united, various, pay, total, industry, future
(total (disregarding bracketed homonyms) = 134 or 26.8%: 2% in first 100, 15% in second 100,
31% in third 100, 35% in fourth 100, 51% in fifth 100; first Latin/Romance word ranks no. 81)
and Francis & Kučera (1982) (Brown corpus of American English: approximately 1,000,000
tokens, consisting of 500 text samples of about 2,000 words each, from 15 different text types, and
all published in the year 1961):
state, use [v.], people, Mister, just / because*, very, school‡¶, number, part, during*, place [n.],
turn, area, problem‡, system‡, long, Mrs, fact, course, city, group, case, government, unite,
point, line†, country, provide, member / company, service, move, form, president, order, interest,
family, power, car, figure, use [n.], value, social, face, several, question, general, development,
possible, national, force, per, important, action, large, nation, appear, student, doctor, cost,
example, matter, continue, reason, require, idea‡, expect, second, increase / result, around*
[prep.], hour, pay, street¶, develop, consider, remain, type‡, sense, different, period‡, college,
perhaps*, effect, experience, public, study, rate, office, moment, serve, person, pass, history,
receive, class, add, position, policy‡, court, change [n.], method‡, party, society, local, plan,
section, age, money, community, determine, effort, department, condition, information, material,
level, voice, probably*, human, art, centre, air / letter, include, political‡, university, century,
process, remember, involve, situation, federal, available, special, indicate, economic‡, minute,
23
table, real, tax, around* [adv.], purpose, act, term, place [v.], Miss, return [v.], activity,
difference, picture, really*, spirit, change [v.], sure, present, major, stage, necessary, pressure,
property, industry, certain, surface, control, piece, able, offer, view, (arm), produce, music‡,
education, record, enter, union, story, common, apply, secretary
(total (disregarding bracketed homonyms) = 180 or 36.0%: 5% in first 100, 25% in second 100,
40% in third 100, 54% in fourth 100, 56% in fifth 100; first Latin/Romance word ranks no. 64)
Key: * word containing a Germanic element and a Romance element

† word which is a conflation of Germanic and Romance etyma (both ultimately cognate)
‡ word which enters English via Latin or Romance, but is ultimately of Greek origin
¶ word of Latin or Romance origin already present in Old English
() homonyms with different etyma, at least one Germanic and at least one Romance
/ marks the end of each hundred-word group in the full frequency list
4.3.2. Register In general, more ‘elevated’ texts tend to contain more words of Latin/Romance
origin.
4.3.2.1. Middle English

For Middle English, see Burnley (1992:457): ‘Urbanity in speech [...] tended in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries to presuppose a formality in lexis based upon knowledge of some part of [...]
general technical vocabulary, a consequent Romance colouring to diction and elegant and
appropriate phrasing’.
4.3.2.2. Modern English

For Modern English, compare the first 132 words of two reviews of the same television programme
published on the same day by a downmarket tabloid (The Sun) and an upmarket broadsheet (The
Times) owned by the same press baron (Rupert Murdoch) (thus eliminating as many variables as
possible). Latin/Romance items are in bold type and underlined.
Driving School, BBC1. Joan Rodwell was desperate to learn to drive so she could take her
grandchildren out. She’s had 110 lessons with five driving instructors and her partner Brian
was so helpful that when they went out in the car he made her sit in the back while their Old
English Sheepdog Jake sat in the front. When Joan took her test, she panicked so badly she
couldn’t even move the car for ten minutes — but she passed. On that form I think the
examiner would have passed Stevie Wonder. Joan has a wonderful winning smile but I think
I’d rather be driven by Jake. This hilarious fly-on-the-windscreen look at the frightening
business of learning to drive was highly entertaining — and it should do wonders for public
transport.
(The Sun, 11 June 1997)
(tokens: 22/132 = 16.7%; types: 20/89 = 22.5%)
Another example of lite-tv that got under way last night was Driving School (BBC1) and very
watchable it was, too. It was watchable (as lite-tv is designed to be) but so contrived you
wondered just how spontaneous some events actually were. Had Maureen (six test failures,
400 lessons) really steered her husband’s elderly Lada into the path of an overtaking car? Had
she really woken him up at 2 o’clock in the morning with the words: ‘It’s no good, love, we’ve
got to do it’? Revise for her theory test, that is. In her efforts not to miss a single moment that
could be made humorous, the director, Francesca Joseph, had deployed cameras everywhere.
In the cars, in the bedroom, in the underwear department of a well known chain store...
(The Times, 11 June 1997)
(tokens: 33/132 = 25%; types: 28/97 = 28.9%)
24
Note: BBC, although standing for ‘British Broadcasting Corporation’, is treated as unanalysable.
However, ‘tv’ is assumed to represent ‘television’. The origins of proper names are ignored.
Contracted forms and numerals are counted as one word, compounds as multiple words.
4.4. Phonological typology of Latin and Romance elements in English

In general, the pattern is one of incorporation into the existing system by accommodation, al-
though occasionally the system may be altered by a particular phonological pattern in certain words.
4.4.1. Superstratum
4.4.1.1. Incorporation into system. Segmental adjustments by accommodation. In particular, the
front rounded vowels /ø/ and /œ/ of Norman French were often accommodated to the unrounded
counterpart /e/ — compare /bef/ (Modern English /bi:f/) from Norman French /bœf/.
4.4.1.2. Alteration of system There are four significant changes wrought on the English
phonological system by French superstratum items, three of them segmental, one of them
suprasegmental.
4.4.1.2.1. The diphthongs /oi/ and /ui/ The phonemic inventory was increased by the addition of
these completely new phonemes, which entered the language through words such as joy and puint
(Modern English point).
4.4.1.2.2. Initial [v] and [z]
In Old English, [f] and [v], on the one hand, and [s] and [z], on the other, were allophones of the
phonemes /f/ and /s/, respectively. The allophones [v] and [z] could not occur at the beginning of a
word in Old English (*[v]–; *[z]–). Various imports from Norman French (e.g., very < vrai; zeal <
zele) introduced the [v]-initial and [z]-initial pattern. Together with other developments, this
change in distribution led to the emergence of a voiced/voiceless contrast between all English
fricatives in all positions, and a consequent extension of the phonemic inventory: so that /v/, /z/,
and /ð/ were added to /f/, /s/, and /θ/.
4.4.1.2.3. Initial /dʒ/
The phoneme /dʒ/ had been restricted to postvocalic position in Old English. Words incorporated
into the language from Norman French (such as joy < joie and jewel < joyal) extended the
distribution of this phoneme to initial position (but without consequence for the phonemic
inventory).
4.4.1.2.4. The emergence of a ‘Romance Stress Rule’
The Germanic Stress Rule assigns the main word accent to the first non-prefixal syllable,
regardless of weight. The Romance (Latin) Stress Rule assigns the main word accent to the
heavy syllable closest to the end of the word (generally speaking, all closed syllables are heavy,
as are open syllables containing long vowels). Latin words entering English before the Norman
invasion are subject to the Germanic stress rule (compare Latin candela [kan'de:la], which was
absorbed by Old English, and which yields Modern English candle ['kændɫ]). But after the Norman
Conquest, the stress pattern of English is progressively complicated, as Romance words are
incorporated into the language with their stress pattern intact.
4.4.2. Adstratum
As a largely artifical language, mediæval Latin tended to be given a vernacular pronunciation:
literate English-speakers used a ‘spelling pronunciation’, largely based on the English values of the
letters (although <c> was sometimes pronounced [tʃ] before <æ>, <e>, <i>, and <œ>, under the
influence of Italian: compare Latin cerebellum (> English [seɹɪ'beləm]), viva voce (> English ['vaɪvə
25
'vəʊsɪ] or ['vaɪvə 'vəʊtʃe], perhaps influenced by Italian sotto voce (> English ['sɒtəәʊ 'vəʊtʃe] )), and
words entered the language in this form. Romance words posed greater problems.
‘In M[iddle] E[nglish] times it was common for loanwords [sic] from French and Latin to spread
from upper-class use to lower-class speech, becoming variously adapted in the process. Such
integration was much less effective with loans [sic] from contemporary languages from the
sixteenth century on. Many words, in particular those derived from French and Italian, appear to
have been left unadapted because they were regarded as shibboleths of educated speech.’ (Görlach
1991:156-157)
4.4.2.1. Incorporation into system
Segmental adjustments:
accommodation diphthongization ([e] > [eɪ]; [o] > [əʊ], etc.)
unrounding ([ø] & [œ] > [ə:]; [ɥ] > [w])
reduction of unstressed vowels ([a] > [ə], [i] > [ɪ], etc.)
miscellaneous ([a] > [æ]; [ʁ] > [ɹ]; [t̪] > [t]; [p-] > [ph-], etc.)
linearization (e.g., French [y] > [ju]; [ɑ̃] & [ɔ]̃ > [ɒŋ]; [ɲ] > [nj] or [jn])
redistribution (e.g., deletion of postvocalic /r/)
Suprasegmental adjustments:
stress reassignment, resyllabification
4.4.2.1.1. Some examples

4.4.2.1.1.1. Italian pasta ['past̪a] > ['phæstə] (U.S. ['phɑ:stə])
i) aspiration of initial voiceless plosive ([p] > [ph])
ii) accommodation of stressed (short) front [a] to [æ] (in U.S. to long back [ɑ:])
iii) accommodation of voiceless dental plosive [t̪] to voiceless alveolar plosive [t]
iv) reduction of unstressed final vowel to schwa
4.4.2.1.1.2. French cause célèbre [kozselɛbʁ] > a) ['khəʊzsɪ'lebɹəә]; b) ['khɔ:zsɪ'lebɹəә]
i) aspiration of initial voiceless plosive
ii) a) either accommodation of close [o] to diphthong [əʊ]
b) or lexical accommodation of French cause to cognate English item
iii) reduction of pretonic vowel ([e] to [ɪ])
iv) accommodation of [ɛ] to [e]
v) accommodation of [ʁ] to [ɹ]
vi) resyllabification of second element (becomes three syllables rather than two, since
/br/ is a permissible syllable-coda in French, but not in English)
4.4.2.1.1.3. Spanish aficionado [afiθjo'naðo], [afisjo'naðo] > [əfɪsjə'nɑ:dəʊ], [əfɪʃ(j)ə'nɑ:dəʊ]
i) reduction of pretonic vowels ([a] to [ə], [i] to [ɪ])
ii) (selection (?) of seseo [s], as opposed to ceceo [θ]; spelling? cf. §4.4.2.3. below)
iii) (optional) palatalization of [s] to [ʃ] before yod ([sj] > [ʃ(j)])
iv) accommodation of stressed (long) front [a] to long (back) [ɑ:]
v) accommodation of voiced interdental fricative [ð] to voiced alveolar plosive [d]
(/ð/ exists in English, but Spanish [ð] is an allophone of /d/, perceived by
Anglophones as closer to [d]. Spelling may also play a role here — compare §5.2.3.
below)
vi) diphthongization of final [o] to [əʊ]
26
4.4.2.1.1.4. Stress patterns of disyllabic French adstratum nouns
In U.K., often accommodated to the trochaic stress pattern normal for English nouns.
In U.S.A., often given iambic stress, presumably to match the final phrase stress of French.
Word French British English U.S. English

ballet [bale] ['bæleɪ] [ba'leɪ]
h
café [kafe] ['k æfeɪ] [kha'feɪ]
buffet [byfe] ['bʊfeɪ], ['bʌfeɪ] [bʌ'feɪ], [bə'feɪ]
garage [gaʁaʒ] ['gæɹɑ:dʒ], ['gæɹɪdʒ] [gə'ɹɑ:ʒ]]
brochure [bʁɔʃyʁ] ['bɹəәʊʃəә] [bɹəә'ʃuɽ]
debris [d̪ebʁi] ['debɹi] [də'bɹi:]
detail [d̪etaj] ['di:teɪɫ] [dɪ'teɪɫ] etc.
Some exceptions: compare hôtel [ot̪ɛl] > hotel (iambic [həʊ't eɫ], [hə't eɫ] in both varieties).
h h
4.4.2.2. Alteration of system

Adstratum items are often left relatively unaccommodated by many speakers (see Görlach, quoted
in §4.4.2. above), and this fact can have interesting consequences for the phonological system. A
good example concerns the nasal vowels present in some French adstratum words (as in an en suite
bathroom or mange-tout peas — French [ɑ̃sɥit], [mɑ̃ʒtu]). Many English-speakers (particularly
those in London and South-East England, and in Australia) have phonetic nasal vowels as the result
of assimilation before a nasal consonant: compare the two [æ]s of batman (the first oral, the second
slightly nasal — [bætmæ̃n]). In adstratum words with nasal vowels, some English speakers attempt
to copy or reproduce the nasal vowel (though both [ɑ̃] and [ɔ̃] tend to end up somewhere near [ɒ̃],
with or without a following [n]). In some cases this seems to result in what Ladefoged (1997) has
described as a ‘marginal’ extension of the phonemic inventory (see also Hall 2013).
4.4.2.3. Spelling pronunciation

For instance, French cul-de-sac [kytsak] > English ['khʌɫdɪsæk]. This pronunciation is clearly based
on the spelling of the item, rather than its phonology. The initial [h] of hotel is another example of
this process, as is the final [ɫ] of detail (for both words, see §4.4.2.1.1.4. above). Compare, too, the
comments on Latin in §4.4.2. above.
4.5. Morphosyntactic typology of Latin and Romance elements in English

Thomason (2001:70-71) defines a ‘borrowing [sic] scale’, whereby the extent of influence of one
language on another can be correlated qualitatively with the ‘intensity of contact’ between the two
languages. On a semantic scale, ‘non-basic’ terms enter a language before ‘basic’ terms. On a
categorial scale, nouns are most likely to enter a language from contact sources, followed by other
content words (verbs, adjectives, etc.), then function words (complementizers, prepositions,
determiners, etc.), and finally derivational affixes. At a relatively advanced stage of contact,
inflectional affixes, other morphological features, syntactic structures (compare §7.2. below), and
elements of phonology (compare §§4.4.1.2. and 4.4.2.2. above) may be ‘borrowed’.
4.5.1. Superstratum items
4.5.1.1. Categorial identity A striking feature of superstratum items is their categorial variety —
many nouns are absorbed, as expected (Dekeyser (1986) suggests that 70% of French words in
Middle English are nouns); but also adjectives and verbs. Even ‘basic’ items affected only by
‘intense contact’, such as ordinal numerals (second), quantifiers (several), adjectival modifiers
(very) and the functional categories of complementizers (because) and prepositions (past and
27
during — by grammaticalization of a present participle) are a locus for incorporation, betokening
the profound importance of the superstratum language.
4.5.1.2. Morphological adjustments
4.5.1.2.1. Roots
As expected, superstratum items are generally accommodated to an unmarked morphological
class. Thus, most imported nouns form regular plurals in -s, and most verbs enter the weak
conjugation, forming both their past tense and past participle by suffixing -ed. However, there are
rare, but striking, examples of verbs being accommodated to a strong conjugation — witness catch
(< cachier; compare Modern French chasser ‘to hunt’), caught, caught (allegedly by analogy with
the semantically similar ‘native’ verb latch ‘seize, grasp’; and strive (< estriver), strove, striven (by
analogy with drive), although strived is also found as both past tense and past participle.
4.5.1.2.2. Affixes
Several affixes which originally occurred only in superstratum items came to be used with ‘native’
roots. Examples are the nominalizing suffixes -age (compare Modern English luggage, roughage)
and -ment (compare Modern English betterment, fulfilment), the feminine suffix -ess (compare
Modern English shepherdess (hirdess is found as early as Chaucer)), and the adjectival suffix -able
(which occurs only with Romance roots in Middle English, but which is fully productive in the
modern language — compare watchable in line 2 of the second text of §4.3.2.2. above, bearable,
bookable, likeable, unputdownable, etc.). Miller (1997) gives figures for such ‘hybrid derivatives’:
in 1400, he finds 64 of them, in 1450, 100, and in 1500, 130.
4.5.2. Adstratum items
4.5.2.1. Categorial identity
Categorially, adstratum items are more restricted than superstratum items, indicating less
‘intense’ contact — most of them are nouns or noun phrases (although adjectives, such as chic,
have also entered English from this source).
4.5.1.2. Morphological adjustment

Some originally Latin items retain their Latin plurals. Series and species have identical forms for
singular and plural in Latin, and analogical *serieses and *specieses have not been created.
Likewise, corpora and genera, rather than *corpuses and *genuses, are the normal plurals of corpus
and genus. But in other instances, the retention of the Latin plural is restricted to formal register —
compare referenda, ultimata, fora vs. commoner referendums, ultimatums, forums (plus my own
instinctive use of adstrata in §4.1.3. above!). Occasionally, this can lead to the (stigmatized)
reanalysis of the plural as a singular — compare ‘an entire yellow strata of National Geographics’
(Panorama (Ansett Australia in-flight magazine), May 1998, p. 49). Likewise, bacteria is the
plural of bacterium (the Latin form of an originally Greek word); but it is not uncommon to hear a
bacteria. (It is worth noting in passing that a similar development affects some items of purely
Greek origin — compare a phenomena and a criteria for a phenomenon and a criterion.)
Sometimes, though, the Latin plural is just plain impossible in English — nobody uses *musea as
the plural of museum (another Latinized Greek word).
4.5.2.2. Morphosyntactic adjustment

There is a tendency to accommodate adstratum elements by the elimination of morphosyntactic
phenomena which are not found in English; for instance, agreement between adjective and
noun (Esquire magazine, whence the bon mots actually came (Independent (London), 16 February
2001, p. 4), instead of bons mots; The [Daily] Mail’s bête noires (Guardian (London), G2
supplement, 22 February 2001, p. 3), instead of bêtes noires; the grande dames of Buenos Aires
28
(Guardian (London), G2 supplement, 7 June 2002, p. 2), instead of grandes dames; Schumacher
won a lot of grand prix instead of ...grands prix) and grammatical gender. In particular, le is often
assumed to be the sole form of the French definite article; thus (from Sheffield, England) le
Boutique as the name of a (particular) fashion shop (cf. French la boutique), and even le Pizza as
the name of a pizzeria, which is impossible in either French (la pizza) or Italian (la pizza, plural le
pizze). Oxford boasts the equally impossible sandwich bar le Panini (Italian i panini ‘the
sandwiches’ (masculine plural); le is masculine singular in French and feminine plural in Italian!).
Recently noted Australian examples include le Maison (cf. French la maison) (Nicholson Street,
North Carlton, Victoria) and le Crepe (cf. French la crêpe) (Bondi Beach, Sydney, NSW). Indeed,
in some registers of English (particularly in the language of advertising), le has come to be used
virtually as a prestige form of the definite article — compare le bag, le car (used to advertise the
Renault 4 — car is clearly an English word here, as in French, this expression would mean ‘the
motorcoach’!), and the train that carries cars through the Channel Tunnel, le Shuttle. This
admittedly highly marginal use of le constitutes an exception to the general principle that adstratum
is not a source of functional items. Compare also ‘Posh Spice Victoria Adams yesterday defended
her vilified soccer superstar fiancee David Beckham’ (The West Australian (Perth, W.A.), 23 July
1998, p. 7) and other examples of her fiancée (cf. Independent on Sunday (London), 5 March 2000).
Fiancée is feminine; the corresponding masculine form is fiancé. But, because English doesn’t
usually mark gender in this way, the form in -ée (often written without the accent) is sometimes
(mis)interpreted as an epicene (i.e., ‘unisex’) patient suffix, perhaps by analogy with divorcee,
employee, internee, refugee, etc.
4.6. Calques
‘Loan [sic] translations’, better known as ‘calques’ (itself a French word meaning ‘tracings’, which
was adopted by English in the 1930s), involve using a Latin or Romance ‘template’, but replacing
the original Latin or Romance elements with the corresponding English items.
4.6.1. Lexical calques

We find calques in Middle English. Because is a partial calque on French par cause, in which the
first (functional), but not the second (lexical), element has been translated. Although a curiosity,
this type of calque corresponds to the expected hierarchy (functional items more resistant to
replacement than lexical items — see §4.5.1.1. above). (Another interesting morphological oddity
is perhaps, with its Romance prefix and Germanic root; it represents a blend of the purely Germanic
by haps and the purely Romance percase. Despite being bizarre, it is not really an exception to the
expected hierarchy noted above, precisely because it is a blend (a fusion of two different forms)
rather than a calque.)
Most calques are more recent. Broadly speaking, the same generalizations may be made about the
semantic typology of calques as about the semantic typology of untranslated Latin and Romance
elements — that is, they tend to be connected with the fields in which the languages were pre-
eminently used (see §4.2.2. above). Calques often involve phrases, such as Third World (early
1960s, from French Tiers Monde), soup of the day (from French potage du jour), dish of the day
(from French plat du jour), or even whole sentences, such as Time flies (from Latin Tempus fugit)
and That goes without saying (from French Cela va sans dire).
However, precisely because it has incorporated so many Latin and Romance elements directly,
English calques such items less frequently than, say, German. Compare Latin alludere
(ad+ludere), literally ‘to to-play’ or ‘to at-play’, which appears in English unmediated, as allude,
but in German is calqued as anspielen (literally 'to at-play').
29
4.6.2. Syntactic calques
Syntactic calques are found, too. For instance, the normal position for an adjective in English is
before the noun it qualifies; but in some contexts, the unmarked French order of these items, in
which the adjective follows the noun, may be calqued. Often, the French word order is found in
terms relating to diplomacy, a field in which French was for long the dominant world language:
thus, the General Secretary of a trade union, but the Secretary General of the United Nations, an
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, etc. Examples can also be found in other French-
dominated areas, such as heraldry, chivalry, and the law, often leading to doublets of technical vs.
non-technical phrases — thus, bend sinister ‘a diagonal line running from bottom left to top right of
the shield’ (vs. sinister bend ‘a curve which bodes ill’), knight errant ‘a knight travelling in quest of
adventure’ (vs. errant knight ‘a knight of questionable standards or behaviour’), fee simple
‘complete and absolute ownership’ (vs. simple fee ‘a one-off payment which is straightforward and
uncomplicated’), etc.
More widespread, and of greater significance, is the non-finite complementation construction
known as the ‘accusative and infinitive’. Latin verbs of saying, believing, etc., took non-finite
complements formed with an accusative objective and the infinitive of the subordinate verb:
compare CREDO EAM DIVITEM ESSE, lit ‘I-believe her (acc.) rich (acc.) to-be’. The ‘native’ English
construction in these circumstances is one of finite complementation, with or without the overt
complementizer that: I believe that she's rich, I believe she's rich. However, in more formal
registers, the accusative and infinitive is found, apparently calqued on the Latin: I believe her to be
rich, etc. On the plausibility of Latin influence here, see Nagucka (1985) for Old English and and
Fischer (1989) for a historical survey.
4.7. ‘Pseudo-stratum’ (or, getting it wrong...)
4.7.1. Lexical items

Occasionally, words or phrases which might seem to be of Romance origin do not correspond to
lexical items in the source language: compare *double-entendre, *bon viveur, *embarras de
richesses, etc. Often, but not always, there is a related word or phrase in the source language which
is well formed (double entente, bon vivant, embarras de choix).
4.7.2. Morphology
Forms which are neither the original Latin or Romance nor accommodated to English can arise
when morphology is reanalysed (or ‘misunderstood’). For instance, the Latin second-declension
plural pattern (singular -us, plural -i) is often over-generalized to words like syllabus, prospectus
(*syllabi, *prospecti for syllabuses, prospectuses: Latin plurals syllabus, prospectus), platypus
(*platypi for platypuses: not even a Latin word, but coined (in 1799) from Greek πλατύς ‘broad’
and πούς ‘foot’), and octopus (*octopi for octopuses: likewise Greek, from ὀκτώ ‘eight’ and πούς
‘foot’).
Further reading: Durkin (2014) is a comprehensive recent survey of loan words in English.
Rodríguez González (1995, 2001), Cannon (1996), Gooch (1996), Lodares (1996), and other papers
in the same volume deal with Spanish elements borrowed into English.
30
5. A case-study in typological change: synthetic and analytic exponence from

Latin to Spanish
5.1. The problem

It is often claimed that Latin is a synthetic language (a language in which core functions are
expressed by means of morphology), whilst the Romance languages (including, of course, Spanish)
are analytic languages (languages in which core functions are expressed by means of syntax). At
first sight, this analysis seems to be borne out if we contrast the case system of Latin nouns with the
absence of such a system in Spanish, where the corresponding functions are assumed by word order
(in transitive sentences, subject and object are generally distinguished by being on different sides of
the verb, unlike in Classical Latin) and prepositions. (Note: although sound change led to many
case-forms merging in Late Latin (syncretism), this cannot have caused the changes in word order
and the use of prepositions. It is an important principle that sound change cannot trigger
grammatical (or lexical) change — it may accelerate it once it is independently under way, but
that’s a different matter.)
The nominative was the case of the subject, that which is predicated of the subject, and items in
apposition to either:
MARCVS, AMICVS MEVS, ROMANVS EST
‘Marcus (nom.), my (nom.) friend (nom.), is a Roman (nom.)’.
Contrast: Marco, mi amigo, es romano.
The accusative was the prototypical case of the direct object (although small numbers of verbs took
an object in the genitive (e.g., MEMINI ‘I remember’), dative (e.g., IMPERO ‘I order’), or ablative
(e.g., VTOR ‘I use’)) and items in apposition; in addition, it encoded (as adjuncts) certain quasi-
adverbial functions, many of them dynamic (cost, duration, motion towards or into), and was used
with corresponding prepositions:
CANIS MARCVM, AMICVM MEVM, DVAS HORAS MOMORDIT
‘The dog (nom.) bit Marcus (acc.), my (acc.) friend (acc.), [for] two (acc.) hours (acc.)’.
Contrast: El perro mordió a Marco, mi amigo, durante dos horas.
The genitive was prototypically a possessive case:
MARCI CANIS ‘Marcus’s (gen.) dog’. Contrast: El perro de Marco...
The dative prototypically encoded the indirect object and items in apposition:
CLAVDIA CANEM MARCO, AMICO MEO, DEDIT
‘Claudia (nom.) gave Publius (dat.), my (dat.) friend (dat.), the dog (acc.)’.
Contrast: Claudia dio el perro a Marco, mi amigo.
The ablative encoded other adjuncts, such as agents and instruments (and relevant appositional
items), together with points in time and space (except in the rare instances where a locative existed
to fulfil the latter function), and was used with corresponding prepositions:
CANIS IN FORO A MARCO, AMICO MEO, CVLTELLO INTERFICIETVR
‘The dog (nom.) will be killed in the forum (abl.) by Marcus (abl.), my (abl.) friend (abl.), [with] a
knife (abl.)’.
Contrast: El perro será matado en el foro por Marco, mi amigo, con un cuchillo.
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However, the claim that Latin is synthetic whilst Romance is analytic is much too simplistic. Note
the verb forms in the above sentences. Four of them are synthetic in Latin (EST, MOMORDIT, DEDIT)
and remain synthetic in Spanish (es, mordió, dio); INTERFICIETVR is the only synthetic form of Latin
which corresponds to an analytic form in Spanish (será matado). Likewise, if we look at plurals
and feminines in Latin (CANIS ‘dog’ vs. CANES ‘dogs’; BONVS ‘good’ masc. vs. BONA ‘good’ fem.)
and Spanish (perro vs. perros; bueno vs. buena), we find that the categories of number and gender
receive synthetic exponence in both languages. Clearly, the bald statement that Latin is synthetic
and Spanish analytic is an over-generalization. But is there any sense in which it is true? In fact,
there may be. But before we can investigate this possibility, we are going to have to define in some
detail basic notions such as gender, number, case, and tense.
5.2. Preliminaries 1: gender, number, and case

Although gender, number, and case are often lumped together — especially in pedagogical
grammars of Greek, Latin, Russian, German, etc., because in those languages they are all expressed
by inflectional morphology — they are in fact rather different categories. Gender is an inherent
property of noun types. The gender of a noun is as much part of its description as its meaning and
its phonological form; it is unchanging. In a handful of cases, a difference of gender may appear to
correspond to a distinction between individuals of different sexes (compare el turista vs. la turista);
but, since a different referent is involved here, it makes sense to regard these as two different nouns.
Number is also inherent. However, in this case, it is an inherent property of noun-phrase tokens —
a choice may appear to exist between singular and plural, but it is not determined by anything in the
structure of the sentence; rather, it indicates the reference (or, perhaps better, the extension) of a
particular noun phrase. (Pluralia tanta, such as scissors or gafas, in which plurality is inherent in
the noun type, are rare exceptions to this generalization, but not to the principle that number is
inherent.) The sole function of case, on the other hand, is to encode the relationship between a noun
and some other item in the sentence (the verb, another noun, a preposition, etc.) — it is at no stage
inherent in the noun or the noun-phrase, but is simply the morphological realization of the syntactic
link between two items.
5.3. Preliminaries 2: a formal theory of tense

5.3.1. Two-point theories
Tense is the deictic expression of time in language. (Deictic terms are those which have precise
reference which none the less shifts according to the circumstances of the speech event: thus, first-
and second-person pronouns, demonstratives (this, that; este, ese, aquel), adverbs such as here,
there, now, then, yesterday, today, tomorrow, etc.).
Simplistic theories of tense involve two points: S (time of speaking) and E (event time), such that:
past = E—S
present = E,S
future = S—E
(a dash indicates linearity and a comma simultaneity). This view is a formalization of the
traditional tripartite division of time/tense into past, present, and future.
But such accounts are far too limited. They lead to different verb forms receiving identical
descriptions; for instance (taking examples from Spanish), the pretérito indefinido (hice), the
pretérito perfecto (he hecho), the imperfecto (hacía), and the pretérito pluscuamperfecto (había
hecho) would all be represented as E — S. The difference between the imperfect and the other
forms is to be accounted for in terms of aspect, not tense; but the remaining forms are still
conflated. Even worse, a two-point formalism is unable to accommodate the futuro perfecto (habré
32
hecho), which has a precise meaning, even though the event time (E) may precede the time of
speaking (S)
(1) Obtuvo su bachillerato el año pasado; por lo tanto, habrá cumplido las condiciones para
ser admitido el año próximo.
follow it
(2) Va a obtener su bachillerato el año próximo; por lo tanto, habrá cumplido las condiciones
para ser admitido el año siguiente.
or be simultaneous with it
(3) Ya tiene su bachillerato; por lo tanto, habrá cumplido las condiciones para ser admitido el
año próximo..
5.3.2. Reichenbach’s theory of tense
Three points: S (time of speaking)

E (event time)
R (reference point)
Possible tenses: S,E,R present hago

E,R — S past hice, hacía
E — R,S present perfect he hecho
E—R—S pluperfect había hecho
S — R,E future haré
S,R — E immediate future voy a hacer
E—S—R future perfect (cf. 1) habré hecho
S—E—R future perfect (cf. 2) habré hecho
S,E — R future perfect (cf. 3) habré hecho
S—R—E remote future ?
etc.
This is a more adequate theory; but it still raises problems. For instance, the future perfect is
represented in three different ways, which should imply it can have three different meanings. But
speakers of Spanish (and English) do not distinguish amongst these meanings (and Comrie (1981)
goes so far as to claim that there is no language in the world that does).
5.3.3. Hornstein’s modification of Reichenbach’s theory
Hornstein, following Comrie, suggests that there is no direct relationship between S and E; this
relationship is always mediated by R. Thus, the first three tenses in the above list would receive the
following descriptions:
(E,R) • (S,R) present hago

(E,R) • (R — S) past hice, hacía
(E — R) • (S,R) present perfect he hecho
etc.
Such an account is equivalent to the earlier one in most respects, but has some advantages over it.
For instance, it solves the ‘future perfect problem’ by enabling this tense to be described by the
single formula (E — R) • (S — R), so obviating the need for three separate representations.
33
There are also more abstract grounds for preferring this theory, in that it is more constrained —
only two relationships (S and R; E and R) need to be established, as opposed to three (S and R; E
and R; S and E) — and therefore, presumably easier for a child to acquire. (Hardliners would argue
that a three-way system was impossible for a child to acquire...)
Hornstein further suggests that Universal Grammar (broadly speaking, the genetic endowment
which enables a child to acquire a language) automatically associates the reference point (R) and
the event time (E), unless specific information to the contrary is provided. The use of auxiliaries, as
opposed to synthetic verb forms, is seen as one way of ‘flagging’ the marked relationship between
R and E (i.e., that they are not simultaneous). This hypothesis would certainly explain the
distribution of analytic (or ‘compound’) tenses (those involving an auxiliary) and synthetic (or
‘simple’) tenses (those which do not have an auxiliary) in the above table. See also, from a
typological perspective, Dahl (1985:129): ‘[the perfect] is rather consistently marked
periphrastically (about 85 per cent of the cases), the only clear counterexamples being Niger-Congo
languages (Akan, Kikuyu). Typically, constructions involving a copula or some auxiliary together
with some past participle or similar form of the verb are used.’
5.4. The Coseriu typology
Coseriu (1988:213), in a remarkable insight, proposed that the Romance languages were
distinguished from Latin by an iconic typology whereby relational concepts receive relational (i.e.,
analytic) exponence and non-relational concepts receive non-relational (i.e., synthetic) exponence:
‘innere, paradigmatische materielle Bestimmungen für gleichfalls innere, nicht-relationelle
Funktionen und äußere, syntagmatische materielle Bestimmungen für gleichfalls äußere,
relationelle Funktionen.’ The iconicity of this typology is clear: when interpreting the meaning
involves establishing a relationship between two elements at underlying level, the meaning itself is
expressed by two separate items which must be related on the surface; when the meaning does not
require such a relationship to be established, it is expressed by a single item.
Amongst other things, such a typology will account for:
• the general Romance tendency to express number and gender inflectionally but for the
functions of noun case to be replaced by prepositions and word order. To recapitulate our earlier
discussion: Gender is an inherent property of noun types, and hence non-relational. Number is
an inherent property of noun-phrase tokens, and hence also non-relational. The sole function of
case, on the other hand, is to encode the relationship between a noun and some other item in the
sentence (the verb, another noun, a preposition, etc.) — it is therefore a priori relational.
• the use of simple tenses to encode simultaneity of reference point and event (for instance,
the present and the pretérito indefinido) — i.e., non-relationality — and compound tenses to
encode the disjunction of these two points (for instance, the pretérito perfecto and the pretérito
pluscuamperfecto) — i.e., relationality;
• the use of superlative morphology to encode intrinsic size (non-relational), but the use of
a modifier to encode extrinsic size (relational). Thus, una montaña altísima is a mountain which is
just high, high of itself, high full stop; whereas una montaña muy alta is high with respect to some
concrete or abstract point of comparison (another mountain, your average mountain, etc.)
• the use of diminutive morphology to encode intrinsic smallness (non-relational), but the
use of an adjective meaning ‘small’ modifying the noun to encode extrinsic smallness (relational).
Thus, un librito is a book which is small by nature, small in its essence (this is also why the word
can be used hypocoristically, as a term of affection or endearment), whereas un libro pequeño is a
book which is small in relation to or in comparison with some other book or books, or some
yardstick of what one expects a book to look like, etc. (In English, this distinction corresponds
more or less to the lexical difference between ‘little book’ and ‘small book’.)
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6. Two case-studies in grammaticalization:
the pretérito perfecto compuesto and the articles in Spanish
6.1. Grammaticalization
Grammaticalization (see note 1 above) is basically defined as a shift in an item’s value from lexical
to functional, or from less functional to more functional. It therefore by definition involves a
modification of grammatical structure and/or grammatical status: an item is relabelled or
rebracketed, changing its syntactic category (say, from verb to auxiliary) or moving from a
syntactic unit (word) to a morphological unit (affix). In addition, grammaticalization tends to
involve a measure of semantic ‘bleaching’ and may also be accompanied by phonological
reduction. We have already seen instances of such change on p. 5 above, where we mentioned
Vuestra Merced > Usted in Spanish and some other relevant examples
Grammaticalization is a subject of huge debate in contemporary historical linguistics. The standard
works are Traugott & Heine (1991), Hopper & Traugott (2003), and Lehmann (2002). For sober
reflection, see the indispensable papers by Campbell (2001) and Newmeyer (2001). Parapharsig
Campbell, grammaticalization began as a process, became a theory, and is now (at least for some
people) a religion!
A simple but clear (and progressive) example of grammaticalization concerns adverb-formation in
Romance. The ablative case MENTE of the Latin noun MENS ‘mind’ was used literally with an
agreeing (feminine) adjective to mean ‘with an X mind’ — thus CAVTA MENTE ‘with a cautious
mind’. In time, through a process of semantic weakening, this construction came to mean simply
‘in an X way’ — thus CAVTA MENTE ‘in a cautious way’. Subsequently, the original noun became
an ending. But contrast Spanish, where it has become an enclitic, attaching to a phrase, with
French, where it has moved on a stage further and become a derivational (i.e., word-forming)
suffix. Thus, in Spanish, a sequence of adjectives forming a phrase takes only one occurrence of
-mente (lenta y cuidadosamente), whereas in French every adjective requires the suffix -ment
(lentement et précautionneusement). A lexical Latin word has turned into a functional Spanish
clitic and into an even more functional French suffix.
6.2. The pretérito perfecto compuesto
The development of a compound past tense from the HABERE + past participle construction can be
viewed, inter alia, as an example of grammaticalization — the process whereby a (more) lexical
item becomes a (more) functional item.
The ‘standard’ examples of HABERE + past participle discussed in the literature involve invented
sentences such as HABEO EPISTVLAS (or LITTERAS) SCRIPTAS, which allegedly shifted its meaning
from ‘I possess (the) letters which are written’ to ‘I have written (the) letters’. Whilst this statement
of the change of meaning is accurate as far as it goes, the example is a poor one, as it not generally
possible to possess letters which are not written!
Compare:
I’ve got some toasted teacakes — would you like one?
AGENT 1 AGENT 2 toaster unspecified; may or may not be Agent 1
default interpretation: identity of toaster is irrelevant
I’ve got some teacakes toasted — would you like one?

AGENT 1 AGENT 1 default interpretation: toaster is Agent 1;
AGENT 2 marked interpretation: toaster is not Agent 1
I’ve toasted some teacakes — would you like one?

AGENT 1 present perfect: single Agent
35
A more clear-cut case:
I’ve got a written reply
AGENT 1 AGENT 2 writer is not Agent 1
I’ve got a reply written

AGENT 1 AGENT 1 writer is Agent 1 (otherwise writer is specified: e.g, ‘by my colleague’)
I’ve written a reply

AGENT 1 present perfect: single Agent
At the same time, a separate structure, in which the verb ESSE(RE) ‘to be’ was combined with the
past participle, began to be used as the present perfect of intransitive verbs. This had its origins in
the passive perfectum (e.g., AMATVS SVM ‘I have been loved’) — the class of deponent verbs,
which had passive morphology but active meaning (e.g., CONOR ‘I try’, CONATVS SVM ‘I have
tried’), and, more significantly, so-called semi-deponent verbs, which had active morphology in
the infectum but passive morphology in the perfectum (e.g., GAVDEO ‘I rejoice’, GAVISVS SVM ‘I
have rejoiced’) may have been crucial in providing an analogy. For an outstanding survey of all
these developments, see Vincent (1982).
We know that the HABEO + past participle construction must be interpreted as a tense-form when
possessive or causative interpretations are not available — most strikingly, when the verb is
intransitive. Intransitive verbs used ‘absolutely’ (e.g., ‘I have spoken’) may exhibit this
construction by analogy with their transitive use (‘I have spoken many words’, etc.). But once
verbs which can only ever be intransitive (such as ‘elapse’) begin to manifest a HABERE + past
participle form, these occurrences must represent a tense. Likewise, once lexical items which are
incompatible with the notion of possession, such as ‘lose’, ‘forget’, ‘destroy’ are found in this
construction, we know that it cannot be analysed as a possessive.
6.3 Reanalysis, actualization, and extension

Harris & Campbell (1995) propose a highly constrained theory of diachronic syntax, in which there
are only two internal mechanisms of change: reanalysis and extension. (A third mechanism —
borrowing — is external.) Their definition of these two terms (ibid.:61,97) is straightforward:
Reanalysis [...] is a mechanism which changes the underlying structure of a syntactic pattern and which
does not involve any immediate or intrinsic modification of its surface manifestation. [...] Reanalysis
directly changes underlying structure, which we understand to include information regarding at least (i)
constituency, (ii) hierarchical structure, (iii) category labels, (iv) grammatical relations, and (v) cohesion.
[...] Extension [is] change in the surface manifestation of a syntactic pattern that does not involve
immediate or intrinsic modification of underlying structure.
As Harris & Campbell (1995:30-32) point out, the notion of ‘reanalysis’ is not a new one; it can be
traced back at least as far as the nineteenth century. Compare also the views of two scholars to
whom they acknowledge their debt (ibid.:389n2) — Langacker (1977:58):
[Reanalysis is] change in the structure of an expression or class of expressions that does not involve any
immediate or intrinsic modification of its surface manifestation. Reanalysis may lead to changes at the
surface level [...], but these surface changes can be viewed as the natural and expected result of
functionally prior modifications in rules and underlying representations.
and Timberlake (1977:141):

it is instructive to distinguish between two types of change in syntax, as in other components of grammar:
reanalysis — the formulation of a novel set of underlying relationships and rules — and actualization —
the gradual mapping out of the consequences of the reanalysis.
36
At first sight, it might seem that Harris & Campbell’s ‘extension’ could be equated with
Timberlake’s ‘actualization’; but Harris & Campbell (1995:80-81) themselves suggest that this is
not in fact the case:
Examining a number of instances of actualization of reanalysis, we have found that each example of
change under actualization [is] itself either an extension or an additional reanalysis. [...] In other
examples of reanalysis we have examined, actualization includes both extension and reanalysis in
morphology, syntax, or lexical items. Just as actualization may involve changes other than extension,
extension may occur other than as a response to reanalysis [for example, it may be induced by language
contact]. Thus, while actualization often consists of extensions, the two are not coextensive.
As a possible example of actualization-as-reanalysis, we may take the following data from the
Romance HABERE + past participle construction under discussion (which is itself mentioned by
Harris & Campbell (1995:182-185) as an example of ‘clause fusion’). As part of this process,
HABERE acquires a second possible category label (Aux, I, T, or whatever, alongside V). One of
the consequences of this development in some Romance languages (Spanish, some southern Italian
dialects) is that the reflex of HABERE becomes restricted to use as an auxiliary (in other words, it
loses the category label V), and is replaced as lexical verb of possession by a reflex of TENERE
(originally ‘to hold’). In Timberlake’s terms, this would be an actualization. In Harris &
Campbell’s terms, the complete ‘delexification’ of <HABERE (i.e., the loss of the category label V)
would arguably count as a further reanalysis (recall that reanalysis is a mechanism which ‘directly
changes underlying structure’, which includes ‘information regarding [...] category labels’ — Harris
& Campbell 1995:61), but one which is contingent on the first reanalysis — hence an actualization,
but not an extension. The change in meaning of <TENERE would then be viewed as an extension of
this further reanalysis.
Implicit in the Harris & Campbell model, then, is a distinction between two types of reanalysis —
‘initial’ reanalysis and ‘actualizing’ reanalysis (my terms).
6.4. Tracking the grammaticalization
The reanalysis (the acquisition of a new category label by HABERE) is perceptible semantically (see
the discussion at the end of §1 above), but (by definition) not in surface syntax. Thereafter, there
are (at least) five actualizations/extensions of the reanalysis of HABERE + past participle as a
compound past tense form in Romance (Smith 1989):
• the loss of agreement between past participle and direct object;

• the recasting of the relationship between the auxiliaries ‘have’ and ‘be’, often leading to the
loss of the latter;
• the emergence of a fixed element order in which the auxiliary precedes the participle;
• the decrease in the intercalation of items between auxiliary and participle;
• the dissociation of auxiliary ‘have’ and the lexical verb signifying possession (see the
discussion at the end of the previous section).
Not all of these changes occur in every Romance language.
6.5. A case-study of actualization (and functionalism?) — the loss of past participle agreement
The disappearance of past participle agreement is differential. Smith (1991; 1993b; 1995b), notes
that the data concerning object-participle agreement in Romance enable us to establish a number of
implicational hierarchies (in the sense of Greenberg 1963), of the form: “if, in a given language or
dialect, the past participle agrees with a direct object of type X, then it will also agree with a direct
object of type Y”. These hierarchies are presented below (the notation X>Y is to be interpreted to
mean that agreement with X implies agreement with Y, but not necessarily vice versa).
37
a) Position of Direct Object:
Following > Preceding
b) Identity of Preceding Direct Object:
⎧ Topics ⎫
⎨ Interrogatives ⎬ > Relatives > Clitic Pronouns
⎩ Exclamatives ⎭
c) Person of Clitic Pronoun:
⎧ First Person ⎫
⎨ Second Person ⎬ > Third Person Non-Reflexive
⎩ Third Person Reflexive ⎭
d) Number and Gender of Third-Person Non-Reflexive Clitic Pronoun:
Masculine Plural > Feminine Plural > Feminine Singular
These hierarchies may be read synchronically (as defining patterns of agreement or types of
variation in a given language or dialect) or diachronically (as defining the progression of a change
— i.e., the loss of this type of agreement). On the next page, the resulting patterns of agreement are
illustrated from Catalan, a Romance language which has dialects exemplifying all the above
hierarchies (see Smith 1995a). Sentences exhibiting agreement between past participle and direct
object are in bold type. Significantly, we appear to find no exceptions to these hierarchies and the
resulting patterns of agreement in any Romance language. For further discussion of these data and
their ramifications, including the consequences for a theory of language change, see Smith (1996,
1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002). For a successful application of this hypothesis to Old Spanish, see
Rodríguez Molina (2010).
It can be argued that all of these patterns are ultimately the result of perceptual strategies, and that
the agreement is most resilient when it assists the ‘recovery’ of the direct object in some way. In
this sense, the change is sensitive to ‘functional’ factors (although, as we have already seen, caution
is called for when imputing a change to ‘functionality’). Note that the agreement is in no way
necessary to the recovery of the direct object (comparable sentences involving simple tenses appear
to present no significant parsing problems). However, we are not, of course, arguing that it was
introduced in order to aid sentence-processing, but merely that it survived for longer in those
contexts where it might have such a function. Observe, too, that extension may, as in this case, lag
spectacularly behind reanalysis — in the present instance, by well over a thousand years!
6.6. Why this grammaticalization?

Latin had a single form FECI which encoded both hice and he hecho. The claim is often made that
the compound past tense form arose because FECI was somehow ambiguous. But it was arguably
not ambiguous — merely vague. Compare:
French j’ai fait English I did vs. I have done
English It’s been snowing Turkish kar yağdı vs. kar yağmış
English uncle Turkish amca ‘father’s brother’ dayı ‘mother’s brother’
Michael is my uncle and so is Archibald (doesn’t work in Turkish if different sides of family!)
English brother-in-law Russian шурин ‘wife’s brother’, зять ‘sister’s husband’,
‘husband’s sister’s husband’, деверь ‘husband’s
brother’, свояк, ‘wife’s sister’s husband’
What may have tilted the balance and led to the previously vague form FECI becoming ambiguous
was the shift to the Cosriu typology, in which relational and non-relational concepts are clearly
distinguished.
38
A. General Agreement (frequent in Old French)
He vistes les pel.lícules. I-have seen-FEM.PL. the films (FEM.PL.).

Quines pel.lícules he vistes? What films (FEM.PL.) have-I seen-FEM.PL.?
Les pel.lícules que he vistes The films (FEM.PL.) which I-have seen-FEM.PL.
Us he vistes. You-[FEM.PL.] I-have seen-FEM.PL.
Els he vists. Them-MASC.PL. I-have seen-MASC.PL.
Les he vistes. Them-FEM.PL. I-have seen-FEM.PL.
B. Agreement with preceding direct objects (the modern French règle de position)
He vist les pel.lícules. I-have seen-MASC.SG. the films (FEM.PL.).

Quines pel.lícules he vistes? What films (FEM.PL.) have-I seen-FEM.PL.?
C. Agreement with relative and clitic-pronoun direct objects (common in French)

Quines pel.lícules he vist? What films (FEM.PL.) have-I seen-MASC.SG.?
D. Agreement with clitic-pronoun direct objects (tendency in some French)

Les pel.lícules que he vist The films (FEM.PL.) which I-have seen-MASC.SG.
E. Agreement with third-person clitic-pronoun direct objects

Us he vist. You-[FEM.PL.] I-have seen-MASC.SG.
F. Agreement with third-person feminine clitic-pronoun direct objects

Els he vist. Them-MASC.PL. I-have seen-MASC.SG.
G. General non-agreement (found in some colloquial and regional varieties of French)

Els he vist. Them-MASC.PL. I-have seen-MASC.SG.
Les he vist. Them-FEM.PL. I-have seen-MASC.SG.
39
6.7. The articles
The first-century A.D. Latin grammarian Quintilian famously states: noster sermo articulos non
desiderat ‘our language has no need of articles’ (Institutio Oratoria 1, 4, 19). However, this did not
mean that it could not express at least something akin to definiteness. A key component of
definiteness is identifiability, which hinges on the crucial notions of ‘knownness’ or
‘presupposedness’. Given that the Latin case-system enabled subject and object to be distinguished
inflectionally in most instances, Latin word order could encode pragmatic functions, such as topic
and focus, much more freely than word order in say, English, where there is no alternative to word
order as an indicator of grammatical function. Although far from identical to definiteness, these
pragmatic notions also involved the crucial notion of ‘knownness’ and/or ‘presupposedness’ and/or
salience.
A suggestive comparison can be drawn with Slavonic languages. Almost all of these have a rich
case-system and flexible word order, rather like Latin. Likewise, they do not have a definite article.
Although we should be careful about using translation as evidence for meaning, it may be
significant that a normal translation of, e.g., Russian Книга на столе (lit. ‘Book [is] on table’) is
‘The book is on the table, whilst На столе книга (lit. ‘On table [is] book’) comes out as ‘A book is
on the table’). The exception to this generalization about Slavonic is Bulgarian (together with its
sister-language, Macedonian), which has lost its case-system, and expresses functions such as
‘subject’ and ‘object’ through word order. It is also the only Slavonic language to have evolved a
definite article. The Bulgarian for ‘a book’ is книга (the bare noun, as in Russian), but ‘the book’ is
книгата, with a suffixal definite article -та.
Another factor to consider is that the emergence of the article, which is a functional category,
parallels the development or extension of other functional categories (prepositions, auxiliaries,
finite complementizers) in Late Latin — it can be seen as part of a more general typological shift
(which we have discussed in earlier lectures).
Finally, it has been suggested that language contact may have played some role in this change.
Although Classical Latin did not have articles, Greek did. (This is doubtless how Quintilian came
to be familiar with the concept of an article; his comment quoted above is an implicit comparison of
Latin and Greek.) When the Greek New Testament was translated into Latin, some of the Greek
definite articles were rendered by Latin demonstratives in what appears to have been a rather
slavish adherence to the original text. Although the Bible will have been familiar to many people
who could not read or write, it is unclear to what extent such literal translations changed everyday
language.
As usual, in as much as the above explanations are not in conflict, they may all be ‘right’ — i.e., the
emergence of the articles of Latin may be due to all of them. We don’t have to choose.
The definite article in Romance evolved from a distal demonstrative (a word for ‘that’). This is an
extremely common source of definite articles (compare Germanic, Malay, etc. — in English, for
instance, the originates as a weakened form of that). Classical Latin had a generic demonstrative IS
and three person-related demonstratives: HIC, ISTE, ILLE. HIC disappeared (possibly as the result of
phonological erosion and perhaps also because it was inflected medially — HIC, HÆC, HOC; HVNC,
HANC, HOC, etc.). ISTE replaced it, and was itself replaced by IPSE (‘the very’, ‘self’). The remote
demonstrative ILLE, which was commonly used cataphorically in Late Latin, is the source of the
definite article in almost all the Romance languages. The ‘second-person’ form IPSE, commonly
used anaphorically, provides the definite article in Sardinian and Balearic Catalan (compare, too,
Gascon place-names such as Sacase < IPSA CASA ‘the house’).
The replacement of HIC by ISTE is regarded as unproblematic by most commentators, but it is not a
straightforward process — why should the second-person form replace the first-person form? In
fact, it is likely that the opposition between the items was inclusive rather than exclusive, with ISTE
encompassing both persons (i.e., the discourse). If this was the case, then the replacement of HIC by
ISTE can be interpreted fairly plausibly as a semantic restriction of the latter.
40
A reinforced form of ILLE, preceded by the ostensive particle ECCE (‘lo’, ‘behold’, ‘voilà’) or a
variant of it (*ACCV in Spanish, *ECCV in Italian, ECCE in French, *ACCE in Romanian) was also
available, and this became the unambiguous exponent of remote deixis (‘that’) — compare Spanish
este, ese, aquel).
Subsequently, the ‘definite article’ extended its meaning to encompass generic reference. This
process can be seen as the emergence of what is in part a number and gender marker from an
article, which is a widespread change in the world’s languages (see Greenberg 1978). In addition, it
has been argued independently that generic reference may in some ways be related to definite
reference, as the exhaustive membership of a set is identifiable (see, for instance, Cherchia 1998
and Krifka et al. 1995). Definiteness, as normally understood, entails specificity (the reverse is not
true, as we shall see when we discuss the indefinite article below). However, in some sense,
generic reference might be characterized as definiteness without specificity.
The result of this change is that a contemporary Spanish sentence such as Me gustan las fresas,
although it can bear the meaning ‘I like the strawberries’, has the default interpretation ‘I like
strawberries (in general)’. The former sense can be unambiguously expressed by Me gustan estas
fresas. Observe the parallels with the Latin developments discussed earlier: the ‘bare’
demonstrative comes to have a broadly definite value.
The indefinite article derives from the Latin numeral VNVS ‘one’ (in much the same way as one >
an > a in English, although without the phonological weakening). In Old Spanish it generally refers
only to items with specific (but indefinite) reference (see Elvira 1994, Garachana 2009, Pozas Loyo
2010). (Compare Mary wants to marry a Norwegian — his name is Hans (specific reading of a
Norwegian) and Mary wants to marry a Norwegian — if she can find one (non-specific reading of a
Norwegian). In (modernized) Old Spanish, the first of these sentences would be María quiere
casarse con un noruego... and the second María quiere casarse con noruego... However, like the
definite article, its range is extended, and it comes to mark indefiniteness in general, regardless of
specificity.
This raises the interesting possibility of a parallel between the extension of the definite article and
that of the indefinite article in the history of Spanish (and other Romance languages). Recall our
suggestion above that generic reference might be defined as definiteness without specificity. If this
is the case, then a generalization can be made: both the definite article and the indefinite article are
used in Old Spanish to encode specific reference, but subsequently expand to encompass non-
specific reference as well. Schematically:
specificity specificity
+ – + –
definiteness + le ∅ definiteness + le → le
– un ∅ – un → un
41
© J. C. Smith 2015 Language Change and Historical Linguistics
7. Envoi: Some surprising (?) similarities between Spanish and English?
As we have seen, in terms of morphosyntactic typology, Spanish is a prototypical Romance

language, in that relational concepts receive relational (i.e., analytic) exponence and non-
relational concepts receive non-relational (i.e., synthetic) exponence. In this respect, along with
all the other Romance languages, Spanish is a less morphologically complex language than
Latin. However, there are several purely morphological features which Spanish does not share
with most other Romance languages and which mark it out as an atypical member of this family.
7.1. Spanish verb conjugation.
Latin had four verb conjugations (morphological verb-classes), normally defined by the
infinitive ending:
I -ˈare, e.g. NATARE [naˈta:re] ‘to swim’, compare Spanish nadar
II -ˈēre, e.g. DEBERE [deˈbe:re] ‘to owe’, compare Spanish deber
III ˈ-ĕre, e.g., FACERE [ˈfakere] ‘to do’, compare Old Spanish fer
IV -ˈire, e.g. AUDIRE [auˈdi:re] ‘to hear’, compare Spanish oír
A striking fact about Spanish is that, unlike French, Italian, and Romanian, it has lost a complete
conjugation — no third-conjugation verbs survive as such into Spanish. Many of them have
been assimilated into the second conjugation (thus FACERE ‘to do’ > hacer, etc.); others have
joined the fourth conjugation (DICERE ‘to say’ > decir, etc.). There is much to say about this; but
the essential point is that Spanish has undergone a striking morphological simplification with
respect to most other Romance languages.
7.2. Fused forms of preposition and determiner in Spanish

A non-exhaustive list of fused forms of preposition and determiner in Portuguese:
de a em por
o do ao no pelo
a da à na pela
os dos aos nos pelos
as das às nas pelas
um dum num
uma duma numa
isto disto nisto
este deste neste
esta desta nesta
estes destes nestes
estas destas nestas
isso disso nisso
esse desse nesse
essa dessa nessa
esses desses nesses
essas dessas nessas
aquilo daquilo àquilo naquilo
aquele daquele àquele naquele
aquela daquela àquela naquela
aqueles daqueles àqueles naqueles
aquelas daquelas àquelas naquelas
42
An exhaustive list of fused forms of preposition and determiner in Spanish

a + el > al; de + el > del.
Here, the issue is not so much simplification as non-complexification: sequences of preposition
plus determiner often yield comparatively opaque forms in many Romance languages; in
Spanish, they tend to remain transparent.
7.3. Morphological simplification/non-complexification in English
English has also undergone morphological simplification. Sometimes this has involved the loss
of entire categories: thus, gender and case have disappeared from nouns, person is not marked in
the past tense of verbs (and in only a nugatory way in the present tense), etc. Lass (2000)
contrasts the simplified morphology of English (matched only by Afrikaans) with that of other
Germanic languages. Likewise, English has not developed ‘complexified’ fused forms akin to
German am (an ‘on’ + dem ‘the’), zur (zu ‘to’ + der ‘the’), ins (in ‘into’ + das ‘the’), etc.
7.4. Loan words in Spanish and English
In §4 above, we discussed, inter alia, the very large number of loan words in English, and what
they can tell us about the history of the language. Of course, most languages contain loan words,
but rarely so many, and rarely in functional as well as lexical categories (indicating a prolonged
period of very close contact). However, it might be worth examining the Arabic influence on
Spanish in this context.
As is well known, Spanish contains a number of Arabic loan words (García González 1993;
Millar 1999; Viguera Molíns 2002) — about 4,000 items in all. However, most of these are
nouns. In contrast to the French influence on English, very few other categories are borrowed,
betokening a relatively low level of influence (see §4.5.1.1. above), despite the occasional
preposition (hasta) or interjection (ojalá). Note, too, that the vast majority of Arabic nouns
entering Spanish do so with the definiteness prefix al- (Odisho 1997) — this implies that the
speakers adopting these items had little knowledge of the grammatical structure of Arabic. It
may therefore be that they were adstratum rather than substratum items entering Castilian thrugh
Mozarabic (where they were superstratum items).
Unlike English, Spanish does not stand out from its sister languages with respect to loan words:
French and Rumantsch have borrowed more from Germanic, and Romanian has borrowed more
from Slavonic, Greek, Turkish, and Hungarian — and latterly from French and Italian.
7.5. A topic for future research
So, both the importance of loan words and the extent of morphological simplification/non-
complexification are greater in English than in Spanish, and this implies a quantitive difference
between the two languages. But we might tentatively suggest that they are qualitatively similar.
Tuten (2003) suggests that the simplification/non-complexification of Spanish may be the result
in koineization (see §1.9 above). One school of thought sees the simplification of morphology in
Middle English as the result of contact, whether between Old English and Old Norse or
subsequently between Old English and Norman French contact Domingue (1977), Bailey &
Maroldt (1977), Poussa (1982), Dalton-Puffer (1995), Dawson (2003). Some of these scholars
even speak of creolization (see §1.7.3.1.2 above), which is surely an exaggeration. Koineization,
perhaps involving more than one language (Old English, Old Norse, Norman French) seems a
more likely explanation. Although much more work needs to be done on this issue, I leave you
with the thought that one thing both English and Spanish may have in common is that each
represents the most koineized member of its family.
43
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Universidad chileno-británica de cultura

LANGUAGE CHANGE AND

John Charles Smith,

1.2. Various areas of study

1.3. Three levels of enquiry

1.4. Variation as the seed of change; change as the consequence of variation

How languages do change: A → A/B → B ✔︎

A typology of language variation

1.5.1. The propagation of change as a social phenomenon

1.5.2. The uniformitarian hypothesis

1.6. Internal and external change

psychological factors ease of processing

1.6.1.1. What is regularity? Synchronic regularity vs. diachronic regularity

Latin sound change(s) French gloss

1.6.1.2. Frequency and language change

1.6.1.3. Inferential reasoning and language change

Observation 1: Want is a verb

and thence by deduction

Case: Fight is a verb

Case: Daphne likes milk

Case: This object is definite and human

1.6.2. External change — language contact

1.6.2.1. L1 and L2 in language contact — borrowing and imposition

1.7. Two simple models of language change — trees and waves

Ibero-Romance Gallo-Romance Italo-Romance Daco-Romance

Portuguese Catalan Occitan Franco- ... ... ... ...

Spanish French Italian Romanian etc.

1.7.1.1. An arguably more accurate ‘family tree’

Spanish French Italian Romanian etc.

1.7.2. The Wellentheorie

1.7.3.1. Transmission and diffusion

1.7.3.1.1. Transmission (internal change; first-language acquisition)

1.7.3.1.2. Diffusion (external change; language contact)

1.8. ‘Central’ vs. ‘peripheral’ languages — ripples in the pond?

1.9. Simplification and complexification

Trudgill suggests the following typology:

1.10 Social structure and language change

1.10.1 Social networks and language change

1.11. A problem of focus — the microscope and the telescope

2. An Interlude: the name of the language

3.5. The problem of manuscripts and editions

3.6. The role of editors in falsifying texts

British English U.S. & Australian English

Cucurbita pepo iuvenis courgettes (French) zucchini (Italian)

Key: * word containing a Germanic element and a Romance element

4.3.2.1. Middle English

4.3.2.2. Modern English

4.4. Phonological typology of Latin and Romance elements in English

4.4.2.1.1. Some examples

Word French British English U.S. English

4.4.2.2. Alteration of system

4.4.2.3. Spelling pronunciation

4.5. Morphosyntactic typology of Latin and Romance elements in English

4.5.1.2. Morphological adjustment

4.5.2.2. Morphosyntactic adjustment

4.6.1. Lexical calques

4.7. ‘Pseudo-stratum’ (or, getting it wrong...)

4.7.1. Lexical items

5. A case-study in typological change: synthetic and analytic exponence from

5.1. The problem

5.2. Preliminaries 1: gender, number, and case

5.3. Preliminaries 2: a formal theory of tense

5.3.2. Reichenbach’s theory of tense