Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics / Edition 1

by Sarah Grey Thomason, Terrence Kaufman

Overview

Ten years of research back up the bold new theory advanced by authors Thomason and Kaufman, who rescue the study of contact-induced language change from the neglect it has suffered in recent decades. The authors establish an important new framework for the historical analysis of all degrees of contact-induced language change.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520078932
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	02/12/1992
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	428
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Sarah Grey Thomason is Professor of Linguistics and Terrence Kaufman is Professor of Anthropology and Linguistics at the University of Pittsburgh.

Table of Contents

PREFACE

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Boas vs. Sapir on foreign influence vs.
genetic inheritance
1.2. What "genetic relationship" means

2. THE FAILURE OF LINGUISTIC CONSTRAINTS ON INTERFERENCE
2.1. Typological constraints
2.2. Implicational universal constraints
2.3. Constraints based on naturalness
2.4. Conclusion

3. CONTACT-INDUCED LANGUAGE CHANGE: AN ANALYTIC FRAMEWORK
3.1. Borrowing vs. interference through shift
3.2. Predicting extent and kinds of interference
3.3. Explaining linguistic changes: when is an
external explanation appropriate?

4. LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE
4.1. Intensity of contact and typological distance
4.2. Casual to not-so-casual contact: exclusively  lexical to slight
structural borrowing
4.2.1. Category (1): lexical borrowing only
4.2.2. Categories (2) and (3): slight structural borrowing
4.3. Intense contact: moderate to heavy structural borrowing
4.3.1. Category (4): moderate structural borrowing
4.3.2. Category (5): heavy structural borrowing
4.3.3. Sprachbund
4.3.4. Typologically favored borrowing
4.4. Overwhelming cultural pressure: replacement of large portions
of the inherited grammar

5. LANGUAGE SHIFT WITH NORMAL TRANSMISSION
5.1. Problems in demonstrating interference through shift
5.2. Some linguistic results of shift
5.2.1. Preliminary remarks
5.2.2. Shift without interference
5.2.3. Slight interference
5.2.4. Moderate to heavy interference

6. SHIFT WITHOUT NORMAL TRANSMISSION: ABRUPT CREOLIZATION

7. PIDGINS
7.1. Definitions and theories of pidginization
7.2. Pidgin genesis as a result of mutual linguistic accommodation
7.3. Examples: diversity in pidgin structures
7.4. Pidgin genesis and contact-induced language change
7.5. Monogenesis and the probability of pidginization

8. RETROSPECTION
8.1. Genetic relationship and the products of contact-induced
language change
8.2. Comparative reconstruction and contactinduced
language change
8.3. Conclusion

9. CASE STUDIES
9.1. Asia Minor Greek: a case of heavy borrowing
9.2. Ma'a
9.3. Michif
9.4. Mednyj Aleut
9.5. Uralic substratum interference in Slavic and Baltic
9.6. Afrikaans
9.7. Chinook Jargon
9.8. English and other coastal Germanic languages,
or why English is not a mixed language
9.8.1. Introductory remarks
9.8.2. Our position
9.8.3. Summary of English sociolinguistic history
down to A.D. 1400
9.8.4. The ethnolinguistic regions of Englishspeaking
Britain
9.8.5. Overview of linguistic developments in
the Middle English period
9.8.6. Norse influence on English
9.8.6.1. The Norse in England
9.8.6.2. Northern English
9.8.6.3 Danelaw English
9.8.6.4. Norsification
9.8.6.5. A model for norsification
9.8.6.6. Linguistic events after norsification
9.8.6.7. Dialects that we consider not to have been norsified
9.8.6.8. The data
9.8.6.9. Distribution of the norsification data
9.8.6.10. Characterization of the Norse influence on
English structure
9.8.6.11. How norsification took place
9.8.6.12. The origin of Northern Middle English
9.8.6.13. On the question of simplification
9.8.6.14. Evaluation
9.8.7. The beginnings of London Standard English
9.8.8. French influence on Middle English and the question of
creolization
9.8.9. Excursus: simplification and foreignization of other
Germanic languages
9.8.10. Low Dutch grammatical influence on Middle English
9.8.11. On orderliness or the lack of it in the rates of linguistic
change in English
9.8.12. Conclusions

MAPS (for chapter 9.8)
 
NOTES
REFERENCES
REFERENCES TO MIDDLE ENGLISH TEXTS
(sources for chapter 9.8.)
INDEXES:
Languages and Language Groups
Names of scholars
Subjects