Language Change: Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics 9783110807653, 9783110156348

Table of contents :
Preface
Historical sociolinguistics – theories and methods
Social networks, communicative acts and the multilingual individual. Methodological issues in the field of language change
Toward a speaker-based account of language change
Traditional historical linguistics and historical sociolinguistics
Child-to-parent address change in Polish
Historical sociolinguistics – dead languages
Sociolinguistics and dead languages
Decay of suffixation in a corpus language
Historical code-switching and bilingualism
Mixed-language business writing: five hundred years of code-switching
Sociolinguistics in historical language contact: the Scandinavian languages and Low German during the Hanseatic period
Linguistic variation and the historical sociology of multilingualism in Kven communities
Historical sociolinguistics – varieties of English
Middle English variation: the London English Guild Certificates of 1388/89
The chaos before the order: New Zealand English and the second stage of new-dialect formation
Developments and change in Dublin English
African American English: verbal -s and be2 in Hyatt’s earlier and later corpus
Historical sociolinguistics – Norwegian
Sociolinguistic studies on the basis of medieval Norwegian charters
Contributing factors in the making of the post-medieval urban dialect of Trondheim
Subject index

Citation preview

Language Change

m 1749

I

1999

g

Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs 114

Editor

Werner Winter

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Language Change Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics

edited by

Ernst Häkon Jahr

W DE

G

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

1999

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.

® Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress

Cataloging-in-Publication-Data

Language change : advances in historical sociolinguistics / edited by Ernst Häkon Jahr. p. cm. - (Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs ; 114) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 3-11-015634-2 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Historical linguistics. 2. Sociolinguistics. I. Jahr, Ernst Häkon, 1948. II. Series. P140.L25 1998 417'.7-dc21 98-39239 CIP

Die Deutsche Bibliothek —

Cataloging-in-Publication-Data

Language change : advances in historical sociolinguistics / ed. by Ernst Häkon Jahr. - Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 1998 (Trends in linguistics : Studies and monographs ; 114) ISBN 3-11-015634-2

© Copyright 1998 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co., D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printing: Werner Hildebrand, Berlin. Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer, Berlin. Printed in Germany.

Preface

During the past three decades, with sociolinguistics emerging as a major field of linguistic research, historical sociolinguistics has been established as an important subfield of historical linguistics. The papers in the present volume - most of which were first presented at the Twelfth International Troms0 Symposium on Language: Historical Sociolinguistics, held at the University of Troms0 on June 9-11, 1994 - contribute to a much needed theoretical discussion of this subfield as well as bringing together a considerable body of empirical data pertaining to the description and analysis of historical sociolinguistic conditions. The papers by Els Oksaar, James Milroy and Wieslaw Awedyk raise theoretical questions regarding historical sociolinguistics in general. Agnieszka Kielkiewicz-Janowiak uses a study of changes in child-to-parent modes of address in Polish to exemplify possible methods in historical sociolinguistics. The principle problems concerning sociolinguistic descriptions of dead languages - with data mainly from Tocharian Β - are treated by Werner Winter. Folke Josephson then gives an example of how a sociolinguistic model which is established on the basis of synchronic present-day studies can be employed in the analysis of old, dead languages - here Hittite. Historical multilingualism is treated in three papers. Laura Wright describes code-switching over 500 years in business writing in London. Ernst Häkon Jahr gives an overview of problems in and perspectives of the study of the medieval contact between Low German and Scandinavian. Anna-Riitta Lindgren gives an account of the morphological variation exhibited in Finnish dialects of Northern Norway and explains this variation as a result yielded by long-standing bilingualism. A group of four papers deals with different varieties of English: Middle English in London, with Laura Wright showing the sociolinguistic significance of morphological variation among the scribes for ten guild certificates from the late 14th century; Peter Trudgill discusses a certain stage in the development of New Zealand English; Dublin English, where Raymond Hickey describes certain changes which originated in the upper classes, i.e. 'from above'; and African American English, for which Wolfgang Viereck explains the development of specific features from the 1930s to the 1970s.

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Preface

Two papers concern Norwegian in particular. Endre M0rck shows how the medieval Norwegian charters (of which some 18,000 are printed) can be analyzed in order to establish linguistic differences between various social groups, and Arnold Dalen describes the development of a post-medieval urban dialect in the city of Trondheim. Troms0, July 1997

Ernst Häkon Jahr

Contents

Preface

ν

Historical sociolinguistics - theories and methods Social networks, communicative acts and the multilingual individual. Methodological issues in the field of language change Els Oksaar Toward a speaker-based account of language change James Milroy Traditional historical linguistics and historical sociolinguistics Wiestaw Awedyk

3

21

. . . .

Child-to-parent address change in Polish Agnieszka Kielkiewicz-Janowiak

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45

Historical sociolinguistics - dead languages Sociolinguistics and dead languages Werner Winter

67

Decay of suffixation in a corpus language Folke Josephson

85

Historical code-switching and bilingualism Mixed-language business writing: five hundred years of code-switching Laura Wright Sociolinguistics in historical language contact: the Scandinavian languages and Low German during the Hanseatic period Ernst Häkon Jahr

99

119

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Contents

Linguistic variation and the historical sociology of multilingualism in Kven communities Anna-Riitta Lindgren

141

Historical sociolinguistics - varieties of English Middle English variation: the London English Guild Certificates of 1388/89 Laura Wright

169

The chaos before the order: New Zealand English and the second stage of new-dialect formation Peter Trudgill

197

Developments and change in Dublin English Raymond Hickey African American English: verbal -s and be2 in Hyatt's earlier and later corpus Wolfgang Viereck

209

245

Historical sociolinguistics — Norwegian Sociolinguistic studies on the basis of medieval Norwegian charters Endre M0rck

263

Contributing factors in the making of the post-medieval urban dialect ofTrondheim Arnold Dalen

291

Subject index

305

Historical sociolinguistics - theories and methods

Social networks, communicative acts and the multilingual individual. Methodological issues in the field of language change Els Oksaar

1.

Aim and background

"One of the most fundamental truisms in the story of language is that language changes. This certainly impresses as a blatantly simplistic statement; at the same time, however, it conveys an ultimately impenetrable concept" (Rauch - Carr 1983: VII). When already the mere fact that language changes conveys an "ultimately impenetrable concept", how much more difficult, then, is it to find answers to the questions why, when, and how this happens. Since language exists and develops in a biological and social context and is the chief means of human communication and social behavior, there is a need for an interdisciplinary approach with differentiated methods to explain the process of its change. The aim of my paper is to discuss sociocultural phenomena that are involved in language change, especially pragmatic aspects of interaction, to present models of their investigation, and thus to contribute to understanding causality in language change. I should like to emphasize a principle which thereby should be borne in mind: the principle of dynamics and variation. That means: One must reckon with the possibility of certain areas of language use being in a process of change that is not readily recognizable during the investigation of interaction sequences. The social structures are also not static. The possible relations between language and social structure - be they simple, correlational, or causal - can only be derived from various structural components (Teilstrukturen) in society (Oksaar 1976: 20f.). Therefore, special attention must be paid to variants, because they may indicate phenomena in a state of change. Deviant behavior must also be seen under the aspect of creativity. Surprisingly, linguists have paid little attention to the fact that Easton (1953: 32), among others, has referred to: "The changing social environment operating on the plastic nature of man is constantly creating people who respond differently to similar situations." As concerns the theoretical frames of investigations, it is important to remember that today, in more respects than one, the statements of Roman

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Jakobson (1961: 248) have not lost their topicality: "The convertible code of language, with all its fluctuations from subcode to subcode and with all the current progressing changes, which this code is undergoing, is to be jointly and comprehensively described by the means of linguistics and communication theory. An insight into the dynamic synchrony of language, involving the space-time coordinates must replace the traditional pattern of arbitrarily restricted static descriptions". It can be added that, though there has been increasing emphasis in socio-, psycho- and pragmalinguistics during the last three decades resulting among others in a renaissance of empiricism, we are far away from having satisfactory theories of language change. The results of linguistic theories based on an idealized speaker/listener in a homogeneous society rather than on the language of a real speaker/listener in a real, that is heterogeneous society, are of little value for this research. It ought to be remembered that "Attempts to construct a model of language without any relation either to the speaker or to the hearer and thus to hypostasize a code detached from actual communication threaten to make a scholastic fiction of language" (Jakobson 1961: 250). Two major approaches to sociolinguistic research in the sixties, the correlational approach of Labov and the interactional approach of Hymes and Gumperz, have focused attention on linguistic varieties and on the importance of research into language change in its social context. I have in other contexts (Oksaar 1977) discussed these approaches, pointing also to the fact that the claim to study language change in its social context, however, is by no means new. As early as 1867 Whitney (1867: 18) remarked that language change is to be traced to the reciprocal influence of the individual speaker and the language community. The social aspect of language change has been mentioned by Breal, Meillet, and de Saussure, who emphasized the connection between the change of signs and the change in social systems. Hermann Paul, Otto Jespersen, Wilhelm Havers delineated the conditions and motives that determine language change. Havers (1931: 144) lists several: the desire for lucidity, for emotional release, for conservation of strength, for aesthetic expression. Important are also the tendency towards order and social motives such as politeness and consideration. More than a hundred years ago, Hermann Paul (1880: 34) spoke of language change as a result of the individual's spontaneous activity and the constant influence on him of other individuals. He did not, however, treat the relationship between the individual and his social environment, in which not only linguistic, but also socioculturally de-

Social networks, communicative acts and the multilingual individual

5

termined behavior patterns - culturemes and behavioremes - serve as norms, cf. Oksaar (1988). It ought to be obvious that language should not be investigated in isolation from man's way of life, from his sociocultural environment at close or distant range. This view, which in its research design includes not only what questions but also how-, when-, and why- questions, enables us to formulate a wider range of questions and ways to answers than the purely descriptive approach with its what questions.

2.

Language change and the individual

In order to understand the conditions and mechanisms of language change, we have to know how language is used and how it functions. In my opinion, linguists have not sufficiently taken into consideration that there may be specific relations between language change and language use, cf. Oksaar (1977). Because language use ranks above language change, the conditions of language use must be examined first. We can hypothesize that the conditions and motives controlling language use also may cause language shift and change. Historical sociolinguistics has to take this into consideration. For example, in the field of lexis the phenomenon of sociosemantically seen up- and downgrading in the occupational and professional fields can be traced throughout the history of various languages. In contemporary German, Dienstmädchen has been replaced by Hausgehilfin and Hausangestellte', in American English beautician is often used instead of hairdresser, and landscape architect has replaced gardener, to give only a few examples; for a detailed analysis see Oksaar (1976). This phenomenon can be correctly interpreted only by means of the social frames to which the designation belong. Up- and downgrading depend largely on connotations: Hausangestellte evokes more favorable connotations than Dienstmädchen, as does Raumpflegerin compared to Putzfrau. The strongest conditioning factor determining the use of the new words and the downgrading in the social motivation of the old ones, is social prestige. It must be emphasized, however, that not all groups or social networks in society use these new words with the same attitudinal motivation. In order to treat this aspect of language change more thoroughly, the starting point ought to be an individual-centered approach. Usually, the individual is a member of various social networks. His linguistic repertoire can be as-

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signed to one or several languages, dialects, and sociolects. In the latter case he is multilingual, inter- or intralinguistically. The decisive fact is, that an individual can have mastered heterogeneous expression and content structures, the use of which is dependent upon various sociocultural conditions. He not only selects but also interprets the elements of communication in various ways, depending on his different roles in society, whether he is using language as a teacher, a father, a politician, an employer, and so on. Another important determining factor is the personal relation between the speaker and the listener. There is always a possibility of deviations from situational norms when role-prescribed and personal-relation patterns come into contact. For example, when a chairman of a formal meeting addresses some of the participants by Mr./ Mrs. X, some others by the Christian name, as can be observed in present-day Germany. The may result in a change of behavioremes.

3.

The multilingual as a medium of language contact and change

The bridge between languages, dialects, sociolects is the multilingual individual, being thus the mediator of language contact and also of language change. When he changes his linguistic habits in language-contact situations, does he transfer units from other languages into his idiolect? If yes, does this happen for purely communicative reasons, like the need to express oneself, or other reasons like prestige? In what situations? In which type of communicative acts? These are only a few questions that have been important since Weinreich (1953). They are still being discussed especially in terms of code switching (see section 4). But who is a multilingual? A person is multilingual when he has the ability to use here and now two or more languages (dialects, sociolects) as means of communication in most situations and to switch from one to the other, if necessary. Reality, as a matter of fact, does not demand of a multilingual that he uses his languages in all kinds of situations. Multilingualism is not equilingualism. It differs in quality, quantity, and function, depending on the individual's age, his sociobiography, the languages' range of use and other social and cultural criteria. This diversity is natural. We need a model of analysis which, in describing it, provides the means to include the two important dimensions that structure language use: the social dimension of linguistic variation and the linguistic dimension of social variation (Oksaar 1976: 29 ff.).

Social networks, communicative

acts and the multilingual individual

7

3.1. Models of analysis, the communicative act and social networks In my research I have tried out a model that seems to fulfill these demands. I call it the "intercorrelational model", because it tries to combine and to develop further the correlational and interactional model mentioned in section 2. To be sure, Labov's correlational model uses exact methods and correlates a number of specific linguistic and sociological variables such as pronunciation, syntactic factors, age and social class, but in that way the model is also limited, because many relations are left aside. Here research can profit from some principles of the interactional model of Gumperz and his followers. This model starts from observations in natural communicative situations and through its different points which can be analyzed in components like code, participant, situation, and theme, makes it possible to establish extralinguistic factors in linguistic variation that we cannot get at with the other method. This approach has a broader frame, but does not use as exact methods as the other one. The necessity of combining "the ethnography of communication and correlational sociolinguistics" (Lindenfeldt 1973) is evident when we discuss linguistic variation. By developing these two models further into an intercorrelational model, the center of which is the communicative act, it becomes possible to explain the multilinguals variable interactional competence. Why, then, is the communicative act so central? Because here the respective adaptation of linguistic and cultural patterns of behavior takes place. In case of spoken language we have not only to do with verbal elements but also with paralinguistic, nonverbal, and extraverbal means of communication. The result of the respective adaptation just mentioned could be deviations from one's own individual use or new variants in the verbal, paralinguistic, and nonverbal repertoire of individuals. The communicative act comprises the following elements: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Partner/audience topic(s) verbal elements paralinguistic elements nonverbal elements extraverbal elements the totality of emotional and affective elements of behavior (Oksaar 1979, 1992: 5f.).

However, sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics are at a point of intersection when we ask for the factors that determine the emergence and choice of lin-

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guistic varieties. The reason is that language cannot be separated from the social context of the language users. One important social context is the social network, a concept of social anthropology from the forties and fifties, see White (1943) and the overview in Saville-Troike (1982). It is not my aim to discuss the various concepts of social networks; there is no theory and uniform definition for them, cf. the critical discussion of the network concepts by Rindler Schjerve (1990) and Kischkat (1987). Networks are usually described by means of two factors: density and multiplexity. For the research of language change they would be interesting as disseminators of innovations if they could include aspects of dynamics and various kinds of relations between the members. As the social relation as an entity of the analysis of networks does not account for the behavior of the individuals and the situation of interaction, the variability of linguistic behavior cannot be determined by the social roles alone. All network types are static, they describe, but do not explain (Kischkat 1987). The concept of Milroy (1980), in spite of being a socio-geographic entity, at least comprises specific types of interaction and can be defined through the roles of its members. As multilinguals in a country have social networks with specific types of interaction caused by code switching possibilities and innovations, it is necessary to include these aspects into the network concept. I have shown in earlier publications (Oksaar 1972, 1974) that it is not simply the position of an individual within the network that influences the use of his linguistic varieties, but it is his interactional competence in more than one language, the possibility to choose between various linguistic entities, that gives him a certain position in his relationship to those with whom he communicates. In this relationship it is above all the linguistic status of the listener, the partner in the communicative act, that not only influences the choice of language in a specific situation but also makes the speaker create new elements, according to the goals of speaking and the interactional competence of the listener. Multilingual speakers not only control language choice when they interact but also create variants and constitute closed networks with code of their own, LX, see section 6. These findings show a more differentiated network structure than that of Gal (1979), whose analysis of German and Hungarian "illustrates the ways in which speakers exercise control over each other's linguistic presentation of self", but only on the "scale of peasant status" (1979: 151).

Social networks, communicative

4.

acts and the multilingual individual

9

The speech of multilinguals: LI, L2, LX

For multilinguals the traditional terms "grammaticality" and "acceptability" cannot be used on the basis of LI and L2 alone, because sociopsychological norms will create and promote certain types of interference and these will be part of new norms. Based on the empirical studies in our two Hamburg Long Term Projects - The Bilingual Language Behavior Project, 12 years, among Estonians in Sweden, Australia, Canada, and the USA, and Germans in Sweden and Australia, completed 1980, and the current Long Term Project among minorities in Honolulu - I have found that the basis of judgment in the communicative act is not only LI or L2, but also LX. What is LX? Members of a multilingual group have not only two or more sets of rule complexes from their languages, regulating their communicative performance, but at least three, the third complex arising from LX. LX, with its variants, consists to a large extent of items from LI, L2, etc. on all strata of language. However, it has its own norms of usage: linguistically concerning the morphosyntactic and semantic structure of utterances, as well as socially. These norms are directly connected with the phenomenon of code-switching. I define "code-switching" as the alternative use of the two languages in a sentence or a text, without any interferences as well as their alternation with several types of interferences (Oksaar 1974: 492). Hasselmo (1961) was one of the first to attempt to categorize linguistic units of code-switching in the sentence framework by means of empirical study. Gumperz (1966: 27) differentiates according to the role of the speaker or of stylistic factors, between transactional and personal code-switching. The two categories, however, are not mutually exclusive. I distinguish between situational (external) and contextual (internal) code-switching (Oksaar 1972: 439; 1974: 492, cf. 1992: 6). The first will occur when there is a change in the constituents of the communicative act: partner, topic, situation. In the second case the main factor is the linguistic repertoire and the competence of the speaker; the conditions are lack of words, emotive devices, also prestige. These two categories may overlap, and we have then a case of external-internal switching. When a German in Australia on one occasion says: Wir haben motels an den beachen, or: Wollen Sie nicht etwas relaxen? and on another: Wir haben Motels an mehreren Stränden, or: Wollen Sie sich nicht etwas ausruhen? and the structure of lexical interference in the form of integrated morphosemantic transfer in the first sentence alternates with the use of LI also in other patterns, we can conclude the following: this behavior bears witness to a

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competence that is dependent on certain interactional norms. Competence in both languages is certainly not enough to explain this behavior - one cannot explain it by the rules of either language. The methodologically proper way to find the rules governing the interactional competence of multilinguals has to proceed via the analysis of the situation in which these entities are used. Relations between the interlocutors and the topic as well as the structure of the speech act can influence the speaker to choose or to create a special variant. We must not neglect the process of creation: in LX there are often lexical items that do not belong to either LI or L2. We must not neglect the partner in the communicative act, either. The listener may interpret a message creatively, and that may influence his idiolect.

4.1.

The normative and the rational model

In the speech of multilinguals, then, it is possible to distinguish roughly between two models of behavior: the normative and the rational model. Both of them have variants and they are dynamic models. There are, accordingly, two sets of interactional rules: acting normatively and acting rationally. A normative action is an action which is effectively designed to follow the rules of LI or L2, situationally as well as linguistically, the role of the partner and the topic being minimal. A rational action is an action which is effectively designed to achieve the consciously selected linguistic aim of the speaker, according to the situation, partner/audience, and topic. Interestingly enough there is a correlation between the type of the model and the type of interferences: the normative model can be identified by loan translations, loan creations, and morphosemantic transfers, the rational model contains mostly lexical interferences in the form of integrated morphosemantic transfers (type reläxen in German). As concerns language change, we can notice that both models are dynamic and provide LX with new lexical items. These can also influence, LI, more rarely L2. Through the normative model LI receives loan creations, among others loan translations; the rational model is the source of loan words. This process depends on the attitudes of the speakers - listeners and the structure of the network. During the process of borrowing, there may be negative reactions concerning new words - reläxen in present-day German, but neutrality

Social networks, communicative acts and the multilingual individual

11

or positive attitudes towards loans that have been integrated into LI some time ago, as beige in German. The process of acceptance of new items needs more investigation, as we know little yet about the attitudes and the psychological and social motivation of language users. Important factors seem to be: the domain of the word or expression, the motivation in the network, and in-group relations, see section 8.

4.2.

I^pes of interference as social markers of discourse

There is a significant correlation between the type of interference and the social markers of discourse. The rational model is evaluated by the multilinguals as the almost normal realization of speech acts between friends and close acquaintances (among white-collar workers and factory workers). The lexical interferences in the form of integrated morphosemantic transfer of the type German ich relaxe increased, when the persons knew each other well. The use of this type of lexical interference decreased in proportion to the decreasing degree of acquaintance and was replaced by loan creations where possible. As an alternative the L2 items were left unintegrated when loan creations and loan translations were not used. What are the conditioning factors of this variation? In-group partner relations. One important point is the speaker's knowledge of the listener. The deviations from the LI norms are due to the following factors: 1. Background knowledge of the topic shared by the speaker and the listener. 2. The ability of the listener to understand the message without considerable distortions. 3. The speaker's intention to give as exact information as possible. Group dynamics. The choice of a special variant of LX is at the same time a signal for the partner to make the same choice from his repertoire and to establish a common behavioral basis for the communication. We can notice that the same factors that on the one side separate the partners in the communicative act from LI, join them on the other side into a sociolect, a special variant of LX. Psychological factors. The choice of the variant of LX with integrated morphosemantic transfers from L2 Swedish or English, type: Kas Sa ostsid stiiiigasse ka kuddesid? 'Did you buy also pillows for the cottage?' (Swedish

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stuga, kudde)', Meil on madalad täksid ja interestid 'We have low taxes and interest' (English tax, interest), is among an Estonian friend group (according to more than 80% of the informants in Sweden and in the USA and Canada) so usual that they would be looked upon as affected, if they followed other patterns. Intralinguistic factors. In the field of lexis the connotations of the L2 words and expressions are the predominant factors for their choice. The rational model, therefore, has a high correlation with contextual switching.

5.

Explaining dissemination of variants

The acceptance and dissemination of variants and innovations can be explained within the frame of the theory of balance of cognitive structure, as it was first developed by Heider (1946) and as it has been developed since then by a series of researchers such as Cartwright and Harary, Festinger, and others. These sociopsychological theories are still relatively unknown to linguists. For our purposes they must be expanded and more differentiated. Models of cognitive consistence are formed on the assumption that a person shows a tendency to avoid cognitive dissonances in his actions. The knowledge, opinions, and expectations of a person that form internal structures of cognitive elements have a tendency towards consistency. This means that a person tends to reduce the tense condition which may arise from the presence of inconsistencies in his cognitive field. His cognitive field consists of cognitive elements such as perceived or imagined individuals, objects, relations between these, their characteristics (attributes, features), values, social objects etc. Consistency can be attained by acting in, as well as by changing, the psychological world. Heider (1949: 39) refers to consistency as "balance" and states: "If no balance state exists, then forces towards this state will arise". Accepting innovations in various communicative acts may be considered a balance act. The spread of innovations can be explained by means of Rogers' (1971: 8f.) diffusion model. Rogers differentiates between five categories of individuals who accept innovations according to their value systems: Innovators, early adapters, early majority, late majority, laggards.

Social networks, communicative

6.

acts and the multilingual individual

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Application in historical research

How can all these observations be applied in historical research? As a matter of method, one has to be aware of the fact that models established on the basis of present day data are not simply transferable into the past. However, they may be helpful for finding more differentiated hypotheses for the explanation of various phenomena in the past. For us the phenomenon of code switching is topical. Let us take a look at the language of the reformer Martin Luther. His mixed Latin-German language in the Table-Talks has up to now not been explained sufficiently. Jens (1981: 153) calls it simply "deutschlateinisches Kauderwelsch". Stolt (1964: 14) in her grammatical analysis of the mixed Table-Talks states not only concerning Luther but also all educated people in Luther's time: "die gebildete Umgangsprache bediente sich sowohl des Deutschen wie des Lateinischen". Steck (1959: 8) finds Luther's Latin-German mixed language strange, his explanation is generalizing and abstract: "Stossen wir in den Tischreden auf eine merkwürdig anmutende lateinisch-deutsche Mischsprache, so ist das ein charakteristischer Ausdruck für die Gesamtentwicklung des christlichen Denkens und Lehrens, die sich seit Humanismus und Reformation zweisprachig vollzieht." With the principles of LX, we may, on the microlevel, come closer to an explanation for the use of mixed language in Luther's Table-Talks. His pupils recorded them between 1531 and 1546, Luther's death. Luther is known to have been preaching in unmixed German and Latin. In his sermons he blamed people who could speak neither Latin nor German. He was concerned about the correct use of languages; in a letter to "Ratherren aller Städte deutsches Landes" he points out: Ja wo wyrs versehen, das wyr . . . die sprachen faren lassen, so werden wir . . . auch endlich dahyn geratten, das wir wider lateinisch noch deutsch recht reden odder schreiben künden.

He blames in the same letter the higher educational institutions and monasteries: darynnen man nicht alleyn das Evangelion verlernt, sondern auch lateinische und deutsche spräche verderbet hat, das die elenden leut . . . wider deutsch noch lateinisch recht reden oder schreyben können. (WA XV: 38)

At home, on the other hand, when his family, friends and pupils were gathered, he practiced Latin-German code-switching, with and without interferences. The question is: Why? We come closer to an answer, when we look at

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the sociocultural frame, the environment, and the situations in which Luther produced his Table-Talks. Luther lived with his wife Katharina von Bora, a former nun, with six own children and ten children from relatives in the Augustinian monastery in Wittenberg. At his table, however, sat every day his friends, scholars, and his pupils. It was a network in which Luther played a central role and created an atmosphere of special contact and proximity with everybody. He spoke about theological topics, mixed with political ones, but also of everyday life. As his listeners were multilingual, he could have spoken unmixed German or unmixed Latin. That he used LX may have extralinguistic psychological reasons as well as intralinguistic ones because of the connotations, cf. section 8. It is noticeable that he switches to German when speaking about more personal topics, e.g., about his children: Disco et oro mit meinem Hansen und meinem Lenichen - Contra illam securitatem ego quotidie oro mit meinem Hansen und meinem Lenichen (WA 1727). As in present-day code-switching, emotional devices may have been important reasons for it as is the need for quotations and scientific terminology. For us, however, the question has not been what are Luther code switches and how they come about, but above all why, at all.

7.

Language reforms as factors of language change

Language change can, of course, have other sources and ways than those analyzed above. Historical sociolinguistics has for example also to consider language reforms as factors of language change and the work of individual language reformers. In Estonia, Finland, and Hungary "revolutionary language reforms" were carried out by individuals "without governmental intervention and even without the support of authoritative private organizations" (Tauli 1984: 87).

7.1.

Language planning in Estonia

I shall especially point out the change of Estonian, a Finno-Ugric language, through language planning initiated by two Estonians: J. V. Veski and J. Aavik at the beginning of the 20th century, the years from 1912 to 1925 being "the most favorable time for the implementation of reform" (Kurman 1968: 55). Veski and Aavik were "members of the generation of educated Estonians

Social networks, communicative acts and the multilingual individual

15

who became familiar with Western European culture and as a consequence recognized the inadequacies of their native literary language" (Kurman 1968: 53). First in the mirror of another language one gets to know his own, this phrase has been a pragmatical one for the multilingual Estonian reformers, whose aim it was to make Estonian a language comparable with the cultural languages of Western Europe. Not only borrowing form other languages or dialects was one of their ways, coinage of artificial words was not unusual in this process. Tauli (1984: 90) points out that due to their efficiency, shortness, and elegance, the artificial words mdry 'murder', laip 'corpse', and rely 'weapon' replaced in Estonian the compounds mörtsukatöö surnukeha, sojariist, though the latter were supported by tradition and usage. Estonian language shows that even new grammatical morphemes had successfully been introduced: /-plural -siniseis taevais 'in blue skies' instead of sinistes taevastes, /-superlative - suurim 'largest' instead of köige suurem; ureflexive-intransitive - tutvuma 'get acquainted' instead of tuttavaks saama. Among further radical changes are: shortening of the third person plural olid 'they were' for olivad', tulid 'they came' for tulivad; shortened illative case tulle 'into the fire' for tulesse·, shortening of genitive and partitive plurals kirjanike 'of the writers' instead of kirjanikkude, öid 'nights' instead of öösid, cf. Kurman (1968: 56). It is interesting that, according to Kurman (1968: 56), Aavik proposed with varying degrees of persuasiveness "well over one hundred morphological and syntactic modifications of the literary language and several hundred new words".

7.2.

The Swedish du-reform

For historical linguistics it is, of course, crucial to follow the fate of the reforms concerning language change, as well as the change of the realization of the sociocultural patterns of language use, the behavioremes. Let us take a look at the latter, asking what has happened with the Swedish du-reform. In Sweden, addressing by du, instead of the third person form, started in Stockholm in a civil service department 1968. Instead of saying Har chefen tid nu?, when addressing the chief directly, (literally) 'Has the chief time now?', the pronoun du 'you' was recommended: Har Du tid nu? Du, the pronoun with connotations of intimacy, spread in the whole country at the beginning of the seventies, though it was not accepted by everybody, especially not by elderly people of the middle and upper classes. Socio- and psycholin-

16

Els Oksaar

guistically interesting is the starting point: "A leader of the du bastion was Prof. Bror Rexed who, when he took over as director general of Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare in 1968, informed his entire staff that from now on everyone in the vast organization - from scrub-women, messenger boys, up to the scale - were to call him du and that he intended to address them in the du form as well" (Sjöty 1975: 65). However, what there began in an interesting future vision of equality-ideology has now, in the eighties and nineties taken a contrary direction. The need for differentiation in addressing people resulted in the fact that the pronoun ni, 2nd person plural, that in the fifties and sixties was controversial because of its depreciatory connotations and avoided for this reason, was increasingly used since the eighties. Also the third person form of address can be noticed, preferably in commercial life. The younger generation who did not feel the pejorative connotation of ni can be seen as innovators and early adopters of this change.

8.

A new explanation of the origin of the relative clause

I have in this paper stressed the role of the multilingual individual, the social network, and the communicative act in language change and the perspective of both the speaker and the listener in this process. We have dealt with the verbal means of a message. It is important to consider that information can also be transmitted by paralinguistic and nonverbal means. Research into language change has hardly taken this into account. On this background I ask if the well-known explanations of the origin of the relative clause, mentioned by Havers (1931: 23), could not be viewed differently. It has been claimed that the sentence Ich sehe das: er kommt becomes Ich sehe, dass er kommt by shifting the pause. This is a view of the situation that is taken form the speaker's perspective. Why should a pause be moved to a spot in the sentence where previously there was none? We could ask this question, looking at the matter from the listener's perspective. We could argue, that in the sentence Ich sehe, dass er kommt there could have been two pauses in the first place and one of them has been eliminated: Ich sehe - das (the word das appearing with a kineme such as pointing or a glance) - er kommt. The implied content of the demonstrative pronoun das melts together in the listener's reception without a pause.

Social networks, communicative

9.

acts and the multilingual individual

17

Conclusions

By means of the rational and the normative model and by operating with the concept of the multilingual's LX, I hope to have demonstrated some methodological and pragmatic ways for looking at questions not only of language change but also the emergence of new languages/codes. It is peculiar that this has not attracted more attention earlier. Linguists have been more concerned with typologies of the results of language change than with the process itself. The following observation in Oksaar (1972: 490) is still valid more than twenty-five years later: We find hundreds of studies that have analyzed foreign influence at the lexical l e v e l . . . The existence of individuals as media and provoking factors for these processes, however, has hardly been taken into account in the older literature. There is considerable lack of interest in the idiolects of individuals even today and the fact that a bilingual group is the necessary condition for any long scale borrowing appears only in the background.

The rational and the normative model can also be used as instruments to investigate how language can function as a marker of social relations in multilingual interaction, revealing contacts in social networks and how socioand psycholinguistic motives determine the choice and creation of linguistic items. Loan creations and loan translations may in various situations signal social distance, integrated morphosemantic transfers, on the other hand, proximity. The types of differentiation of LX use, of course, may become more or less divergent, due to the degree of social and cultural change for the groups. Here we find a basis for emergence of new languages from the process of mixing. An interesting development of the mixing of two languages, English and Filipino, called mix-mix, can be noticed on the Philippines (Bautista 1984). In Manila mix-mix is not only used in the oral form in both the governmental and private sectors, but also in written form in formal and official reports and in advertising. The analysis of living language, approaching it not only from the monolingual point of view, but also from the multilingual one, being thus individual and repertoire-oriented, can help us to deal with the dynamics of the past.

18

Els

Oksaar

References Bright, William (ed.) 1966 Sociolinguistics. The Hague: Mouton & Co. Baustista, MA. Lourdes S. 1984 "A survey of language use surveys in the Philippines", in: Andrew Gonzalez (ed.): 94-105. Easton, David 1953 The political system. New York: A. A. Knopf. Firchow, Evelyn Scherabon - Kaaren Grimstad - Nils Hasselmo - Wayne O'Neill (eds.) 1972 Studies for Einar Haugen presented by friends and colleagues. The Hague: Mouton. Gal, Susan 1979 Language shift. Social determinants of linguistic change in bilingual Austria. New York: Academic Press. Gonzalez, Andrew (ed.) 1984 Panagani. Essays in honor of Bonifacio P. Sibayan on his sixty-seventh birthday. Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines. Gumperz, John J. 1966 "On the ethnology of linguistic change", in: William Bright (ed.), 27-49. Havers, Wilhelm 1931 Handbuch der erklärenden Syntax. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. Hasselmo, Nils 1961 American Swedish. Harvard University, Ph.D. thesis. Heider, Fritz 1946 "Attitudes and cognitive organization", Journal of Psychology 21: 107-112. Jakobson, Roman 1961 "Linguistics and communication theory", in: Roman Jacobson (ed.), 245-252. Jakobson, Roman (ed.) 1961 Proceedings of symposia in applied mathematics. Volume XII. Providence, Rhode Island: American Mathematical Society. Jens, Walter 1981 Ort der Handlung ist Deutschland. München: Kindler. Kischkat, Petra 1987 Das soziale Netzwerk und der kommunikative Akt - zwei Ebenen des Sprachwandels. Hamburg University, Mag.Art. thesis. Kurman, George 1968 The development of written Estonian. Bloomington: Indiana University. Lindenfeldt, Janet 1973 "Problems in the study of linguistc variation", Paper IXth ICAES, Chicago. Milroy, Leslie 1980 Language and social networks. Oxford: Blackwell. Oksaar, Els 1972 "Spoken Estonian in Sweden and the USA: An analysis of bilingual behavior", in: E. S. Firchow et al. (eds.), 437^*49.

Social networks, communicative 1974 1976

1977

1979 1988 1992

acts and the multilingual

individual

19

"On code switching. An analysis of bilingual norms", in: Jacques Qvistgaard et al. (eds.), 491-500. Berufsbezeichnungen im heutigen Deutsch. Soziosemantische Untersuchungen. Mit deutschen und schwedischen experimentellen Kontrastierungen. Düsseldorf: Pädagogischer Verlag Schwann. "Zum Prozess des Sprachwandels: Dimensionen sozialer und linguistischer Variation", in: Sprachwandel und Geschichtsschreibung im Deutschen. Jahrbuch 1976 des Instituts für deutsche Sprache. Düsseldorf: Pädagogischer Verlag Schwann. "Zur Analyse der kommunikativen Akte", Wirkendes Wort 29: 391-404. Kulturemtheorie. Ein Beitrag zur Sprachverwendungsforschung. Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht. "Intercultural communication in multilingual settings", International Journal of Applied Linguistics. 2: 3-16.

Paul, Hermann 1880 Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte. Leipzig. Qvistgaard, Jacques - Henning Spang - Hanssen - Helge Schwarz (eds.) 1974 Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquee Third Congress Copenhagen 1972 Proceedings Volume III, Applied Linguistics Problems and Solutions. Heidelberg: Julius Groos Verlag. Rauch, Irmengard - Gerald F. Carr (eds.) 1983 Language Change. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Rindler Schjerve, Rosita 1990 "Discussion Paper", in: Papers for the workshop on concepts, methodology and data. ESF Network on Code-Switching and Language Contact. Basel: European Science Network. Rogers, Everett M. - Shoemaker, F. Floyd 1971 Communication of innovations. A cross-cultural approach. New York: Free. Saville-Troike, Muriel 1982 The ethnographie of communication. An introduction. Oxford: Blackwell. Steck, Karl Gerhard 1959 Luther, Tischreden. Ausgewählt und eingeleitet von K. G. Steck. München: Goldmann. Tauli, Walter 1984 'The failure of language planning research", in: Andrew Gonzalez (ed.), 8592. Weinreich, Uriel 1953 Languages in contact. Findings and problems. New York: Linguistic Circle of New York. White, William Foote 1943 Street corner society. The social structure of an Italian slum. Chicago. Whitney, William Dwight 1867 Language and the study of language. New York.

Toward a speaker-based account of language change James Milroy

1. Introduction This paper is concerned with what Weinreich, Labov and Herzog (1968) called the transition problem, which is to explain how language varieties move over time from one state to another, and it focuses mainly on a traditional dichotomy in historical linguistics - the distinction between neogrammarian 'regular' sound change and 'borrowing', i.e., externally influenced change. Explanation in historical linguistics has traditionally set a high value on internal explanations and a correspondingly low value on external ones, so much so that explanations based on 'dialect borrowing' have often been seen as poorly motivated. The reason for this is that in historically attested states, there is often insufficient evidence about the various dialects of a language and the possible contact between these dialects (and/or languages) to offer informed accounts of the processes that were actually involved, which of course lie deep in history. Thus, when evidence for contact influence is not available, it has been usual to assume that changes are internal to the variety without any justification being considered necessary. In short, internal change is the default position, adopted when no evidence to the contrary is available. This is particularly likely when ancient and medieval changes are at issue: these tend to be considered language-internal (i.e., originating within the variety concerned), whereas more recent changes are more likely to be accepted as externally influenced - simply because more information about different varieties and contact between languages is available for more recent states. Consider, for example, Kniesza's (1976: 465) statement about recent changes in the vowel system of Scots English: 'these phonetical/phonological changes cannot possibly be described in the same way as the earlier historical changes, for they are due rather to extralinguistic factors'. One wonders how far the earlier changes might also have been due to 'extralinguistic' factors for which direct evidence is no longer available. It seems that studies of present-day variation may help us to assess more critically how past changes were implemented and, more generally, contribute to refining the traditional dichotomy.

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In recent decades, the methods of quantitative social dialectology and other disciplines that focus on heterogeneity in synchronic states have made it possible to subject this dichotomy to fresh scrutiny, raising the possibility that some changes in the past that have been thought to be internal changes may in reality have been cases of borrowing, dialect-mixing or geographical diffusion from one place to another. At a more general level, of course, these methodologies raise the question whether patterns of language change that have been noticed at the present day support the axiomatic distinction between sound change and borrowing that we have inherited. It should be recalled that the idea that languages have the capacity to change within themselves depended historically on the nineteenth century metaphor that compared languages to living organisms that have an existence independently of human beings. Similarly, the idea that change is mechanical and independent of human intervention is a neogrammarian principle. It seems that an empirical investigation into language in use in present-day speech communities might not be a promising locus in which to find support for these ideas, because as Kniesza's comments suggest, extralinguistic factors are likely to be detectable. Although Labov (1994) has recently argued in favour of the neogrammarian position on regular internal change, many of the findings of social dialectology have appeared prima facie to support the position that many changes are externally motivated. In this paper I shall refer to various findings, some of them well known, focusing particularly on current work on Tyneside 1 .

2.

The empirical problem

A recurrent difficulty that empirical studies face is that - as there can never be a variety of a language that exists in a vacuum wholly insulated from other varieties or other languages - variation within a variety can never be absolutely conclusively shown to be wholly internally motivated and distributed, however probable such internal origin may be in some instances. Nor is it possible to devise an experiment that will satisfactorily and conclusively locate the point of innovation internally within a speech community and also demonstrate that such an innovation is not diffused from somewhere else (see the remarks on Bloomfield 1933, below). We can by empirical investigation locate a change in progress within a given speech community, but there can

Toward a speaker-based account of language change

23

be no guarantee that the change originated within that community; it may have originated elsewhere and spread from there into the community studied. Nor is it clear that we can distinguish these two types of change by identifying them with other dichotomies, such as 'change from above' and 'change from below', as Labov (1994) has done in his defence of the neogrammarian position. According to him, 'regular' (neogrammarian) sound change proceeds below the level of conscious awareness whereas lexical diffusion (associated by him with dialect borrowing) is above the level of awareness. The general thesis underlying the data-analysis presented in this paper is that the traditional axiomatic distinction between sound change and borrowing can be illuminated by appealing to another dichotomy that is logically prior to internal linguistic argumentation. This dichotomy distinguishes innovation from change by associating innovation with speakers of languages and change with the linguistic systems themselves. In short, change in language is not brought about by languages, but by speakers, who introduce innovations which may under certain circumstances enter the linguistic system and become linguistic changes (see Milroy - Milroy 1985). Therefore, what we need to explain are the circumstances under which certain innovations, but not others, enter the linguistic system and become linguistic changes. These circumstances must be described as both linguistic and social; it should not be supposed, as it sometimes has been, that sociolinguists claim that language change is a purely social phenomenon. To emphasize this point, we shall in later sections of this paper consider the importance of internal linguistic argumentation. The speaker/system distinction carries with it an important implication that bears directly on the neogrammarian dichotomy. This is that if an innovation starts with a speaker or speakers, its acceptance into the language system depends on its being passed from the innovators to other groups of speakers. The whole process of linguistic change is therefore the same process in principle as the process of linguistic borrowing. In both sound change and borrowing innovations are passed from speaker to speaker, i.e., both can be said to involve 'borrowing'. The traditional distinction between them appears to be based on the idea that sound change arises from inside the linguistic system (conceived of by the structuralists as a closed and self-contained system), whereas borrowing involves importation of linguistic forms from outside the system. In this paper I adduce data from current studies of language in the community which tend to show that empirical approaches cannot sustain the neogrammarian distinction as a fundamental working principle, however relevant other neogrammarian principles may be in particular instances. As for

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internal change, no empirical study so far carried out has actually demonstrated that sound change can arise spontaneously from within a variety; if this is correct, it can be suggested that to believe in wholly internallymotivated change (perhaps labelled as 'genetic') is more an act of faith than an affirmation of scientific principle. The difficulty in demonstrating conclusively that there is a primary dichotomy between internal and external sound changes can be shown by reference to Labov's (1966) New York City study. Of the five variables quantified, non-prevocalic /r/ is clearly a geographically widespread norm that is spreading into a dialect (that of New York) that was formerly non-rhotic. It is spreading internally, but its origins are not wholly internal to the community studied. The development of (th) and (dh) to plosives - however 'natural' it may be - is widespread in other dialects of English and may have an early origin in English: it may also have been reinforced by language-contact situations. Only the raising of the vowels /a/ and open /o:/ might appear to be internally motivated in some sense, but at what time and place in the past this raising began and for what reason, is irrecoverable. We cannot demonstrate empirically when and in what way the innovations fed into the language system and became part of the sociolinguistic structure of the New York speech community. We shall see below that much the same applies to the variants of (t) in the Tyneside data: in most cases the original point of innovation appears to have been external to Tyneside. I should perhaps emphasize that this is not to say that there might not be aspects of change that have to be accounted for by internally-based speaker motivation: what I am arguing is that spontaneous change that is wholly internal to some dialect or community cannot be satisfactorily demonstrated by strictly empirical methods. The advantage that sociolinguistic methods have over more traditional methods is that they involve access to live speakers and hence access to speaker-variation. If it is assumed that linguistic change is always in progress in some structural parts of any dialect or language, then it is reasonable to suppose that the speaker-variation encountered may give us access to patterns of linguistic change. The patterns accessed in current work in Tyneside include glottalization of /p, t, k/ and aspects of the vowel system. I shall concentrate here on glottalization of /t/ and associated phenomena. The data analysis suggests that, whereas the phenomenon usually known as 'glottal reinforcement' may be a traditional characteristic of Tyneside English, glottal replacement (the glottal stop) has been spreading more recently into the community from outside: i.e., it is currently an externally triggered change. If this is so, the

Toward a speaker-based account of language change

25

Table 1. Percentage use of glottal replacement of /t/ in two positions

5 yrs lOyrs

Male Female Male Female

within-word

word-final

34 55 25 51

35 35 40 39

findings may have implications for projections on to the past or on to wider scenarios of change, and we shall consider some of these below.

3.

Sociolinguistic profiling of Tyneside glottalization

An important finding of pilot work in Tyneside is that the sociolinguistic patterning of glottal reinforcement is different from that of glottal replacement. Hartley (1992) in a study of five and ten year old children shows that when both types of glottalization are counted together, males are found to use more glottalization than females. However, when replacement and reinforcement are treated as separate phenomena, it turns out that males use more reinforcement and females more replacement, i.e. females lead in use of the glottal stop (for a full account see Milroy - Milroy - Hartley 1994). This is particularly clear and salient for ItJ in the within-word position (mainly intervocalic, as in butter, water), in conversational style, as shown in Table 1. It is clear from this that whereas there is virtually no difference between the sexes in word-final position, females are well ahead in preferring the glottal stop word-medially (statistically significant at a better than .01 level) - a finding that may seem surprising in view of the generally male working-class image of the glottal stop. As we have further pointed out (Milroy - Milroy - Hartley 1994), female preference for the glottal stop has been noticed elsewhere - in Cardiff (Mees 1987), in Coleraine, Northern Ireland (Kingsmore 1995) and in New Zealand (Holmes 1995). Furthermore, in Cardiff it is associated with middle class, rather than working class, speakers. More broadly, its spread in mainstream varieties has been noticed by phoneticians (Roach 1973; Wells 1982), and it is now reasonably well established as a middle to upper class variant in wordfinal position. In short, it is clear that in British English generally the glottal

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James Milroy

stop has been advancing on a broad front during the last two to three decades, influencing varieties that formerly did not have it, such as Cardiff and RP despite the stigma traditionally attached to it. The social route by which it has been advancing appears to have been through female usage and middle class usage. It is much less clear, however, that glottal reinforcement has been advancing. It is possible that the RP type of pre-glottalization of final stops noted by Wells is advancing, but there is little sign of glottal reinforcement in intervocalic word-medial positions in mainstream accents. It is salient in some non-standard accents, including northern British rural accents (and the urban vernacular of Belfast) which have not traditionally had glottal stops, and it is probably recessive, and the data in Table 2 (below) suggest that it is receding in Tyneside . It is a strong traditional characteristic of Tyneside English, and it is favoured by male speakers. In wordlist style particularly, the contrast between male and female use of this type of glottalization is dramatic and seems to indicate that females (who avoid it) consider it a feature to be avoided. There is clearly a strong contrast in the sociolinguistic profiles of glottal replacement (glottal stop) and glottal reinforcement on Tyneside, and it seems to be reasonable to conclude that glottal reinforcement is of some antiquity in the community, whereas the glottal stop has been spreading geographically into Tyneside in recent decades. This disjunction between the two phenomena - glottal reinforcement and replacement - has clear implications for more generalized descriptions of processes of change and phonological patterns generally. The most immediately relevant process here is the process of lenition, or weakening, which is very widely appealed to in theories of sound-change and phonological theories. This is a phonetic process, originating, like other processes such as assimilation and vocalization, in speaker-behaviour. In such a process an intervocalic voiceless /t/, for example, may be 'weakened' to a fricative or voiced variant, and in the course of time this variant may be further weakened. Among segments described as lenited are tapped and globalized realizations of /t/ in present-day English (discussed in terms of Government Phonology by Harris and Kaye 1990). In a scale of lenition from [t] to the glottal stop, glottally reinforced [t] is intermediate, and the scaling implies that the glottal stop is a weakening of the globalized [t] pronunciation, losing the supralaryngeal (alveolar) contact present at the intermediate stage. A further reasonable assumption here is that it is speakers who operate this process of lenition. Lenition scales, together with other types of scaling, have proved to be very useful in supplying a descriptive framework to account for long-

Toward a speaker-based account of language change

27

term changes, such as the consonant lenition that differentiates Danish from Old Norse and its present-day sister languages. It is also likely to be thought of as a neogrammarian type of sound-change affecting all relevant lexical items simultaneously and having an internal origin within a speech community. The broad pattern of glottalization in Tyneside that I have sketched in above may be taken to support the reality of lenition as a process of change in the long term as an internal linguistic process. At the level of speaker, however, the findings do not appear to support the view that the sound change is actually implemented by this process. The speakers have access to a number of different variants, including glottally reinforced [t] and the glottal stop, and these variants are in themselves synchronic speaker choices. If groups of speakers prefer one or another of these variants, they are not necessarily implementing a phonetic process of lenition. If linguistic change is in progress, it is implemented through cumulative speaker preferences for one or another of these variants regardless of the origin of the variants in lenition phenomena or otherwise. Theoretical models based on the operation of processes such as lenition, therefore, are system-oriented - they may account for the presence of particular variants in the language system at some particular time. While they may also account for large-scale trends over time, they do not necessarily account for the manner in which linguistic changes are actually implemented by speakers in live speech communities. The general difficulty in relating synchronic phonetic processes to patterns of speaker behaviour is particularly clear in dialect-divergent communities in which speakers frequently have access to alternating forms, which may be the reflexes of changes in the past. In Belfast, for example, alternation between the rounded and unrounded vowel variants in the (pull) class of items is presumably lexical. We would not say that in choosing the unrounded variant, a speaker is applying a synchronic phonetic process of unrounding the vowel. Similarly, the Scots variants: pu',fa', etc. (for 'pull, fall', etc.), putatively result from a process of l\l vocalization that operated centuries ago. When a speaker uses fa' for 'fall', he/ she is presumably not applying a synchronic rule of /l/ vocalization, but making a discrete lexical choice. The same considerations may apply to the Tyneside variants of (t) displayed quantitatively in Table 2, below. The variants here are 1) fully released [t] (FR); 2) voiced [t] (V), which includes a range of voiced and tapped realizations; 3) continuant [r]; 4) glottally reinforced [t] (Gt); and 5) glottal stop (G) with no supra-laryngeal closure. The number of tokens represented in the scores is 2849. The word-final

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James Milroy

Table 2. % realization of (t) in word-final intervocalic contexts by age, class and gender (% reported to the nearest full number: hence totals not necessarily exactly 100)

younger speakers Working class Middle class

t (FR) t(V) [r] Gt G

Μ 4 59 3 23 12

F 5 36 28 19 10

Μ 4 46 1 27 23

F 5 41 2 17 34

older speakers Working class Middle class Μ 7 35 15 40 2

F 28 18 40 11 2

Μ 5 32 6 53 4

F 40 27 12 20 2

pre-vocalic environment (as in not any) is reported here because, although it is not the prime site for Tyneside glottalization, it exhibits interesting patterns with respect to types of lenition or weakening that are not found in all environments. Rows 2 and 3 may be taken to represent a lenition scale of voicing/ tapping of /t/, with continuant [r] as the ultimate weak segment derived from underlying /t/. Rows 4 and 5 represent weakening through the glottal series with the glottal stop as the weakest variant. A neogrammarian account of change would presumably characterize these variants as in reality moving gradually through a continuum of phonetic space, and not necessarily as discrete segments at any given point in the range. The first row shows that in this environment final release (FR) is not favoured by any group except the two older female groups, who use it 28% and 40% of the time. The second row (V) is very much preferred to the voiceless FR by six of the groups. Only the older females use voicing in quantities lower than for FR - 18% in comparison with 28%, and 27% as opposed to 40%. As younger speakers consistently use (V) more than older speakers, it may be thought that there is a gradual neogrammarian change in progress towards voicing of /t/, but this argument depends on the configuration of other variants in the table. However, the pattern here appears to be a consequence of the use of more careful style by older speakers and less careful style by younger speakers - this is a very clear tendency on the tape-recordings. It seems that a full voiceless realization of !\1 is felt to be 'correct' - in older phonological terms the 'underlying' or canonical form. The choice of [r] in

Toward a speaker-based account of language change

29

row 3 is a discrete choice analogous to the Scots and Irish alternations mentioned above. Continuant [r] is a phonological variant of Irl, not of /t/. It is widespread as a variant of (t) in northern English dialects and, although probably quite an old variant in English (consider porridge from potage), it appears to have been spreading geographically in recent years. The evidence here suggests that it has been well established in Tyneside at some time in the past, but may now be receding. It is not found to any extent except in the two working class female groups (40% in the older females, and 28% in the younger). It is mainly a marker of female speech, but it is plainly declining generationally. We can sum up by concluding that there is no reliable evidence in rows 1 to 3 to show that linguistic variation is controlled in the community mainly by gradual movement on a continuous phonetic scale. The most salient variation is clearly distributed socially and concerns the discrete choice between [r] and variants of /t/. Despite the neogrammarian claim that sound change is phonetically gradual, it has always been acknowledged that some (regular neogrammarian) changes must be phonetically abrupt. Bloomfield (1933: 390) comments that the uvular trilled ([r]) in northern Europe "aside from its spread by borrowing ... could only have originated as a sudden replacement of one trill by another". Notice that Bloomfield is describing the innovation as if it were the change and implying that the spread by borrowing did not also involve sudden replacement. Every time the segment was 'borrowed' by a new community, however, it must presumably have involved the same sudden replacement that led to the original change and was a linguistic change in that community: in such cases there seem to be no criteria for differentiating sound change from borrowing in an empirical study or as a matter of fundamental principle. However, what is chiefly relevant to the Tyneside data here is the idea of substituting one sound for another. This certainly applies to Tyneside [r] for (t), and if the voiced variants in row 2 were to become more general, it is arguable that the same would apply to them also. That is to say that the replacement of voiceless [t] by voiced [t] as a linguistic change would not at that point be a phonetically gradual event. The fourth and fifth rows in Table 2 show an interesting pattern of distribution of glottalization in this environment, which clearly supports the previous finding that glottal reinforcement is favoured by males and is probably recessive. Younger speakers use less glottal reinforcement and much more glottal replacement in this environment. Furthermore the glottal stop is particularly favoured by young middle class people and more favoured by the

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James Milroy

young middle class females than by males. It is clear that if these figures are symptomatic of a long-term trend towards glottal replacement of IXJ (i.e., if we have identified a genuine change in progress), the broad pattern may be described as a long-term language internal process of lenition. From the point of view of speaker-behaviour, however, the process involved appears to be quite different. Groups of speakers are at different rates favouring one particular discrete sound segment in an environment in which several other different segments can be used. The process of linguistic change appears to involve abrupt substitution by speakers; the process is socially gradual, and the pattern shown over a long period of time is likely to appear as a linguistically gradual process, even when the implementation by speakers was not gradual. Having concentrated so far on social distribution of variants, I attempt in the remainder of this paper to demonstrate the importance of intralinguistic argumentation by briefly considering some intra-linguistic aspects of the spread of glottal replacement of /t/ in Tyneside.

4.

Linguistic aspects of the change towards glottal replacement

Despite the title of this paper, it is important in a sociolinguistic account of change to affirm that our primary interest is in language, rather than in society or speakers - especially in view of the fact that this has sometimes been misunderstood or misrepresented. A linguistic change is a change in the language system, and that is what we are trying to explain. Glottalization of /p, XJ and IkJ is widely distributed linguistically in Tyneside and is found in environments where it is not predicted by phonological theorists (for example Giegerich 1992), such as syllable-initial environments in items of the type matron, apron, Newcastle, sometimes, nineteen. What we have found remarkable, however, is that in this heavily globalized dialect glottalization is absent (with certain exceptions to be discussed below) in certain sentential or discourse-related positions, specifically in what appear to be pre-pausal or turn-final positions. That is to say that lexical items with word-final /p, t/ or /k/, which are normally globalized elsewhere in the discourse, have fully released non-glottalized realizations when they occur before a pause in the discourse. Table 3, which is based on part of the wordlist used, shows the normal word-list pattern, in which items within sentential contexts are pronounced by speakers with globalized final consonants. However, the same or similar items are not globalized when they are read as single citation forms or

Toward a speaker-based account of language change

31

Table 3. The Final Release Rule: wordlist style

Glottalized

Not glottalized

I BEAT IT I HATE IT DRAT IT I GOT IT I BOUGHT IT BITE IT I WRECK IT LAP IT

SHEET GATE HAT POT CAUGHT BITE WRECK CAP

in pre-pausal positions in sequences (note therefore that final [t] in it is fully released in the sequences on the left of the table: it is the final /\J of the verb that is globalized). The rule for final release in these positions (the FRR) has the hallmarks of a neogrammarian rule. It is regular in that it applies across the board apparently to all relevant items. It applies 100% to the single wordlist items for 31 of the 32 speakers and almost 100% for the other. The main difference from a standard neogrammarian rule (and from post-lexical rules as conceived of in current lexical phonology) is that the conditions that apply are not wordinternal or related to boundaries between lexical items, but in a broad sense sentential - related to utterance position or, possibly, prosodic factors or (even more interestingly) conversational turn-taking rules. Work in progress seeks to determine more accurately what are the conditions - metrical, intonational, interactional, grammatical - that account for this regular pattern of failure of glottalization in pre-pausal position. We report further on this in Milroy - Milroy (1997), emphasizing the importance of conversational function in maintaining final release as a turn-taking signal. What is mainly relevant in this account is the relation of this rule to the progress of a linguistic change in which the glottal stop is superseding other variants of /t/ in Tyneside English. The social trajectory of the change has been discussed above. The linguistic trajectory, however, appears to differ from that observed in other dialects of English. It is generally agreed that in RP and southern British dialects (and in New Zealand English: Holmes 1995) in which glottal replacement is spreading, word-final position is affected be-

32

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fore word-medial position. Many speakers who glottalize /t/ in what, got, etc., do not glottalize medially in butter, bottle. In Tyneside, however, recordings of a conservative lower-working class speaker made in the 1970s suggest that /{J before /l, n/ is the first environment to be affected by glottal replacement in Tyneside, followed by intervocalic position, with word-final position being the latest to be affected. This speaker has seemingly categorical glottal replacement in pre-lateral and pre-alveolar nasal position, but usually full release in final position in all sentential contexts including pre-pausal positions. Thus, the order in which glottal replacement is spreading in Tyneside appears to be the converse of the southern British order. The final release rule is important here because in this analysis, it becomes the last sentential environment in which glottal replacement is being resisted, i.e., where the forces of language maintenance are resisting the change, and we will expect to find evidence that the glottal stop is beginning to make inroads in this position also. This is in fact what we do find. The across-the-board neogrammarian rule is occasionally 'violated': speakers occasionally use a glottal stop in pre-pausal position, and in order to discover the rule that accounts for this exception, we have attempted to investigate the conditions in which this 'violation' happens. Preliminary findings for conversational style show that 11 of the 32 speakers never fail to observe the FRR and that for the majority of the other speakers exceptions are in the order of 2 to 7%, i.e., very rare. Work is in progress in order to determine what are the conditions under which the FRR is not observed, i.e. what are the conditions in which a glottal stop can appear in pre-pausal position? A full account of this must await the findings of this research (and see now Milroy - Milroy 1997), and most of our information is based on one exceptional young female speaker who, in contrast to the norm, uses glottals in this position about 67% of the time. What we can suggest at this stage is that there are already some indications available as to the conditions in which the norm appears to be violated, and that the conditions can be specified intra-linguistically, much as neogrammarian methods used intralinguistic argumentation to specify the conditions under which otherwise across-the-board rules have exceptions (for example, Verner's explanation of an exception to Grimm's Law) . Certain generalizations about these exceptions can be offered. First, failure of the FRR does not apply to long-vowel items - glottal realizations occur only after short vowels; second, even among short-vowel items, glottal realizations appear to be restricted to certain lexical items and typically apply to items such as it, what, that and frequently occurring verbs such as got. On the basis of these observations we may be tempted

Toward a speaker-based account of language change

33

to suggest that the exceptions to the rule are lexical. However, access to the tape-recordings of conversational interaction can enable us to specify the constraints in a more refined way than this, as the.glottals in these frequently occurring words occur only under certain conditions which we have not as yet fully analysed: they are not therefore lexical exceptions in that they do not apply to the words every time they occur: it, for example, which is one of the candidates for glottalization in pre-pausal position, normally occurs with full release in that position. The majority of glottal realizations occur in sentence tags, such as and that (roughly: 'and the like, and so on'), isn't it, and these of course carry with them, not only special grammatical and interactional functions, but also particular patterns of stress and intonation. Further, we have suggested that final release constitutes a turn-taking signal - a transition relevance place at which another speaker can potentially take up his/her turn - but as tags in themselves consitute turn-taking signals, we have further argued (Milroy - Milroy 1997) that the use of final release as a turn-taking signal is not necessary in these circumstances and can be abandoned without loss to conversational management. The exceptions to the across-the-board rule in this case may depend on this aspect of conversational management, and/ or on stress and intonational patterns, or on all of these factors and interactions among them, and not on vowel length or the lexicon. What we observe here may be a very early stage in the spread of glottalization (usually the glottal stop) to a sentential position that has so far been resistant to it, and it may also be a prelude to the generalization of the glottal as a variable in this position and hence all relevant environments. On the other hand, in so far as full release is functional (socially or communicatively), the spread of glottalization may continue to be resisted.

5.

Concluding remarks

I have focused in this paper on a number of related topics concerned with the distinction between speaker-oriented and system-oriented approaches to language change and the distinction between neogrammarian regular sound change and linguistic borrowing. The spread of glottal replacement in Tyneside is taken as a case of borrowing from other dialects, as it has been observed to be spreading rapidly in current British English . Over a long time scale a phenomenon like this may appear to have applied internally within a given dialect by the application of weakening or lenition rules or processes.

34

James Milroy

However, the social profiling of glottalization in Tyneside at the present day suggests that at the level of speaker, this is not the primary process involved. The spread of glottal replacement at the expense of other variants is proceeding through sociolinguistically differentiated speaker-choices among discrete variants of the variable (t). In the empirical study of sound change there appears to be no principled way of distinguishing absolutely between sound change and borrowing as these are traditionally distinguished. The spread of glottal replacement in Tyneside, although it may originate from external influences, appears to show regular trajectories of change at both the social and intralinguistic levels and is therefore a regular change. It is also across-the-board, potentially applying equally to all relevant lexical items in the manner of a regular neogrammarian change. Furthermore, the operation of the final-release rule and its exceptions suggests that grammatical, prosodic and conversational/ pragmatic factors are involved in explaining the regularity of the patterns observed, including the regularity of the exceptions. The data in this paper may have cast doubt on the priority of the neogrammarian distinction between sound change and borrowing, but by adducing information of a kind that was not available to the neogrammarians, they have supported the principle that sound change is regular.

Notes 1. This work is being carried out at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne under a research grant awarded by the Economic and Social Research Council (no R000 23 4892). The project is entitled 'Phonological variation and change in contemporary spoken British English' and is directed by L. Milroy, J. Milroy and G. Docherty. Paul Foulkes, David Walshaw and Penny Oxley are associates on the project. I am particularly grateful to Paul Foulkes for his careful analysis of glottalization and related phenomena and to Penny Oxley for her excellent fieldwork. Fuller accounts of some of the phenomena discussed in this paper are in preparation under joint authorship. 2. There is difficulty in distinguishing auditorily between glottal replacement and glottal reinforcement in some cases, and the analyst may be tempted to think of the variants as ranged in a continuum. If so, it should be noted that the range of variation noticed is a synchronic rather than a diachronic fact. It does not follow that any change that is detected is in itself phonetically gradual.

Toward a speaker-based account of language change

35

References Bloomfield, Leonard 1933 Language. New York: Henry Holt. Giegerich, Heinz 1992 English phonology: an introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harris, John - Jonathan Kaye 1990 "A tale of two cities: London glottalling and New York City tapping", The Linguistic Review 7: 251-274. Hartley, Sue 1992

"A study of the effects of sex and age on glottalization patterns in the speech of Tyneside schoolchildren", Undergraduate dissertation: University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Holmes, Janet 1995 "Glottal stops in New Zealand English: an analysis of variants of word-final /t/", Linguistics 33. Kingsmore, Rona 1995 Ulster Scots speech: a sociolinguistic study. Birmingham AL: University of Alabama Press. Kniesza, Veronika 1976 'To the phonetical aspects of the development of the standard Scots vowel system", Acta Linguistica Academiae Scientarium Hungaricae 26, 457-466. Labov, William 1966 The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington DC: Center for Applied Linguistics. 1994 Principles of linguistic change: internal factors. Oxford: Blackwell. Mees, Inger 1987 "Glottal stop as prestigious feature in Cardiff English", English World-wide 8: 25-39. Milroy, James - Lesley Milroy - Sue Hartley 1994 "Local and supra-local change in British English: the case of glottalisation", English World-wide 15, 1-33. Milroy, James - Lesley Milroy 1985 Linguistic change, social network and speaker innovation. Journal of Linguistics 21, 339-384. 1997 Exploring the social constraints on language change. In: Stig Eliasson - Ernst Häkon Jahr (eds.), Language and its ecology: essays in memory of Einar Haugen. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 75-101. Roach, Peter 1973 "Glottalization of English /p/, /t/, !YJ and Iii - a re-examination", Journal of the International Phonetics Association 3, 10-21. Weinreich, Uriel - William Labov - Marvin Herzog 1968 "Empirical foundations for a theory of language change", in: Winfred P. Lehmann - Yakov Malkiel, Directions for historical linguistics. Austin: University of Texas Press, 95-189.

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Wells, John 1982

Accents of English, 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Traditional historical linguistics and historical sociolinguistics Wieslaw Awedyk

It is languages, and not speakers that change.

It is speakers not languages that innovate. (Milroy 1992: 169)

1.0. The foundations of traditional historical linguistics were laid by the Neogrammarians. They rejected the view that language was a 'living organism' and also made the speaker responsible for language change: " . . . language is not a thing which leads a life of its own outside and above human beings, but that it has its true existence only in the individual, and hence all the changes in the life of a language can only proceed from the individual speaker." (Osthoff - Brugmann 1878 [Lehmann 1967: 204] emphasis W.A.) "But the matter is far from ending with articulatory phonetics alone, if one wants to acquire a clear understanding of man's speech activity and of the formal innovations that man undertakes in speaking" (Osthoff - Brugmann 1878 [Lehmann 1967: 198] - emphasis W.A.) Strikingly modern views were expressed by one of the forerunners of structural linguistics - Baudouin de Courtenay (cf. Stankiewicz 1972): 1. "Language is a psychological-soda/ phenomenon" (Baudouin de Courtenay 1889 [Stankiewicz 1972:139] - emphasis W.A.) 2. "Linguistic phenomena are manifestations of social interaction among individuals. . . . Any change must originate in some individual 'soul'" (Baudouin de Courtenay 1910 [Stankiewicz 1972:263] - emphasis W.A.) Baudouin de Courtenay (1877) also introduced the concept of dynamic stability, i.e., the law of resistance to historical change (cf. Stankiewicz 1972: 94) 3. Baudouin de Courtyenay (1871) rejected the concept of an average national language as a myth (cf. Stankiewicz 1972: 49-80) 4. "The beginnings of dynamic sound changes take place in the synchronic state of a language" (Baudouin de Courtenay 1877 [Stankiewicz 1972: 92])

38

Wieslaw Awedyk

Baudouin de Courtenay's views on language and language change were discussed in detail by Mugdan (Mugdan 1984, especially pp. 46-60 and 107130; cf. also Jakobson 1971). The question now arises why traditional or orthodox historical linguists have paid so little attention to the social aspect of sound change. In this article I will make an attempt to answer that intriguing question.

2.1. The primary reason is the lack of a database. To illustrate the point I will briefly discuss one of the hottest issues in Indo-European phonology, namely, the reconstruction of the PIE stop system. One of the reasons for the rejection of the traditional system with the plain voiceless: plain voiced: voiced aspirated opposition is that, contrary to language typology, the PIE b is weakly attested in daughter languages. The opponents argue that the plain labial voiced stop is the strongest of the series and it is therefore surprising that no convincing example of PIE b, at least in the initial position, could be found. In languages with a plain voiced series it is the velar and not the labial segment that is often missing, e.g., in Thai. They postulate a glottalized series, i.e., ejectives p1, t', k', instead of the traditional plain voiced series (cf. Gamkrelidze - Ivanov 1973). In the ejectives series, on the other hand, the labial segment p' is the weakest and languages with an ejective series often do not have p' as in, for example, Haida (cf. Maddieson 1984). Thus, the PIE stop system with an ejective series is more plausible on synchronic typological grounds than the traditional system based on comparative evidence. The followers of the traditional model of the PIE stop system bring a counter-argument: the traditional model operates with well-attested changes while "... the processes postulated by the ejective model are badly attested or not reliably attested at all" (Job 1989: 132). Moreover, the transformation of the traditional system into that of Proto-Germanic, for example, is captured by one basic process of reinforcement while the transformation of the stop system with an ejective series requires an intermediate stage. Thus, from the point of view of dynamic typology (cf. Awedyk 1993) the traditional model is more plausible. The historical linguist faces then an extremely difficult problem: from the point of view of synchronic typology the ejective model is more plausible while from the point of view of dynamic typology the traditional system is more plausible. It is inconceivable that a historical sociololinguistic analysis

Traditional historical linguistics and historical sociolinguistics

39

can help to resolve this problem and the historical linguist has to resort to the purely linguistic analysis. 2.2. With few exceptions historical linguists have approached language change as a multi-factor phenomenon, for example, the principle of the avoidance of homophony was applied as early as 1877. In his analysis of the Low Rhenish dialect Wahlenberg noticed that the final ρ in kip 'pannier' was not shifted to f, because there was another word kif 'quarrel' in that dialect (cf. Zabrocki 1961). Even a casual glance at the German dialect atlas reveals the following pattern: High German dialects in the South, Low German dialects in the North, and the Middle German dialects between these two areas (cf. Schirmunski 1962: 26). It is generally accepted that changes, like the diphthongization of high vowels, originated in the central High German dialects. On this area the diphthongization is regular, while in the neighbouring dialects one can find forms like haus next to us (= aus). One way of interpreting these data is to postulate two kinds of sound change (cf. Haag 1900, Zabrocki 1961): 1. phonetic processes, which are lexically abrupt but phonetically gradual 2. substitution processes, which are lexically gradual and phonetically abrupt. Historical sociolinguists reject this distinction as orthodox: "Observable change in the BV [Belfast Vernacular - W.A] is overwhelmingly like this phonetically sudden and lexically gradual" (Milroy 1992: 161). 2.3. Wang (1969) also claims that all sound changes are lexically gradual even those which left no residues: if no competing change operates at the same time, the change will finally affect all the relevant lexical items. Thus, if my inference is correct, a change like the Second Consonant Shift was also lexically gradual in High German dialects and it had affected all the relevant words before the first documents were written. Wang's hypothesis cannot be refuted and therefore it ranks low, at least according to some philosophers of science (cf. Popper 1977: 198). I also do not believe that the social factors in Germanic speech communities were similar to those operating in the present-day speech communities. Zabrocki (1963) presented the first historical sociolinguistic analysis of the development of the PG speech community. He made a number of distinctions still current in contemporary sociolinguistic studies, for example:

40

Wiestaw Awedyk 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

language community : speech community long-term speech community : short-term speech community compact speech community : loose speech community superordinate speech community : subordinate speech community multiple membership : single membership

Building on his theoretical assumptions Zabrocki presented a dynamic theory of West Germanic, which accounts for the complexity of the German dialect data. 2.4. Theoretically, another scenario is possible: the variant forms like haus /hus and aus/us existed on the whole German speaking area but then the speakers of the northern dialects rejected the innovating forms (dynamic stability) and the speakers of the southern dialects accepted the innovating forms, while the speakers of other dialects were 'hesitant'. I do not think, however, that any scholar of Germanic linguistics would seriously consider this hypothesis. German dialects are not divided simply into diphthongal and monophthongal, there are also transitional dialects, e.g., Swabian, where forms like hdus are attested while some neighboring Upper German dialects, for example, Alemannic dialects of Alsace, preserved the monophthong (cf. Schirmunski 1962: 215). This argues strongly for the phonetically gradual sound change hypothesis. Lass's data (1978) also demonstrate convincingly that sound change is phonetically gradual and that its spread shows a continuum. He analyzed the reflexes of ME /u:/ in the North and North Midlands of England and found out that it was possible to arrange the reflexes in order of increasing novelty from unchanged [u:] via minimal diphthongs like [gu] and true diphthongs like [ou] to nonback monophthongs like [a:]: The picture in borrowing is disjunctive; but evolutive change; where comparative evidence will often give us poles at least as far apart as those found in borrowing, will give us an overall [emphasis original] set of attested reflexes showing a rather finely graded continuum (Lass 1978: 265 - emphasis W.A.).

In Milroy's approach the 'intermediate' forms like minimal diphthongs will be interpreted as variants: "It is possible (...) that apparently phonetically gradual patterns that we are now able to observe are not sound-changes in progress, but simply variation" (Milroy 1992: 162 - emphasis W.A.). A

Traditional historical linguistics and historical sociolinguistics

41

question immediately arises why, for example, Bavarians adopted innovating forms with 'true' diphthongs while Swabians those with minimal diphthongs. I do not think that there is a sociolinguistic answer to questions like this and that is exactly why traditional historical linguists have paid so little attention to a (historical) sociolinguistic interpretation of sound change. 3.1. Little is known about the social forces operating to produce language change in the past and reliable evidence for a great number of languages dates only some hundred years back. For example, for English the first well-attested data come from the Late Middle English period (cf. RaumolinBrunberg and Nevalainen 1994). The two authors studied the language of the Cely family correspondence and made interesting observations on the use of pronouns thou/thee and ye/you as well as the which:who/whom/whose. They come to the conclusion "that the Celys display a dynamic pattern of progress" (Raumolin-Brunberg and Nevalainen 1994). But even if it were known who the innovators and early adopters were, it would be only the first step in linguistic analysis. The description of an innovation, like the spread of /u/-lowering in some speech community, is not the description of a language change - it is merely an observation of a change in speech habits, similar to a change in fashion. The innovation becomes a sound change only after it has been subject to linguistic analysis and I agree with Romaine's view, namely, that sociolinguistics "must move beyond the treatment of synchronic phonetic and phonological data to a more general body of linguistic data" (Romaine 1982: 1). 3.2. The traditional historical linguist wants to known how a given innovation, for example a —> e, will affect the vowel system of the language in question. He may further analyse the change from the point of view of the principle of vowel dispersion (cf. Liljencrants and Lindblom 1972) and only then the description of the change is complete. Puppel and Jahr (1993) analysed the vowel systems in a number of Norwegian dialects from the point of view of the Universal Vowel Space (UVS). It has been observed that vowels tend to be 'stationed' on the edges of the UVS (A Principle of Centre-toEdge Thrust), but the two authors observed another tendency, namely, Edgeto-Centre Thrust. For example, in the dialects of Sande and Tylldalen (both of them have 13 vowel phonemes) five vowels, including the schwa, are stationed in the centre of the UVS.

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Wieslaw Awedyk

4.1. However, the traditional historical linguist is not interested in isolated changes, fascinating as they may be. He is interested in the transformation of the whole system and his research is both system- and speaker-oriented. Since, apart from conscious adaptation, the causes of sound change remain unknown (but cf. Zabrocki 1958 for the distinction: phonetic vs. phonological process), the researcher concentrates on the mechanism of the change and on how the speaker(s) - homo historicus - executed the change. For example, the transformation of the traditional PIE system of stops into that of ProtoGermanic can be reduced to one underlying process of reinforcement of the subglottal pressure and the supraglottal closure (cf. Zabrocki 1951). 4.2. Linguistics is primarily a cognitive science and therefore the ultimate goal of historical linguistics is to explain the inner laws of language which underlie speaker's verbal behavior. These laws can be inferred from analyses of language change, i.e., how speakers change their language (cf. Ohala's [1974] experimental historical linguistics). The goal has then remained the same since the Neogrammarians: The human speech mechanism has a twofold aspect, a mental and a physical. To come to a clear understanding of its activity must be a main goal of the comparative linguist. (Osthoff - Brugmann 1878 [Lehmann 1967: 1 9 8 ] ) .

If the above definition is supplemented with a social aspect, most historical linguists would subscribe to it. Unfortunately, one has to agree with the opinion voiced by two Finnish sociolinguists, Raumolin-Brunberg and Nevalinen (1994), namely, that "... a great deal more is still required to make sociohistorical linguistics truly diachronic."

References Awedyk, Wieslaw 1993 "Dynamic typology." Folia Linguistica Historica 14, 259-266. Baudouin de Courtenay, Jan 1871 "Nekotoryja obscija zamecanija ο jazykovedenii i jazyke." Zurnal Ministerstva narodnogo prosvescenija c. 115 (187), otd. 2: 297-316. Translated by Edward Stankiewicz [Some general remarks on linguistics and language] 1972, 49-80.

Traditional historical linguistics and historical sociolinguistics

43

1877

"Podrobnaja programme lekcij ν 1876-77 uc. godu", Izvestija i ucenyje zapiski imp. Kazanskogo universiteta 1, 309-24. Translated by Edward Stankiewicz [A detailed program of lectures for the academic year 1876-77] 1972, 92-113.

1889

"O zadaniach j?zykoznawstwa." Prace Filologiczne 3, 92-115. Translated by Edward Stankiewicz [On the tasks of linguistics] 1972, 125-143.

1910

"O prawach gtosowych." Rocznik Slawistyczny 3, 1-57. Resume by Edward Stankiewicz [Phonetic laws] 1972, 260-277.

Gamkrelidze, Thomas V. and Valerij V. Ivanov 1973 "Sprachtypologie und die Rekonstruktion der gemeinindo-germanischen Verschlüsse." Glossal, 141-166. Haag, Karl 1900

"Sieben Sätze über Sprachbewegung." Zeitschrift für hochdeutsche ten 1, 138-141.

Mundar-

Jakobson, Roman 1971 "The Kazan school of Polish linguistics and its place in the international development of phonology." Selected Writings II. Word and Language. Den Haag/Paris: Mouton, 394-428. Job, Michael 1989

Lass, Roger 1978

"Sound change typology and the 'ejective model'." In: Theo Vennemann (ed.), The New Sound of Indo-European. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 123-136. "Mapping constraints in phonological reconstruction: on climbing down trees without falling out of them." In: Jacek Fisiak (ed.), Recent Developments in Historical Linguistics. The Hague: Mouton, 245-286.

Lehmann, Winfred P. 1967 A Reader in Nineteenth-Century Historical Indo-European Linguistics. Edited and translated by Winfred P. Lehmann. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Liljencrants, Johan and Bj0rn Lindblom 1972 "Numerical simulation of vowel quality systems: the role of perceptual contrast." Language 48, 839-862. Maddieson, Ian 1984 Patterns of Sounds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Milroy, James 1992 Linguistic Variation and Change. On Historical Linguistics of English. Oxford: Blackwell. Mugdan, Joachim 1984 Jan Baudouin de Courtenay (1845-1929):

Leben und Werk. München: Fink.

Ohala, John J. 1974 "Experimental historical linguistics." In: John Μ. Anderson and Charles Jones (eds.), Historical Linguistics II. Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Company, 353-389.

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Osthoff, Hermann and Karl Brugmann 1878 Morphologische Untersuchungen auf dem Gebiet der indogermanischen Sprachen I. Leipzig: S. Hirzel. Edited and translated by Winfred P. Lehmann [Preface to Morphological Investigations in the Sphere of the Indo-European Languages I] 1967, 197-209. Popper, Karl 1977 The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Hutchison. Puppel, Stanislaw and Ernst Häkon Jahr 1993 The theory of the universal vowel space and the case of the Norwegian and Polish vowel systems. Paper presented at The XXVII International Conference on Cross-Language Studies and Contrastive Linguistics, Rydzyna (Poland), December 9-11,1993. Raumolin-Brunberg, Helena and Terttu Nevalainen 1994 Like father (un)Iike son: a socio-linguistic approach to the language of the Celys. Paper presented at The First International Conference on Middle English. Rydzyna (Poland), April 13-16, 1994. Romaine, Suzanne 1982 Socio-historical linguistics: Its Status and Methodology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schirmunski, Viktor M. 1962 Deutsche Mundartkunde. Vergleichende Laut- und Formenlehre der deutschen Mundarten. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. Stankiewicz, Edward 1972 A Baudouin de Courtenay Anthology. Translated and edited with an introduction by Edward Stankiewicz. Bloomington: Indiana. University Press. Wang, William S.-Y. 1969 "Competing changes as a cause of residue." Language 45, 9-25. Zabrocki, Ludwik 1951 Usilnienie i lenicja w jfzykach indoeuropejskich i w ugrofinskim [Fortition and Lenition in Indo-European Languages and in Finno-Ugric]. Poznan: Poznanska Drukamia Naukowa. [Resume in French: 257-89]. 1958 "Zagadnienia fonetyki strukturalnej" [On structural phonetics]. Sprawozdania Poznanskiego Towarzystwa Przyjaciot Nauk 53, 165-185. 1961 "Prawa glosowe, procesy gtosowe, onomastyka" [Sound laws, sound change, and onomastics] Onomastica 7, 1-20. 1963 Wspolnoty komunikatywne w genezie i rozwoju jqzyka niemieckiego [Speech communities in the genesis and the development of the German language], Wroclaw: Ossolineum.

Child-to-parent address change in Polish Agnieszka Kielkiewicz-Janowiak

The following paper combines an investigation of historical sociolinguistic phenomena and research into related problems in contemporary language, in order to obtain a general view of the directions of sociolinguistic change. The specific sociolinguistic aims are: (i) to describe the historical and contemporary forms used in child-parent address; (ii) to compare the change with the evolution of the Polish address system in general; (iii) to tackle the question of whether in the family social relationships are defined and redefined, through forms of address, in the same manner as in society in general. The methodological aims are: (i) to juxtapose two kinds of studies, of contemporary and of historical address; (ii) to compare different sources for textual research into address patterns. The description of the Polish address system is based on existing historical accounts, fragmentary analyses of historical literary texts, and a questionnaire and interview study of contemporary usage.

1.

Polish pronominal address

Put schematically, Polish may be said to have at least two distinct address systems which code social distance, the urban and the rural. The rural system is comparable to the paradigm represented by French and Russian, in which the prototypical T/V distinction is between the singular and the plural second person pronouns, i.e. in Polish ty/wy (T/W). This system is outside the scope of the present study. As regards the urban standard, in Polish (as in Spanish and Italian, for instance) respectful address functions are served by pronominalized nouns which once used to be honorific titles, and came to acquire pronominal features. These are pan (masc.)/pam (fem.), which, though very much like pronouns (cf. Stone 1981b), cannot be dropped, as pronouns can, when the number and person are marked on the following verb. There are many other pronoun-like nouns in Polish, besides pan/pani, which function as address terms in syntactically bound position1, for in-

46

Agnieszka Kielkiewicz-Janowiak

Table 1. The Polish T/P system

intimate formal

Singular

Plural

ty pan (to male) pani (to female)

wy panowie (to males) panie (to females) panstwo (to mixed sex group)

stance ksigdz (to a priest), siostra (to a nurse or a nun), druh (to a boyscout), kolezanka (to a female colleague), as well as combinations of pan/pani and titles such as profesor, as in Czy moglaby pani profesor to rozwazycl 'Could Mrs. professor consider this?'. Some kinship terms also belong to this group, notably mama 'Mum' and tata 'Dad'. The standard Polish T/V distinction is here marked (after Stone 1981a) as T/P. It may be represented as shown in Table 1. The informal Τ address is, actually, rarely realised as the second person singular pronoun ty, as the pronoun is grammatically redundant in the subject position with its features obligatorily marked on the coreferential verb. Thus, more frequently, Τ is only manifested by second person singular verb forms and forms of ty in cases other than the nominative. Throughout this paper Τ is then taken to be equivalent to 2nd person verbal address. Ρ stands for the use of pan/pani, roughly translatable into English as 'sir/madam', 'gentleman/lady', 'Mr./Mrs.', depending on the context. Ρ forms co-occur with verbal forms marked for the 3rd person singular (cf. Braun 1988 on indirect address). The first examples of honorific address in Polish are found in the early 15th century, though sources are perhaps too scarce to detect any clear pattern. The titles Twa Milosc 'Your (2p. sing.) Honour' or Wasza Mitose 'Your (2p. pi.) Honour', used in free address, co-occured with ty (2p. sing.) or wy (2p. pi.) in bound address. Wasza Mitose also occurred as a noun-substitution form (i.e. in bound address) with 2p. sing, or 3p. sing, verb form. This usage was characteristic of the nobility, while townsmen received W address, i.e. 2p. pi. pronouns and verbs, as honorific address. Near the end of the 16th century a new form appeared, Wasza Mitose Moj Mitosciwy Pan (commonly abbreviated as WMMMP). By that time Wasza Milosc had apparently lost its distinctive honorific value, as it quickly dis-

Child-to-parent address change in Polish

47

seminated down the social hierarchy (this has been referred to by many researchers, e.g. Head 1978 and Braun 1988, as the polite-forms-wearing-out process). It is WMMMP that is considered to be the ancestor of today's pan (Stone 1985). Initially addressed only to the king, it has been called "a sparkle of the crown falling to everyman's cap" (Lozinski 1907: 144, translation A.K.-J.). Throughout its history, and in particular in the 17th century, the Polish language developed an extremely rich repertoire of honorific titles. Older forms became common and got contracted. The following is a possible route by which WMMMP became pan: wasza milosc moj milosciwy pan waszec moj mosci pan waszec (mosc pan) waszmosc (pan) pan It is very important to note, however, how the titles co-occurred with verbal forms. In my (1990) study I investigated Polish address patterns of the 18th century by analysing the language of a number of plays written at that time. Throughout the source material, I recorded 1154 2p. sing, verbs of address, 10 2p. pi. and 43 3p. sing, forms accompanying a great variety of titles. It showed, from the sociolinguistic analysis of the instances of 3p. sing, verbs, that the form was not used systematically by any of the characters and that when applied it was meant to increase social distance (one typical context was where the speaker expressed irritation or anger). Whenever it occurred more regularly, it marked a clear case of status disparity (e.g. servant-master exchanges). The 19th century witnessed the rapid decline of honorific titles which either dropped out of use or got contracted to very quaint formations such as asan (masc,)/asani (fem.), asindziej (masc.)/asindzka (fem.), etc. (cf. Chmielewiec 1924). Influential intellectuals were involved in a heated discussion over polite address. They advocated a movement towards recovering the old Polish W form, as it was "simple", "convenient", and "traditional". Yet it was pan, the remnant of the old elaborated title, that won general acceptance across all social classes. At the end of the 19th century pan/pani occurred with 2p. sing, or 3p. sing, verb forms; Tyszynski (1874) criticized the use of pan/pani with the 2p. sing, form as too barbarous to appear in writing, which practice, to his regret, had become widespread.

48

Agnieszka Kietkiewicz-Janowiak

This may have changed in the beginning of the 20th century. In the plays of Gabriela Zapolska (written between 1906 and 1912), which I examined for address patterns, the honorifics, drastically limited to pan/pani/panna , typically co-occur with the 3p. sing, verb form, while the 2p. sing, agreement is characteristic of colloquialisms and, in particular, occurs in imperative constructions. Today, pan/pani is the unmarked form of address to any unknown or nonintimate adult addressee. The spread of pan was described by Klemensiewicz (1946) as 'democratization through nobilitation'. Ρ address has seeped down the social hierarchy, lost its implications of power and superiority, and is now a polite routine and a marker of a non-intimate relationship. W became the main type of honorific address in rural speech in the 17th century and has continued to be used as such until modern times. In Polish, as in many other languages, reciprocal use of address forms is expanding as more and more relationships are defined as socially equal (cf. Brown and Gilman 1960). However, both the urban and the rural systems may also be used to express social inequality, and asymmetrical usage certainly still exists (e.g. in employer-employee discourse). In many cases it is only weak asymmetry, marked on free address phrases (e.g. the exchange of Ρ + title and Ρ + first name, as in panie profesorze 'Mr. Professor (voc.)' and pani Agnieszko 'Mrs. Agnieszka (voc.)', both followed by reciprocal bound address pan/pani). Nevertheless, fully asymmetrical T/P may well occur in other social contexts. The direction of change has been towards abandoning the elaborated honorific titles, and shifting from the use of 2nd person to 3rd person verbs, thus adding to the degree of formality in polite address.

2.

Child-to-parent address

The earliest accounts of child-parent address in Polish are referred to by Stone (1984). He finds records of children addressing their mother or father with W in the 15th century. This is an instance of honorific address, yet there is too little information about it to judge the scope and the social background of the usage. Numerous examples of child-parent conversations are to be found in the literature of the late 18th century 3 which I examined in detail. Parents regularly address their child(ren) with Τ and the first name (FN), though there

Child-to-parent address change in Polish

49

are a few examples of Ρ address to children (Krasicki 1778: wasc, waszec, cf. Kielkiewicz-Janowiak 1990: 67). The children usually use Ρ (wacpan dobrodziej (masc.)/wacpani dobrodziejka (fem.)) in both bound and free address: the nominal address co-occurs with 2p. sing. verb. Interestingly, there are very few instances of kinship terms (KTs): mamo (mother), and ojcze (father) are used exclusively in the vocative. More than a hundred years later, as reflected in the plays of Gabriela Zapolska4 (written 1906, 1912), children no longer use honorific titles. They now only address their parent with a KT, both in free address (often vocative phrases such asprosz§ mamy 'please Mum', prosz§ mamci 'please Mummy') and in bound address. A major change is manifested by the co-occurrence of KTs (in bound address) mainly with 3p. sing, verbs, and rarely with 2p. sing, verbs. I also examined several other plays written in the 1920s (by St.I. Witkiewicz)5. They generally demonstrate variation between two ways for children to address their parents: a) a kinship term with 3p. sing, verb in bound address and KT in free address (KT3+KT), and b) ty and 2p. sing, verbs in bound address with the KT in free address (2p.+KT). This variation can clearly be related to fluctuations of emotion: 3rd person address coincides with anger, while 2nd person - with expressions of love, care and tenderness. The sample is too limited to judge which of the two forms is unmarked. The most remarkable change in the use of address to parents illustrated above is the shift away from the use of honorific titles, which were replaced by kinship terms. Respect to parents is still paid by the application of polite and distance-maintaining 3rd person verbal forms.

3.

The questionnaire

Tracing the evolution of the Polish address system I finally turned to informants to enquire about contemporary usage. The following is an account of a questionnaire and interview study, conducted in the spring of 1994.6 In the questionnaire, the various dimensions of address usage were tested by asking the informants to choose from sample utterances likely to be used in prototypical situations involving different degrees of formality and emotional load, utterances to mother and to father, etc. In each of the fifteen communicative situations the informants were given choice between utterances representing typical patterns of address. For example, four versions of

50

Agnieszka

Kielkiewicz-Janowiak

"May I switch to the other channel, or do you want to watch this?" were presented as follows: 1. 2.

3.

4.

5.

Czy mog£ przel^czyc na drugi program, czy tata chce to ogl^dac? (KT3) May I switch to the other channel, or does Dad want to watch this? Tato, czy mog$ przel^czyc na drugi program, czy tata chce to ogl^dac? (KT3+KT) Dad, may I switch to the other channel, or does Dad want to watch this? Tato, czy mog§ przel^czyc na drugi program, czy chcesz to ogl^dac? (2p.+KT) Dad, may I switch to the other channel, or do you want to watch this? Czy mog£ przel^czyc na drugi program, czy chcesz to ogl^dac? (2p.noKT) May I switch to the other channel, or do you want to watch this? (the informants were asked to specify any other way in which they'd approach their father when seeking permission to switch channels).

Additionally, in a short interview informants were asked to comment on their use, and related problems, feelings, and attitudes. They were also asked whether in the past they used to address their parents differently, and, if so, when any change had taken place. Two studies were conducted to discover the current address patterns used by adult children to their parents7: 3.1. A questionnaire was distributed among 50 secondary school pupils aged 17-19 (the informants were asked to specify their age and sex). The questionnaire consisted of two parts. In Part 1 the informants were presented with 20 examples of address utterances, each in four versions conforming to different address patterns, and asked to choose out of these four address options the one typical of their address to parents. The options were phrased like real life examples of utterances directed to their mother or father, e.g. Mamo, ty chyba zartujesz! (Mum, you must be joking!), or Czy moglby tata przestac sciszac mi radio? (Could Dad stop turning down the radio?). Part 2 asked them explicitly about the grammatical choice that they thought they made when addressing either parent (KT3+KT, 2p.+KT, 2p+noKT, other). I hoped that a comparison between the two groups of results would indicate the speakers' attitudes and their views about what is appropriate as address to parents.

Child-to-parent

address change in Polish

51

Table 2. Questionnaire results

Adress pattern KT3+KT KT3 (with some 2p.) 2p.+KT (with some KT3) 2p.+KT 2p. (no KT)

3.1.1.

Part 1 Number of informants 1 5

Part 2 Address pattern Number of informants KT3+KT

3

14

2p.+KT

29

27

2p.+KT (with some 2p.) 2p. (no KT)

11

3

7

Results

The choices made by each informant were not consistent throughout the variety of options offered. Thus, rather than in absolute numbers, the results are represented in terms of typical (i.e. prevailing) patterns of reported usage. The informants were grouped according to the type of address pattern for which they showed preference. The address patterns are defined in terms of the bound/free distinction. Yet, it is in bound address where speakers demonstrated the most consistent selection. The use of kinship terms in free address phrases varied greatly and seemed to depend primarily on specific pragmatic functions of an utterance (e.g. attracting the addressee's attention or expressing the speaker's emotional state). Thus, in most exchanges free address KTs are redundant as markers of the child-parent relationship, especially when the KT occurs in bound address. It seems that the occurrence of vocative KTs, marking emphasis rather than identity, cannot be reliably tested by questionnaire, with the utterance options presented out of context. On the other hand, some informants declared unequivocally that they did not use KTs at all, neither in bound nor free address. It is very unlikely that children should not ever apply any form of kinship term to their parent, unless they replace it with an alternative address, such as first name (FN). Yet, none of my informants admitted he/she used FN. Possibly, the declared absence of KTs is a marker of an informant's attitude rather than a reflection of usage.

52

Agnieszka Kielkiewicz-Janowiak

On the whole, in both parts of the questionnaire, the informants showed a clear preference for addressing their parents using the 2p. sing, verb form and a KT (mamo, 'Mum' voc., tato 'Dad' voc.) in free address. Six out of fifty preferred utterances with 3rd person verb forms (KT3). The two main patterns may be illustated as follows: a. b.

Tato, dlaczego uwazasz, ze to zty pomysl? 'Dad, why do you think it's a bad idea?' Dlaczego tata uwaza, ze to zly pomysl? 'Why does Dad think it's a bad idea?'

2p.+KT KT3

There was a tendency for informants to demonstrate more formal address in the choice of utterances than they self-reported when asked explicitly about the grammatical forms used. Three reported using the 3rd person while six actually showed preference for this pattern through their choice of example utterances. Consistently, they over-reported the use of the least formal variant (2p. and no KT in free address). The study revealed no significant relationship between address patterns and the sex of the speaker or the addressee. However, to state something more conclusive on this issue would require further, more detailed investigation. 3.2. The other study was conducted among two groups of informants: (A) secondary school graduates aged 17-19, and (B) a group aged 29-39. They filled in a questionnaire similar to that prepared for the previous study, except that it additionally included questions about address change and about address to parents-in-law. The 30-40-year-olds all lived in a city, and were what I thought the younger informants would be in 10-20 years - well-educated professionals. Following the questionnaire, I conducted short interviews with the informants about their relationships with their parents, and I asked whether they felt comfortable addressing their parents as they did. The samples were small (12 each) and the study should be treated as piloting future apparent time research to find out whether the more formal address by children to parents has really been on the decrease and is possibly dying out (actually, it was already proclaimed dead by Pisarkowa (1979), while Tomczak (1991) still recorded some instances).

Child-to-parent address change in Polish

3.1.2.

53

Results

In group (A) the prevailing pattern was 2p.+KT (i.e. second person verbal forms in bound address and kinship terms in free address) (7 informants out of 12). Four informants mixed 2p.+KT and 2p. without KT, one declared the usage of only 2p. address (no KT); 3rd person address did not occur. The sample was too small to reveal the direction of change, yet the conversations with the informants suggested that a change from 2p.+KT to 2p. with the KT omitted might occur in the future. Some informants remarked that they had recently been inclined to use the simple 2p. address more and more often as they gradually became partners and friends with their parents. As regards group (B), the quality of the informants' contacts with their parents seemed markedly different than those of group (A): most had their own families and children, they did not live together with their parents, and were financially independent. They did not need to question their parents' authority as they no longer depended on it in vital issues. They often remarked that their relationship with their parents was one of partnership and mutual respect. Bearing in mind the apparent tendency for younger speakers to be moving to less formal forms of address already at 18, one would expect the older informants to have switched to such forms already. Thus the fact that they exhibited a relatively high number of 3p. address (5 out of 12) suggests that this form had previously dominated and confirms the hypothesized direction of change in progress: from KT3 through 2p.+KT to 2p. without KT. Three informants currently using 2p.+KT said they had switched from 3rd person address at the age 15-17, and one informant still using 3p. expressed great discomfort about the practice but felt compelled to stick to the distancο

ing form which was required by her parents when she was young.

3.2.

Conclusions

One main objective of the present study concerning contemporary child-toparent address was to find out about the use of the 3rd person address to a parent. I found that it had by no means disappeared completely. Informants' reports on their usage reveal that adult children still apply the pattern. The analysis of the questionnaire results suggests that the pattern might even be more frequent in actual usage than was reported by the speakers.

54

Agnieszka Kielkiewicz-Janowiak

However, the 3rd person address is certainly on the decline; it is rare with younger speakers who seem to believe that this is too formal a form to address their parents. Thus, what they declare to be their grammatical choice is more intimate than the usage demonstrated by the selection of example utterances. The other question posed is whether child-parent address is changing and in what direction. For one thing, in the standard Polish of the city, the 3rd person address seems likely to be abandoned quite soon. It is rare in the speech of 30-40 year-olds, and much less frequent in the usage of the younger generation. The results indicate that further change will go in the direction of dropping KT (mama, tata), i.e. towards symmetrical usage of reciprocal ty (2p.). On the other hand, for the exchange to be fully symmetrical children would have to switch to first name (free) address. Such usage was not opted for by any of my informants, and was only mentioned by one as a remote possibility. It follows from the informants' accounts of their address 'histories' that, contrary to what Stone (1977) claims, the way one addresses one's parents does not have to last for life. Rather, it may change due to a redefinition of the child's relationship with the parent(s), in the case of my informants, at around the age of 16-18.

4.

Address in the family

I would like to ask two questions concerning address in the family: 1.

2.

whether the family might be considered a microcosm of society in the sense that relationships are defined and redefined here, through forms of address, in a similar way; what are the main social determinants of address choice in society in general, and in the family?

In Polish society, the primary parameters determining the application of address forms have been STATUS, AGE and INTIMACY. The system has been changing in the direction outlined by Brown and Gilman (1960) for other European languages. There has been a tendency for asymmetrical, status-marked uses to die out. This process has been accompanied by the 'polite-forms-wearing-out process'. 9 Indeed, the parameter of STATUS is less and less relevant to address form selection, and more and more dyads marked for a status difference apply address forms symmetrically.

Child-to-parent address change in Polish

55

Table 3. Address to parents from the 18th century onwards 18c. 19/20c. 1990s future (?)

wacpan/-i dobrodziej/-ka with 2p. sing, verb mama/ojciec with 3p. sing, verb mamo/tato (voc.) + 2p. sing, verb 2p. sing, verb without kinship term

(P2) (KT3) (2p.+KT) (2p.)

This also seems true about the child-parent relationship. Once fully asymmetrical for reasons of parental status, usage has now become only weakly asymmetrical (cf. Table 3). However, one has to remember that the family is a special kind of social group: it is by definition intimate. Thus, the parameter of INTIMACY, which in general societal relationships balances the weight of status considerations, does not play a similar role in the family. In that sense, children and parents are always intimate. Similarly, the factor of AGE should be looked at differently in the context of the family. Between parents and children there is always a difference of one generation, so rather than strict age difference it is perhaps more important to consider the distinction between young and adult children addressing their parents. Possibly, the relevance of STATUS for the choice of address forms is much greater between parents and children than anywhere else in society, and it is STATUS that has dominated the definition of the relationship and address choice in this context. Nevertheless, with the direction of current change hypothesized here, the linguistic status differentiation is likely to be given up. When this happens, address in the family will automatically become an example of the other tendency in address change mentioned by Brown and Gilman (1960), namely the expansion of the domain of informal address in symmetrical usage (cf. also Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg's (1995) conclusions about Early Modern English address in the family). There are also secondary factors relevant to address usage in the family, such as genealogical distance (cf. address to parents-in-law, usually more formal than to parents), personal relationship, and emotional expression. These can all be subsumed under the notion of social distance, reflected in further address form differentiation (e.g. to in-laws, aunts, uncles).

56

4.1.

Agnieszka Kielkiewicz-Janowiak

Temporary switching and permanent change

For obvious reasons, emotionally-based fluctuation is not apparent in a questionnaire study. For one thing, little, if any, context was provided for the examples of address utterances. Additionally, the informants may have believed they were expected to be consistent in their choices. In the interviews informants commented on their use of address in emotionally loaded situations. However, the circumstances of temporary switching are much easier to detect and elucidate through a study of literary texts. There, the socio-psychological context of conversation usually accounts for fluctuation. Indeed, in the texts examined, most departures from the prevailing pattern could be related to the expressive function of the utterance. On the whole, however, it is my impression that the use of address by children to parents is mostly status-marked and less dependent on situational factors. Address in the family seems relatively more stable than in more open social groups. As for permanent address shift in the family, this is very much a matter of individual preference. In society in general Poles still hold to the traditional ceremony of Bruderschaft - an official proposal to switch address, initiated by one interlocutor (it is strictly defined which one) and followed by a ceremonious drink and kissing. Yet this practice does not seem to exist among close family (informants laughed at the idea). Between distant relatives an invitation to shift is likely to be extended by one party (according to the general rules based on speaker's age, sex, status). Between parents and children, besides the explicit instructions given to young children, negotiation through use is a widespread practice. Once again, the analysis of literary texts provides examples of this. 10 Most of my informants had always used one and the same mode of addressing their parents. This developed naturally, as ty (or 2p. verb form) is the first address form acquired by Polish children. It is around the age of five that they start being explicitly instructed about how to address distant relatives and adult strangers in particular. Possibly, the same sort of training causes the change in address to one's parents, if it occurs at all. Two of my older informants recalled how their parents insisted on being addressed in the distancing way (KT3). One of them has continued to apply the more formal form, as taught in childhood, in her adult life, and said she was rather unhappy about it. The other remembered gradually transferring to

Child-to-parent address change in Polish

57

the 2p.+KT mode at around the age of 16, when she felt her relationship with her parents was getting closer to one of equality. It would be interesting to find out how speakers with this kind of history approach their own children in the area of address. They may not necessarily feel obliged to copy their parents' strategies. After all, children's acquisition of certain address habits may also be conditioned by their parents' selfreference when talking to the children, and this is often spontaneous rather than planned, e.g. Idzdo swojego pokoju, bo mama musi popracowac. 'Go to your room because Mummy must do some work.' (mother to a 7-year-old).

4.2.

Variation

Both the questionnaire and the text analysis testify great variation in the address system of an apparently highly standardized language. There are examples of a) the same speaker using different sets of address rules (e.g. rural and urban in Zapolska's "Moralnosc pani Dulskiej") on different occasions; b) one speaker switching norms permanently; c) two interlocutors each using a different system; d) apparent reciprocity when speakers are mixing address systems. In a language with a regular T/V system, speakers also apply threefold distinctions to achieve a stylistic effect, e.g. they use pan/pani with 2p. sing, verb as an intermediate distance-marking level between Τ and P. While comparing the past and the present, one has to take into account different social realities, yet it seems that both then and now people prove to be equally sensitive to issues of address and consciously use the options offered by the linguistic system to define their identities and relationships to others. The present study has pointed to status as a very strong and psychologically salient factor conditioning address usage in the family.

5.

Methodological remarks

Finally, I wish to make some remarks on methods of contemporary address research and to reflect on the use of source materials for historical sociolinguistic investigations.

58

5.1.

Agnieszka

Kietkiewicz-Janowiak

The questionnaire

I investigated contemporary address by asking the informants explicitly about their use of address forms. The application of this method may be supported by Braun's (1988) findings: she lists the advantages and disadvantages of using questionnaires in the study of address and she convincingly argues in favour of them. In particular, she claims that address behaviour is "more accessible to an informant's awareness than other types of language behaviour" (Braun 1988: 71). In addition, the method is very economical. Braun also found a high degree of agreement between reports of individual informants and group data for a highly standardized language with a relatively restricted and stable address system. Similarly, small sample results proved consistent with those of increased numbers of informants. I believe Polish has an address system that is suitable for this kind of investigation. Nevertheless, a certain disparity between reported behaviour and actual behaviour has to be accepted as a necessary consequence of this type of study. As long as the researcher is mainly interested in discovering the repertoire of the existing linguistic patterns, the method will be satisfactory. When the focus is on the social aspect of the overlap between conventions and grammar, the study of actual usage has to be clearly distinguished from attitude research.

5.2.

The fictional and the authentic

There are the obvious limitations to studying language on the basis of literary texts (for example, the fictional world, artistic expression, the influence of the author's idiolect). The alternative is to use authentic texts such as documents, court records, letters, diaries, or memoirs. These, however, have their own serious limitations, similar to those of fiction. For one thing, diaries and memoirs often carry the same drawbacks as literary texts: they are one person's projection of reality: subjective accounts of events and reminiscences of conversations. Moreover, as they have come down to us, they are most frequently products of the same literary people whose fiction we look at with so much caution. Documents and letters are usually very fragmentary. For instance, I have read numerous letters of famous Poles written in the first three decades of the 20th century and was able to treat them as a fascinating insight into their private lives, yet could not really rely on them as records of their linguistic

Child-to-parent address change in Polish

59

contacts with their contemporaries. Most letters that have been published, or else are available from private collections and archives, represent a very fragmentary record of their authors' lives and language (for example, letters to only one addressee on one topic). Moreover, if one is interested in conversation, documents and letters (with the exception of court proceedings) do not present much conversational exchange (however, see Raumolin-Brunberg's 1996 interesting analysis of letter salutations). Literature, on the other hand, offers a great deal of social and psychological information as well as local colour; writers purposefully introduce a great deal of social and linguistic variety to their works, so that even if the details are artistically coloured, the value of the picture is not to be underestimated. Some genres seem to be particularly suitable for the purposes of sociolinguistic inquiry, e.g. the realist novel, and drama.

5.3.

Computerized corpora

Computational analysis of texts in the electronic form may be a tempting suggestion for the sociolinguist. In the case of non-fiction, the researcher has to make a great effort to reconstruct the social identities of the authors and the people described by them. (It is appropriate here to refer to Rissanen's (1989) reflections on the usability of diachronic corpora aptly captured as "the philologist's dilemma" and "God's truth fallacy") (cf. Nevalainen and Raumolin- Brunberg 1995, eds. 1996; Raumolin-Brunberg and Nevalainen 1997). However, with the extensive referencing and comment from the electronic text editors, the computer gives easy access to large amounts of data, for instance through the admirable speed of search operations. As for the study of address forms on the basis of electronic text, the corpora have proved extremely helpful and revealing in an analysis of historical English pronominal address. The computer may, for instance, be an efficient tool to find all the thou's and you's and to attribute the usages to speakers of defined status (cf. Kielkiewicz-Janowiak 1995). However, I hope it comes as an obvious conclusion from my account of Polish historical address that a comparable analysis of the Polish language material would be much more difficult, with the multiplicity of grammatical expressions of the complex speaker-addressee relationship. Still I believe that much can be achieved through the systematic computational analysis of text. Yet, at least for some sociolinguistic investigations, the text must be coded specifically for the particular research purpose.

60

Agnieszka

Kietkiewicz-Janowiak

Notes 1. I follow here the distinction applied by Zwicky (1974), Tomiczek (1983), and Schubert (1986) after Svennung (1958) between syntactically bound address as opposed to syntactically free address , i.e. summonses and contact phrases, usually in the vocative, in front, medial or final position in an utterance. I believe that the distinction between bound and free address is crucial to the description of the Polish address system. It helps distinguish between different levels of sociolinguistically asymmetrical usage. Non-reciprocal usage in bound (as well as free) address will produce what Schubert (1986) calls "strong asymmetry" while non-reciprocity in free address results in 'weak asymmetry'. The latter might be illustrated by the following exchange between a professor and his assistant: Professor: Assistant:

2.

3.

4. 5. 6.

7. 8.

9.

Partie profesorze, zapomnial pan (profesor) Mr. professor, forgot sir (professor) Pani tez nie pami^tala, pani Agnieszko. Mrs. too has forgotten, Mrs. Agnieszka.

ο recenzji ! about the review.

The italicized free address phrases are weakly asymmetrical through the distinction between Ρ with title vs. Ρ with first name; the underlined bound address forms may either be fully symmetrical (reciprocal P) or, when the professorial title (in parentheses) is used, weakly asymmetrical. Panna "Miss" referred to an unmarried woman and has practically disappeared from contemporary usage. When it occurs, if ever, it is archaic and/or strongly stylistically marked. The plays analysed are: by F. Bohomolec "Malzenstwo ζ kalendarza" (1766), A. Czartoryski "Panna na wydaniu" (1774), I. Krasicki "Krosienka"( 1777-79), F. Zablocki "Fircyk w zalotach" (1781), and A. Fredro "Zemsta" (1834). Zapolska's plays analysed are "Moralnosc pani Dulskiej" (1906) and "Ich czworo" (1912). Witkiewicz's plays analysed were "W malym dworku" (1921) and "Matka" (1924). I wish to thank all my informants, mostly pupils at II Liceum Ogolnoksztalc^ce in Poznan. Special thanks are due to Mrs. Wieslawa Dziubalska, a teacher at the school, for her help in conducting the interviews. The informants were men and women, all of whom had lived in the city for most of their lives. This latter remark suggests an issue for future research concerning how and when children learn address rules. Apparently, explicit instruction from parents is involved. Polish children first acquire the intimate address pattern (2p.). They are taught to give it up and apply the formal P. address to strangers at the age of 4—5. Also relatives like aunts and uncles usually receive KT3 address. The history of Polish address is an excellent example of how very elaborated

Child-to-parent

address

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honorific titles become degraded through application to lower and lower ranks of addressees, and how new polite forms are devised to serve the purpose of paying respect to superior addressees. 10. In the following exchange from St.I. Witkiewicz's "Matka", written in 1924, a mother, her son and his fiancee negotiate address forms: M a t k a : ( . . . ) Οίόζ, moja Zosiu - wszak mog§ ci§ tak nazywac? ( . . . ) So, my dear Zosia - 1 can call you that, can't I? Zofia: Jeszcze ζ panem Leonem jestesmy na pan i pani. Zar§czylismy si§ przed pol godzinq.. With Mr. Leon we are still on pan/pani terms. We got engaged only half an hour ago. Leon: Glupstwo - cala wiecznosc jest przed nami. Zaczynamy si$ tiutuajowac od tej chwili... Oh, it's nothing - we've got all eternity ahead. Let's tutoyer each other from now o n . . . (Witkiewicz 1983: 305).

References Braun, Friederike 1988 Terms of address. Problems of patterns and usage in various languages and cultures. Berlin - New York - Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter. Brown, Roger - Albert Gilman 1960 ' T h e pronouns of power and solidarity", in: Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.), Style in language. New York - London: Wiley, 253-276. Chmielewiec, Marian 1924 Ascka i inne tytuly staropolskie [Ascka and other Old Polish titles], Jfzyk Polski 124, 17-22. Head, Brian 1978 "Respect degrees in pronominal reference", in: Joseph H. Greenberg (ed.), Universals of human language. Vol. 3. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 151-211. Kielkiewicz-Janowiak, Agnieszka 1990 A socio-historical study in address: Polish and English. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. 1995 "Sociolinguistics and the computer: Pronominal address in Shakespeare", Studia Anglica Posnaniensia XXIX, 49-56. Klemensiewicz, Zenon 1946 "'Pan' i 'obywatel"' ['Sir' and 'citizen'], J?zyk Polski 26, 3 3 ^ 2 . Lozinski, Wladyslaw 1907 Zycie polskie w dawnych wiekach [Polish life in earlier times]. (5th edition.) Krakow [No indication of publisher.]

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Nevalainen, Terttu - Helena Raumolin-Brunberg 1995 "Constraints on politeness. The pragmatics of address formulae in Early English Correspondence", in: Andreas H. Jucker (ed.), Historical pragmatics. Amsterdam - Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 541-601. 1996 Sociolinguistics and language history. Studies based on the Corpus of Early English Correspondence. Amsterdam - Atlanta: Rodopi. Pisarkowa, Krystyna 1979 "Jak si? tytuhijemy i zwracamy do drugich" [How we address one another], J^zyk Polski 59, 5-17. Raumolin-Brunberg, Helena 1996 "Forms of address in early English correspondence", in: Terttu Nevalainen and Helena Raumolin-Brunberg (eds.), Sociolinguistics and language history. Studies based on the Corpus of Early English Correspondence. Amsterdam Atlanta: Rodopi, 167-181. Raumolin-Brunberg, Helena - Terttu Nevalainen 1997 "Like father (un)like son: A sociolinguistic approach to the language of the Celys", in: Jacek Fisiak (ed.), Studies in Middle English linguistics. Berlin New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 489-512. Rissanen, Matti 1989 'Three problems connected with the use of diachronic corpora", ICAME Journal 13, 16-19. Schubert, Klaus 1986 "Gleiche und Ungleiche. Eine Untersuchung zum polnischen Anredeverhalten", SAIS. Arbeitsberichte aus dem Seminar für Allgemeine und Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft. Kiel 9, 51-75. Stone, Gerald 1981a "Pronominal address in Polish", International Journal of Slavic Linguistics and Poetics XXIII, 55-76. 1981b "W sprawie charakterystyki gramatycznej wyrazow pan, pani, panstwo" [On the grammatical characteristics of the words pan, pani, panstwo], Studia ζ Filologii Polskiej i Slowianskiej XX, 39-43. 1984 "Honorific pronominal address of Polish before 1600", Oxford Slavonic Papers. New Series 17, 45-56. 1985 "Polish pronominal address in the seventeenth century", Oxford Slavonic Papers. New Series 18, 55-66. Svennung, J. 1958 Anredeformen. Vergleichende Forschungen zur indirekten Anrede in der dritten Person and zum Nominativ den Vokativ. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell. Tomczak, Lucyna 1991 "Formy adresatywne we wspolczesnej rodzinie" [Address forms in the modern family], Jfzyk a kultura 2, 71-80. Tomiczek, Eugeniusz 1983 System adresatywny wspolczesnego jfzyka polskiego i niemieckiego. Socjolingwistyczne Studium konfrontatywne. [The address systems of contemporary Polish and German. A sociolinguistic comparative study] Wroclaw: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu.

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Witkiewicz, Stanislaw Ignacy 1983 Wybor dramatow [Selected plays]. Wroclaw: Zaklad Narodowy Imienia Ossolinskich. Zwicky, Arnold M. 1974 "Hey, whatsyourname!", Chicago Linguistic Society 10, 787-801.

Historical sociolinguistics - dead languages

Sociolinguistics and dead languages Werner Winter

It seems that internal variation is a property of natural language in general. This observation can be taken to apply even to languages used by very small speech communities, though the number of varieties can be expected to grow with the number of speakers and of communicative tasks. The individual speaker, as a member of a speech community, will have to abide by its rules: for successful communication every speaker of a language is expected to make appropriate choices among variants at his or her disposal; community control may be relaxed in the case of speakers not fully competent in a language, such as foreigners or children not very far advanced in the process of language acquisition. Variation, as a rule, is not haphazard; deviations from variety norms will be frowned upon in ways similar to the reactions encountered when overall language norms are violated. Not to comply with a norm reflecting established usage in a community means placing oneself apart from it to some extent; this applies to the speech community at large in the case of deviations from general norms and to a communicational subcommunity in the special case of deviations from group-specific appropriateness. Such subcommunities may be relatively stable or they may come into existence for limited purposes and thus for a limited time. An example of a relatively stable subcommunity is that of female adults within the bounds of an overall speech community; a peer group of persons who have come together for some specific reason, such as university students or draftees in military service, may be taken to represent the class of nonstable subcommunities. Even in such nonstable subcommunities a certain amount of continuity may result from the fact that a group so constituted may be subject to expansion by new members who may belong to it for a longer period of time than the original members and thus add to the lifespan of the subcommunity. While full-fledged speech communities as a rule are clearly set off against other speech communities, stable and, even more so, nonstable subcommunities often are much less well-defined. Membership in such groups may vary, and - even more significantly - members of a single speech community may

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be participants in a number of stable and nonstable subcommunities. A subcommunity membership will be activated when required by communicative needs. Speech behavior of young native speakers of a language may vary greatly depending on whether they want to interact appropriately with members of a peer group, with members of their families, or with persons they may meet as their superiors in their professional activities. A speaker of a language may then be said to be expected to conform with norms valid for the speech community at large regardless of what specific purposes are served by a communicative interaction and with a range of subnorms applicable to communication within subgroups. A competent native speaker is required to perform adequately on both levels. If overall norm and group-specific subnorm conflict, preference may be given to the subnorm if membership in a subgroup is taken to be at stake. However, a speaker may violate both norms and subnorms. Such deviations may be unintentional and then be identified as mere mistakes by both the speaker and his and her partners in the interaction, or they may be deliberate on the part of the speaker; it is then up to the other participants in the communicative interaction to assess the importance of the norm violation and to react to it: they may consider it a breach of solidarity, placing the speaker outside the group for a moment or permanently, or they may tolerate or even condone the deviation to the point of accepting it as part of a modified norm. Variation then has to be seen as an ever-continuing process and as such deserves the attention of the linguist, whose task, on a synchronic level, is the identification of variants and their assignment to specific varieties within the overall context of a language. For a diachronic interpretation of languages, the study of variation is indispensable for an explanation of language change: if there were no variation starting with competing, but coexisting, variants and the eventual survival of just one of the variants, it would be impossible to understand the phenomenon of linguistic change. Language as used in, influenced by, and in turn influencing, groups of speakers may be said to be the primary concern of sociolinguists. Members of different groups are viewed as speakers making different choices from among the variable features of a language, and a high degree of covariance is assumed to occur between properties of language and groups selecting them for their use. If these assumptions are basically correct, it becomes possible to approach the question of connections between a specific usage and a specific group of users in two different ways: one can either take a nonlinguisticaiiy deter-

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mined group as a given and study its use of language with a view to discovering group-specific subnorms, or one can start from clusters of deviations from the overall norms of the language and try to identify nonlinguistically plausible groups that make use of these variants in their speech. An example may illustrate the point: In Walapai (Hualapai), a Yuman language of northern Arizona, beside generally found [Θ] a variant [s] was incurred in a number of forms (cf. 6aw: saw 'young, offspring'); inquiry showed that the use of [s] was limited to the speech of women addressing their babies (cf. Winter 1966b; the phenomenon recurs in closely related Yavapai: cf. Munro - Fasthorse 1992). The observation of a phonetic variation (which was matched, i.a., by a parallel replacement of usual [q] by [k] under identical circumstances) led to the identification of a special variety of Walapai, viz., "baby talk" (as my female informant called it). It would of course have been possible to proceed in the opposite direction: I could have asked - on the basis of knowledge not based specifically on work with Walapai - whether mothers talking to their babies used some way of speaking not encountered elsewhere; I might have succeeded in eliciting the forms given above, but the likelihood that this would have happened seems to be relatively small: it is natural for a speaker to use his or her language properly, but not to start reflecting about what constitutes proper usage and under what circumstances. Ideally, the second way could of course also have been chosen without recourse to elicitation: I could have considered it possible that a mother would use some special way of talking to a small child, and I could have tried to observe various mothers interacting with their babies. However, under the prevailing conditions, such observation would hardly have been feasible at all as in my immediate contact group there was no young mother using Walapai when talking to her small child, and even in the Walapai community at large it would have been impossible to study "baby talk" in actual use. In principle, of course, both approaches are possible in the case of languages in active use, and whether one wants to start from linguistic variants and then identify the group using them, or whether one gives priority to a group defined nonlinguistically and starts looking for their special way of using a language, is, to some extent, a matter of personal preference. Thus the research group investigating varieties of Standard High German under the direction of Hugo Steger (cf. Steger 1971 and subsequent volumes of Texte gesprochener deutscher Standardsprache) followed the second path; in my own work (Winter 1962b, 1964) I chose the first approach.The Steger choice may have more immediate appeal to nonlinguists: if groups, or groups in spe-

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cific situations, can be clearly defined in ways that appeal to common sense, the domain of possible variation may seem less fuzzy than under the opposite approach. As a linguist, however, one tends to have one's predilections elsewhere: if one can start from actually observed forms, one is unlikely to end up bothering with - perhaps seemingly plausible - groupings of speakers that do not happen to behave differently from each other in terms of language use. This view applies, of course, not only to work with spoken language: in my investigation of quantitatively definable properties of written Standard High German as well as of some other languages (cf. Winter 1962a), I tried to discover variants and, through them, varieties and only then made an attempt to study the distribution of these varieties over a fairly large number of texts intuitively suspected to belong to various literary genres. While there thus may be a choice between the two approaches, this choice does not exist in all cases of variation. One cannot say that a diversity in domain A (say, in sociologically defined groupings) will always be matched by diversity in domain Β (say, clustered variants in linguistic form), but what can be proposed is a much weaker formulation: a diversity in domain A may be paralleled by a diversity in domain B, and only where covariance really occurs is the access fully open to choice. Very frequently sociologically highly diverse groups will not use a special variety of language, and conversely, there will be linguistic variation which cannot be connected with a difference between groups whose identity can be established or supported sociologically : local dialects are not characterized by the same group-bound properties as found in sociolects, and "stylistic" dialects (cf. Winter 1964) or registers, while sometimes loosely connected with specific groups of people - such as certain linguists - can also be entirely independent of group usage, as in the case of diaries meant for one's own eyes only. Covariance thus may exist, but it need not do so. But even where it exists, or can be assumed to exist, it can be made use of only under conditions of full accessibility of a speech subcommunity and of its language. This means that the choice discussed can be implemented only when the researcher can study groups as fully observable social entities and their language as an unlimited set of data. Such conditions will only rarely be found. To say that the two approaches work only under conditions of contemporaneity is not enough; contemporaneity assures virtual access to information, but what counts is actual access. The Walapai example given earlier will illustrate this point: To be sure, when I was physically present on the reservation, I could have decided to study the linguistic behavior of the mother-and-child group by observing

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a sufficiently large number of members of such a group, but this would have been a pointless decision as there was no way in which I could have secured access to a good-sized group of mothers using Walapai when talking to their very young children. So, while forms from a variety "baby talk" of Walapai could be identified with the help of competent speakers of the language, it was impossible to obtain such data through a study of the linguistic behavior of a good number of mothers with young offspring identified as a group in its own right on nonlinguistic grounds. The impossibility of checking out group behavior is a very common aspect of analyzing a language and its use with the help of data obtained through fieldwork: Evaluation of the data cannot always, and never sufficiently well, be done concurrently with the collection of the primary data. Going back to where the language is spoken of course is what one would like to do when one comes across new insights and new questions while working with the material recorded, but ever so often conditions beyond one's control will make that impossible. Linguists who do their fieldwork relatively close to their home base are in an enviable position; this makes the work of such competent researchers (to name just a few from among the Yumanists) as Margaret Langdon (for Diegueno), Leanne Hinton (for Havasupai), and Pamela Munro (for Mohave and Tolkapaya-Yavapai) so rich in data and evaluation. Frequently, however, even living languages studied in the field will turn into closed-corpus languages, that is, languages where additional knowledge can be acquired only through analysis of the data at hand and inferences based on such an analysis. All this tends to make living languages with limited access comparable to dead ones, the work with which is usually characterized by the impossibility of extending the data base at will. To be sure, in the case of languages with a very rich heritage the corpus used in one's research can frequently be enlarged by adding material not incurred in one's first sample, and this may turn out to be very important for one's attempts to test tentative hypotheses. However, a major difference over against the study of living languages cannot be removed: there are no speakers from whom one could elicit answers to questions that have arisen in one's investigation of the language. What is not part of the surviving material is lost as data, and what is missing can be restored only in the shape of hypothetical entities whose appropriateness cannot be directly tested. Even where one feels confident that one's reconstruction of an unattested item is quite correct, the form one posits remains hypothetical. This is not always made clear by authors to their audiences

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(and, one must suspect, even to themselves): When the Latin dictionary of Lewis and Short (1962 [1879]) cites for "the natural sound of frogs" Latin cöaxo, are 'to croak', one can be absolutely certain that the first person singular present listed in the way conventional for this and other Latin dictionaries never was found among the relatively few attestations of the verb in original Latin texts. Occasionally scholars have felt the problem alluded to here to be a real one: In his introduction to the Gothic-Greek-German wordlist published as part of Die gotische Bibel, Wilhelm Streitberg (1910: XVI) remarks: "Ein Stern (*) vor einer Form deutet an, daß diese nicht existiert, ein Stern (*) nach einer Form dagegen, daß die zitierte Form in unserer Überlieferung zufällig fehlt, ihre Erschließung aber aus irgendeinem Grunde dem Zweifel Raum läßt." Winfred P. Lehmann (1986: v) states: " . . . , non-attested forms are indicated with an asterisk." (Lehmann unnecessarily blurs the distinction between forms recovered by language-internal projection and forms obtained by comparative reconstruction based on several related languages; it seems advisable to maintain this distinction as is done in Winter 1986 by reserving preposed asterisk for forms reconstructed diachronically, postposed asterisk for those obtained by synchronic system-based projection, and preposed degree sign [ ° ] for items considered wrong forms in a diachronic or synchronic context.) Forms found in surviving texts and form recovered by synchronic projection constitute the material from which variants, and through them variation and varieties, can be brought to light. With luck, what will be discovered are not isolated forms but entire bundles of clustering items. If this happens, dialects can be delimited, and the conditions under which the bundles of isoglosses are found may lead to an identification of such dialects as local, social, or functional (stylistic) varieties. If texts are from a well-defined geographical area, chances are that one has come across a regional dialect; if they clearly address a specific audience or are from a source which may safely be considered a social group with a reasonably clear nonlinguistic profile, the odds are in favor of a sociolect; if the texts in which the forms under consideration occur obviously belong to a particular genre, an identification as a stylistic dialect (register) is called for. The observations just made show quite clearly to what extent the proper assignment of linguistic varieties depends on the availability of languageexternal information. Regional dialects can, as a rule, only be determined as such if the local provenience of the textual material used is beyond doubt. Stylistic dialects can be pinpointed only if the texts from which the variants

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in question have been extracted show an interrelatedness strong enough to warrant their being claimed to belong to one genre; at times, such an identification may be relatively simple, as in the following case: In Tocharian B, an Indo-European language spoken in what is now Sinkiang during the better part of the first millennium A.D., the surviving manuscript remains contain prose texts and metrically organized ones. The latter show, apart from a syllable-counting verse and colon structure, specific properties of linguistic form: (1) In the lexicon, the name of the Buddha, a highfrequency item, occurs in two variants, viz., TB püdnäkte and TB panäkte\ the former is found only in metrical, the latter only in nonmetrical passages. (2) In phonology, stressed shwa of a surface form is always preserved in prose, while in metrical texts it may optionally be deleted. Unstressed shwa is left intact in prose before a consonant cluster; in verse, it may be deleted. (3) In phrasal syntax, an adjective modifying a feminine plural noun is always in the feminine form in prose, but may be replaced - again optionally - by its masculine counterpart in metrical texts. (4) In the syntax of clauses, the fairly strict order "modifier - head" found in prose is replaced by a high degree of variability in metrical texts. The variations enumerated under (2)(4) serve very useful purposes in the construction of Tocharian verse: As a rule, boundaries of verses and cola coincide with (phonological) word boundaries; the devices (2) and (3) permit the reduction of forms containing (very common) shwa by one or more syllables, which makes these forms usable in cola that would be too short for their prose counterparts; device (4) makes it possible to transpose a longish form from its syntactically expected place in a short colon to one in a longer colon. Apart from these linguistic characteristics there are further marks that help us identify a text as metrical: Usually the ends of lines and stanzas are signaled by punctuation marks while clauses in prose are not set off against each other in a systematic way; if the opening of a metrical text is preserved, its beginning will be preceded by a noun phrase in the locative containing the name of the tune to be used when presenting the metrical text. The distinction "prose : nonprose" thus is a very important one for Tocharian texts, and it is well enough supported by linguistic and nonlinguistic features to claim the existence of at least two stylistic dialects at the time when Tocharian Β was in active use. However, what has become clear so far is only that these two registers were used; what remains to be determined are the conditions under which speakers of Tocharian Β resorted to either stylistic dialect. It seems reasonable to assume that nonprose was what some linguists like to call the "marked" mem-

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ber of the set; therefore, one may expect to have an easier time enumerating the uses of nonprose rather than those of prose. Broadly speaking, there seem to be two major types of metrically organized texts. On the one hand, there are very long texts, metrical throughout and with only rare changes in meter and tune. These are what one tends to call Lehrgedichte in German, didactic poems presenting the teachings of Buddhism; as far as content is concerned, such metrical texts compete with texts in prose. Second, there are isolated short stanzas whose function does not seem to permit generalizations. Apart from these, however, there are very many short metrical passages embedded in a larger prose text under one specific condition: the text is a text to be performed on a simple stage, with a content of episodes from the lives of buddhas and other personages from the religious tradition, in which the metrical passages contain much of the direct discourse produced by the acting persons. These metrical passages are rarely of a length exceeding one stanza, and there is a great variety of meters and tunes. (For further details see Winter 1955b.) It seems then that within what has been identified as a metrically organized register at least two subregisters should be distinguished, the Lehrgedicht type with long sequences of stanzas with changes in tune and meter generally limited to major breaks in the text, and the type found in drama, here usually employed in the rendering of dialogue. Those other short metrical texts that have survived seem to be poems of a more spontaneous nature (e.g., a love poem) or of a liturgical character , such as the hymn in praise of Mani or, in a poorly preserved partly parallel version, of Jesus (cf. von Gabain - Winter 1958). The material here is too scanty again to permit any generalizations. It will be noted that the discussion presented here centers on the question of the function of a text, not on who might have composed or used it: hence my inclination to speak of stylistic dialects appropriate for certain text genres. If, as is the case with Tocharian B, very little is known about everyday life and social organization of a people (apart from some information about the functioning of monastic communities) it becomes very difficult to correlate linguistic variation with social diversity. Again an example from Tocharian Β will be helpful: When I presented evidence for dialectal differences in Tocharian Β texts (cf. Winter 1955a), I was impressed with the fact that most of the documents characterized by a bundle of deviations from what I, like others before and after me, considered the standard variety of Tocharian B, were from the eastern part of the area in which the language was actively used, and I concluded that

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the deviating dialect I had identified was a regional variety, which I therefore called the "eastern dialect". I had to explain the fact that an important group of manuscripts showing "eastern" features had been found in the extreme west of the Tocharian Β territory, but since one of the fragments contained a clear reference to a ruler of the eastern kingdom of Agni, I suggested that the (monastic?) subcommunity using "eastern" dialect in the west had moved, or had been moved, there for reasons unknown to us. What was more disturbing was the occasional, by no means regular or even strong, presence of "eastern" features in typically "standard" (or "central") texts; no explanation could be provided for this phenomenon. Later research, by the late Peter Stumpf (1990) and by Klaus T. Schmidt (1986), proposed a totally different interpretation of the deviations from the standard that I had observed: rather than attempting an explanation in terms of regional dialects, they suggested the presence of two different sociolects, one what one might call "High", the other, "Low" Tocharian B. If indeed the variety I had called "eastern" was a kind of Umgangssprache used in everyday discourse by the scribes (and possibly authors) of the "High" texts, an occasional "Low" form could fairly easily have found its way into an otherwise "standard" text. As far as can be determined there are no restrictions on the content of texts written in Umgangssprache, while the texts in pure Standard Tocharian Β do not seem to treat day-to-day affairs. The textual diversity found in material containing features of the "Low" dialect seems to indicate that its use was not limited to well-defined specific groups; hence it would appear to be appropriate to view the difference between "High" and "Low" Tocharian Β as one of two coexisting stylistic dialects (registers) and not of two distinct sociolects. It is not surprising that it should be easier to identify local dialects and stylistic dialects than sociolects of whatever type. The reason is that both for regional varieties and registers knowledge is required of what speakers have recorded in writing (supplemented in the case of regiolects by information about the local provenience of a text) while for a delimitation of sociolects text data have to be matched with findings about the text producers and users, about their specific group affiliations, and about their interaction among themselves and with others. Extratextual evidence thus is of much greater complexity as in the case of regiolects, and where extratextual data are not, or hardly, available, as in the case of Tocharian B, conjectures one chooses to make tend to remain mere guesswork. Still, where information about linguistic preferences of some social group is available in historical records, surviving texts can be assigned to such

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groups with fairly great confidence. If, for instance, a certain pronunciation is ridiculed by guardians of good language and if such a mispronouncec form is recorded in a text which also contains lexical items frowned upon b) the watchdogs, such a text may be identified as belonging to a sociolect ol low prestige. A case in question is the monophthongization observed with disapproval in Classical Latin in forms such as Clodius instead of preferrec Claudius (cf. Leumann 1963: 79-80 with references); if the form criticized were to be found in some graffiti, the writer responsible might be taken to be connected with a group using a low-prestige sociolect. The possibilities for such sociolect identification are, however, fairly limited: whenever literacy is not widespread, there is a great likelihood thai lower varieties of a language will not surface in written records (graffiti being a welcome exception). The situation is different when socially conditioned variation acquires literary status. The diglossia found in Sanskrit drama is distributed along social lines: gods and male personages of rank will use Sanskrit, while females and low-ranked males speak Prakrit. The distinction made is quite neat, but it is to be doubted that it reflected reality in precise ways. To be sure, a use of Sanskrit by Brahmin priests and scholars seems most natural in view of what has been common up to the present; but the assignment of kings to the Sanskrit-speaking group (though they may well have had at least a passive command of the language) remains strange - after all, in the earliest Indie texts to have survived as actual documents, the Asoka edicts, the language used for high-level official purposes is Prakrit. Thus one is led to suspect that the conventions of Sanskrit drama are a mixture of fact and fancy, and that the true dividing line rather was one between the language of the priests and scholars, viz., Sanskrit, and that of the lay people, viz., Prakrit (or some modern Indo-Aryan language or even non-Aryan ones). However, even with such cautioning remarks, a socially conditioned diglossia has to be recognized, comparable in many ways in its distributional properties to the dichotomy of Latin and languages of the people in medieval and early postmedieval Europe: a particular variety was used by a limited group of people, setting them off against all others and thereby lending additional support to the prestige of the special group enjoyed for other, not necessarily linguistic, reasons. In the case of the Indie tradition, its continuation to our days makes it possible to interpret a special selection from the inventory of a language (or, in this case, of several languages) in societal terms. For Tocharian B, no such option exists; the best we can do (unless we want to continue to subscribe

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to the earlier regiolect hypothesis) is to interpret the diversity in terms of registers. To do this we depend entirely on intratextual evidence, while for the Indie case extratextual data are important. We have reached a very important juncture. The question has to be raised whether an identification of sociolects is possible at all if we have nothing at our disposal but intratextual information. It should be noted that in the case of "Low" Tocharian Β it was pointed out that the surviving texts showed great diversity in content and, as one may want to add, function. Here it would indeed seem a hopeless undertaking to look for specific groups of users of the variety in question. However, if the profile of a set of texts is such that one becomes inclined to develop a hypothesis about the producers and users of these texts, and if the linguistic variety observed is not encountered outside the set of texts, it may be possible to assign a linguistically characterized variety to a societal group for the existence of which no extratextual evidence can be adduced. A case in question may be that of a Dichtersprache, posited for the antecedent of various Indo-European languages on the strength of bits and pieces of supposedly poetic texts (cf. Schmitt 1968): unless one wants to assume that the production of poetic texts was a competence shared by all members of the speech community, one may indeed think of this poetic variety of language as a code mastered only by some group of practitioners (though a passive knowledge of the code must be assumed to have been much more widespread). That there is always the possibility that the subcommunity of producers of poetic texts can be expanded if need arises can be shown by a somewhat parallel case from Walapai again. The presentation of parts of the tribal lore of mythical tales with embedded songs in days past was the task - and prerogative - of qualified males, but of the recordings I made in the 1950s only one tale or two were produced by older males. All others contain narration by elderly females. The language of these tales is not identical at all with everyday speech - special rules apply: there are special complex verb forms (iterative-nonresultative), the lexicon is pure Walapai, there are unusual intonational features such as iconic length, to name just a few peculiarities. To the extent that the Walapai language as such is still well-known, the mythical texts will be understood by an audience. However, there was no inclination on the part of then younger speakers with a good command of everyday Walapai to tell these stories themselves: partly it seemed to them that they could not handle the content side properly, partly they appeared to shy away from the intricacies of what one might want to call "High Walapai". Thus, while the

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composition of the subgroup with an active command of the variety of Walapai used in myths had changed to include old women, it did not encompass the middle or younger generation; this of course meant that the myth variety was doomed to be lost as an actively used component of Walapai within less than a generation.This partial language death of course had much to do with the fact that myths no longer had a crucial importance for the tribal society as such; they had ceased to be the vehicles of information about the tribal past and about the code of proper behavior. With the change in, and the eventual attrition of, the original function of the myths the need for one special variety of Walapai had first been reduced and then virtually eliminated; when there no longer was a need, the essential condition for the survival of the variety had been lost, and it became doomed regardless of attempts at saving parts of the tribal heritage in the field of oral traditions. To return to our basic concern: For times past we have to note that an identification of a linguistic variety as a sociolect as a rule will be possible only if sufficient extralinguistic evidence is available about groups within an overall speech community so that a mapping of a linguistically defined variety onto an extralinguistically determined group becomes feasible. The moment extralinguistic data become marginal or fade out altogether, at best an appeal to common-sense reasoning remains, and the odds that this will lead to convincing results seem very poor indeed. Once it is only a body of texts that is left to us for analysis, the double approach characteristic of sociolinguistic work no longer is available - at best there can be an intratextual access to information that can be used in a sociolinguistic way. Whether such an attempt can prove successful at all depends on the plausibility of deductions one bases on the inspection of the texts. As there are no sociological findings available for control, there can be no more than hints and guesses - some of which may be tempting, but not more. But before one can even start to look for sociolinguistic interpretations, one has to realize that everything that can be said is conditioned by the nature of the texts at one's disposal: To be able to discover varieties within the texts, these texts have to be first-rate in terms of quantity, quality, and internal diversity. This requirement means that very few languages of a past for which we lack extralinguistic information can be analyzed sociolinguistically with any hope for success. What has been said so far can be summed up as follows: Sociolinguistic work depends crucially on the accessibility of both linguistic and extralinguistic information. Accessibility means the continuing or recurring acces-

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sibility, since only in this way will it be possible to check hypotheses one develops in the course of one's work. High-level accessibility exists only at the time when the research is actively carried out. Whenever access becomes limited, the validity of the results obtained cannot be verified (falsified) properly; common-sense judgments tend to replace controlled findings. Work concerned with variation in times past can never be subjected to a control as rigorous as it is possible for contemporaneous uses of language; the probability that sociolinguistic conclusions concerning earlier stages of a language may be appropriate depends on the availability of extralinguistic information and on the nature of the texts one can use. It is typical for periods of the more remote past that a continuum of extralinguistic information is replaced by mere patchwork, and that the amount and diversity of textual data decreases. Hence a more than anecdotal sociolinguistic interpretation of linguistic data of a remote past is beset with near-insurmountable difficulties. Much sooner than with other components of the discipline of linguistics a point will be reached where scientifically tenable sociolinguistic work can no longer be done. This is most obvious once one turns to a discussion of the usability of reconstructed languages of the past. These lack one property which even the most poorly attested written languages do possess: reconstructed languages are languages without texts. In the better developed fields of historicalcomparative linguistics one can be fairly certain that very many of the reconstructed morphemes and lexemes reflect a linguistic reality of the past. However, there is no basis for a reconstruction of entire phrases, let alone clauses, sentences, or paragraphs, apart from the possibility that some fixed collocations of words can be retrieved from juridical and poetic formulae (note the remarks on Dichtersprache above). The various attempts to produce texts in reconstructed Proto-Indo-European, from Schleicher (1868) to Sen (1994) and Puhvel (1994), have no basis in fact comparable to that of the reconstructed phonemes, morphemes, and lexemes: the texts have not been arrived at by triangulation, they remain constructs reflecting in their details the subjective preferences of the authors. I have pointed out elsewhere (Winter 1984) why the reconstruction of the syntax of an unattested language differs crucially from the reconstruction of the closed subsystems or even the lexicon of such a language: what can be reconstructed in syntax are phrase, clause, and sentence types, not the tokens of individual phrases, clauses, sentences, or paragraphs; hence a reconstruction of, say, Proto-Germanic or Proto-Indo-European texts amounts to a parlor

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game - amusing up to a point, but without scientific relevance. (A different situation may have to be recognized in the case of closely related languages with texts of great internal similarity: If indeed an acceptable Avestan text of some length can be obtained by conversion of a Rigvedic one, a reconstruction of a Late Proto-Indo-Iranian text would seem to be equally possible.) In this paper it has been repeatedly emphasized that sociolinguistic work can only be undertaken if - apart from extralinguistic information - sufficient textual material is available. The reason is quite simply that only in texts can a clustering of features be observed that permit an identification as bundles of coocurring isoglosses. (For an exception from this general observation see Winter 1966a concerning possible feature clustering in individual words.) Reconstructed languages lack texts which one could analyze and correlate with extralinguistic phenomena. Hence one has to conclude that sociolinguistic analysis of reconstructed languages is intrinsically impossible. One might want to reject this claim by pointing out that much work has been done attempting to reconstruct societal structures of the people speaking Proto-Indo-European. It has indeed been possible to arrive, by the classical procedure of comparative triangulation, at sets of forms which one may consider to be terms in culturally and socially relevant networks. The networks themselves, however, are just as much outside the reach of form-bound traditional reconstruction as are the sentences of Proto-Indo-European. In the same way as this is done in the practice of reconstructional syntax, scholars have projected structures extracted from an analysis of attested languages back into an often remote past. To the extent that there was isomorphism in such structures in a fair number of attested languages, the results were persuasive (as in the case of family, extended family, and clan structures); often, however, the particular range of experience or just the predilections of a particular scholar led him to propose structural properties of reconstructed networks without his being able to marshal sufficient external support (note, for instance, the binaristic patterns developed in Gamkrelidze - Ivanov 1994 [1984]). A further difficulty which makes me insist on the impossibility of sociolinguistic evaluation of reconstructed languages has to be mentioned here: The methods of comparative reconstruction seem reliable enough to be confident about the appropriateness of very many reconstructed forms. What is, however, a most serious problem is that as a rule we have no way by which to make sure that a reconstructed item A, a second reconstructed form B, and a third one, C, all belong to precisely the same stage in the development of the

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reconstructed language. Exceptions can be found: there can be little doubt that what is traditionally reconstructed as *ekwos 'horse' was part of the Late Proto-Indo-European lexicon, but we cannot tell whether the word for 'horse' was already present when the term for 'bovine' with its much more archaic morphological shape was first used. The numerals 'two' through 'ten' are so widely shared in the entire Indo-European group of languages that there will be no reluctance in assigning these forms at least to Late Proto-IndoEuropean again (more likely though to a much earlier stage), but what is the state of affairs in the case of 'eleven' and 'twelve' or of the decads and hundreds ('one hundred' itself is well-established, though)? The traditional view that forms of Proto-Indo-European should be reconstructed as they were for 'two', etc., is expressed by Oswald Szemerenyi (1960) - a different stance is taken by Winter (1992) - , but there is no possibility to determine at which stage in the development of Proto-Indo-European the forms reconstructed by Szemerenyi came to be used. Or, to mention a different point: we tend to feel quite certain that this form or that was not an item in the lexicon of the protolanguage, but came to be used only in a later subgroup (the term for 'apple' is a case in question - cf. Gamkrelidze - Ivanov 1994 [1984]), but unless there is an obvious complementary distribution with one or more forms in other subgroups, even that remains a mere assumption in very many cases. The difficulties just discussed make it largely impossible to replace the evidence of texts by the evidence of lists. It is a very common procedure to draw conclusions about realia from the presence of terms in such inventories - and indeed it is only natural to assume that, if there is a signifiant there must also have been a signifie, and if the meaning of a reconstructed form can be established beyond reasonable doubt, the denotatum must have existed in the experiential universe of the speakers of the reconstructed language: The Proto-Indo-Europeans had a word for 'bovine', hence they must have known, and made use of, cattle; it is possible to reconstruct a form *Elewdheros with a meaning 'free; child' - hence a term denoting a freeborn junior member of the family opposed to a slave can be assigned to Proto-Indo-European. All this is perfectly legitimate - up to a point. The individual items frequently are convincingly identified; the networks into which they are placed are much more tenuous - they, too, are constructs and not reconstructions, and hence not too different from invented texts. To give just one example: The inventory of wild animals assigned to the sphere of experience of the Proto-IndoEuropeans by Gamkrelidze - Ivanov (1994 [1984]), with leopards and lions and elephants, reflects more than anything else the convictions of the authors;

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the presence of these animals in a single universe with bears and wolves is an artefact derived from the hypothesis of a sub-Caucasian homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans and not independent evidence for it. To conclude then: Sociolinguistic work, if it is to succeed, requires the fullest possible access to linguistic and societal information. Historical sociolinguistics can reach viable result if ample data are available under both headings. If only textual evidence can be adduced, sociolinguistic interpretation is reduced to intelligent guesswork within the limits of good common sense. The less textual information remains, the more the basis for a discovery of linguistic variation is eroded, and eventually the linguistic component of sociolinguistic work can no longer support worthwhile hypotheses. If no texts exist, no variation and hence no varieties can be discovered, and sociolinguistic work becomes impossible. Hence reconstructed languages are, for all practical purposes, outside the domain of empirically supportable sociolinguistic evaluation.

References Gabain, Annemarie von - Werner Winter 1958 Türkische Turfantexte IX: Ein Hymnus an den Vater Mani auf 'Tocharisch' Β mit alttürkischer Übersetzung. Abhandlungen der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Klasse für Sprachen, Literatur und Kunst 1956. 2. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. Gamkrelidze, Thomas V. - Vjaceslav V. Ivanov 1994 [1984] Indo-European and Indo-Europeans. A reconstruction and historical analysis of a proto-language and a proto-culture I. Berlin - New York: Mouton de Gruyter. [Original Russian edition: Tbilisi 1984.] Lehmann, Winfred P. 1986 A Gothic etymological

dictionary. Leiden: Brill.

Leumann, Manu 1963 Lateinische Laut-und Formenlehre. München: Beck. Lewis, Charlton Τ. - Charles Short 1962 [1879] Α Latin dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Munro, Pamela - Molly Starr Fasthorse 1992 Tolkapaya-English. Los Angeles : U.C.L.A. Puhvel, Jaan 1994

"Proto-Indo-European: A multiangular view VI: A prayer-cure for barrenness", in: Subhadra Kumar Sen, p. 81.

Sociolinguistics and dead languages Schleicher, August 1868 "Eine fabel in indogermanischer Ursprache", Kuhn und Schleichers zur vergleichenden Sprachforschung 5.2: 206-208.

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Beiträge

Schmidt, Klaus T. 1986 "Bemerkungen zur westtocharisehen Umgangssprache", in: Annemarie Etter (ed.), o-o-pe-ro-si. Berlin - New York: de Gruyter, 635-649. Schmitt, Rüdiger (ed.) 1968 Indogermanische schaft.

Dichtersprache.

Sen, Subhadra Kumar 1994 "Proto-Indo-European: Studies 22: 67-89. Steger, Hugo 1971

Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgemein-

A multiangular view", Journal of

Indo-European

"Eine Reihe mit Texten deutscher gesprochener Gebrauchshochsprache - und was wir uns dabei gedacht haben", in: Texte gesprochener deutscher Standardsprache I. München: Hueber/ Düsseldorf: Schwann, 7-17.

Streitberg, Wilhelm 1910 Die gotische Bibel 2: Gotisch-griechisch-deutsches Winter.

Wörterbuch.

Heidelberg:

Stumpf, Peter 1990 Die Erscheinungsformen des Westtocharischen. Ihre Beziehungen zueinander und ihre Funktionen. Tocharian and Indo-European Studies, Supplementary series 2. Reykjavik. Szemerenyi, Oswald 1960 Studies in the Indo-European

system of numerals. Heidelberg: Winter.

Winter, Werner 1955a "A linguistic classification of 'Tocharian' Β texts", Journal of the Oriental Society 75: 216-225.

American

1955b

"Some aspects of 'Tocharian' drama: Form and techniques", Journal of the American Oriental Society 75: 26-35.

1962

"Relative Häufigkeit syntaktischer Erscheinungen als Mittel zur Abgrenzung von Stilarten", Phonetica 7: 193-216.

1964

"Styles as dialects", in: Horace G. Lunt, Proceedings of the Ninth tional Congress of Linguists. The Hague: Mouton, 324-330.

1966a

'Traces of early dialectal diversity in Old Armenian", in: Henrik Birnbaum Jaan Puhvel (eds.), Ancient Indo-European dialects. Berkeley - Los Angeles: University of California Press, 201-211.

1966b

"Yuman languages II: Wolf's son - a Walapai text", International American Linguistics 32: 17-40.

1984

"Reconstructional comparative linguistics and the reconstruction of the syntax of undocumented stages in the development of languages and language families", in: Jacek Fisiak (ed.), Historical syntax. Berlin - New York - Amsterdam: Mouton, 613-625.

Interna-

Journal of

84 1986

1992

Werner Winter "A tentative English-Walapai dictionary und Etymologicum Tocharicum: Unterschiede und Gemeinsamkeiten", in: Alfred Bammesberger, Das etymologische Wörterbuch. Fragen der Konzeption und Gestaltung. Eichstätter Beiträge 8. Regensburg: Pustet, 313-327. "Some thoughts about Indo-European numerals", in: Jadranka Gvozdanovid (ed.), Indo-European numerals. Berlin - New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1128.

Decay of suffixation in a corpus language Folke Josephson

1.

Decay of linguistic structure

Wolfgang Dressier (1981) treats of decay of linguistic structure, the reasons for it and its symptoms. He stresses the importance of studying "changing norms in language choice and increasing language decay". I cite: "Usually language death is understood as the final stage of linguistic structure a minority language undergoes on the way to total language shift". Dressier had earlier studied the decay of derivational morphology in Bigouden Breton and had stated that word-formation in language decay loses its function of forming new words. According to Markey (1980) nominal morphology is first reduced, which according to Dressier is not true for Breton. He, however, stresses that "semantic motivation and transparency of derivatives is obscured, whereas morphotactic transparency is enhanced". Dressier also argues that a linguistic account of language decay and language death must be embedded in a sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, and historical perspective.

2. 2.1.

Decay in Hittite? Position of Hittite, Palaic and Luwian in the Hittite kingdom

A study like that attempted by Dressier for Bigouden Breton, a language in the process of extinction, could perhaps, if circumstances be right, also be undertaken for a corpus language. The first Indo-European language whose extinction is known to us is Anatolian Palaic. The reasons for its death can only be guessed. The material is too small for a study of the process. Hittite was the second Anatolian language to die, after having produced a glorious literature, through the destruction of Hattusa about 1200 B.C. Hittite certainly lost all vigour after that event and is not attested after it. The Hittite empire was an important structure and remaining states in Syria and SouthEast Anatolia still proudly called themselves Hittite much later. They did not, however, speak Hittite but Luwian and Aramaic dialects. Hittite disappeared because the administrative centre of the kingdom was destroyed, but also be-

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cause the language had been a minority language in the kingdom. It is also a fact that the court of Hattusa had been profoundly influenced by the Luwianand Human-speaking parts of the empire. This can be seen from the literary activities (translations), the cultic activities and the structure of the court. Its functionaries were to a large extent Hurrians from the South Anatolian and Syrian cultural-political area, the princes had Human names, but Hittite or Luwian throne names and their mothers were Hurro-Luwian princesses. The most famous of them, Puduhepa, will have to be described. She was the daughter of Bentipsarri, priest of Istar, carrying a Human name, in Lawazantiya in the South-East Taurus area. She calls herself a child of the country of Kizzuwatna and the holy city of Kumanni (Comana in Cappadocia). She was married to Hattusili, a Hittite prince of frail health, whose own sisters and brothers had Human names, and in the case of king Muwatalli, his brother, a Luwian name. Puduhepa brought the cult of Istar to Hattusa and became a strong queen with her own diplomatic status. The administration of the Syrian provinces was carried out in a clever way. The local governors were Hittite princes, bound by oath to the Great King, and as governors of Syrian cities they used their Hurrian names. The officials, however, were Luwians with Luwian names and probably were not assimilated. The empire was thus largely administered by Luwians. The administrative establishment thus consisted of Hurrians and mainly Luwians. This fact is well in accordance with the linguistic situation in the texts of the 14th, and especially the 13th, century B.C. Not only are many Luwian words present in Hittite texts, preceded by the so-called Glossenkeil, a special sign that notes them as foreign, but an increasing number of Luwian words are used without this Glossenkeil and therefore seem to have been integrated into the Hittite language.

2.2.

Luwian influence on Hittite

The Luwian corpus consists of cuneiform texts from the empire period and hieroglyphic texts, mainly from the post-empire period. For an extensive corpus of Luwian the Luwian words in Hittite texts will also have to be studied. Such a study has been made by F. Starke (1990), in a book which contains a thorough investigation of Cuneiform Luwian suffixation. A partial comparison with Hittite word-structure is also made and the Hittite vocabulary of Luwian origin in the magico-religious texts of the 13th century is investigated, re-

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vealing a very large number of loans. It also increases the Luwian material enormously and permits to separate Luwian forms from Hittite, thereby diminishing the variety of formations earlier thought to be Hittite, and therefore also the number of Hittite suffixes. With the help of that study one may attempt a discussion of a possible instability of the Hittite language during the centuries before the destruction of Hattusa. According to Laroche, in his onomastical study of 1966, the movement of Luwians from what the Hittites called the Low Country towards the capital was of massive size and the Hittite people became slowly Luwianized. Hittite recedes and is dislocated, being closed in by Luwian and by the non-IndoEuropean Gasga element in the North. The New Kingdom was established in the 15th century after a period of great political instability. During that period changes affected the Hittite language in syntax, as in the use of the sentence particles, ultimately reduced from five to one, and in the structure of verbal paradigms and the number of case forms.

2.3.

Luwian and Hittite word formation and transfer of suffixes

The most important characteristic of New Kingdom Hittite is the massive influx of Luwian words and suffixation. Did this great influence of Luwian vocabulary cause a weakening of Hittite productivity in nominal derivation? Did Hittite stop producing new words in the process? We are, of course, completely dependent on the texts in judging these matters. Even if the magical and cultic texts, the most important import of the Hurro- Luwian establishment, are not taken as representing the overall development of the language they were certainly of no less importance than the fashionable English technical and commercial vocabulary that is at present considered to threaten other languages of Europe and elsewhere. If it is taken into account that these processes had started much earlier in other parts of the vocabulary, as in the technical vocabulary from an early age and in the military domain as well, due to Luwian superiority in those fields, it may well be stated that Hittite word formation was losing it vigour in a way that according to Dressier and others is an important part of language decay, caused by changing norms in language choice. Whether language shift was imminent, we cannot judge. The upper classes were certainly competent bilingual

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Hittite-Luwian speakers. That the two Anatolian languages were closely related is another interesting factor of this bilingualism. An analysis of roots and suffixes was perfectly possible for the speakers and should have facilitated the replacement of Hittite suffixes by Luwian ones. Hittite linguistic history may be studied for a period of about five centuries. By means of the Akkadian texts from Kanes in Cappadocia we have some knowledge of word formation before the beginning of the kingdom of Hatti and the earliest cuneiform Hittite texts. Compound nouns were much more frequent in the earliest period than later, when they occur mainly in proper names and are otherwise rare. Suffixes that later lost ground largely or completely were still normal: -umen- for professions, later being replaced by -(a)la- (cf. Starke 1990: 319, note), -attZ-ett- (for properties), possessive -an- (*halugan- 'messenger' as in adverbial haluganili 'in the way of a messenger'), -el-, remaining in hurkel- 'abomination' (by the way borrowed into Luwian) and possessive -ssa- that remained in more words. The suffix -ssa- had become highly important in Luwian for forming possessive adjectives that were used in place of a genitive. Luwian -al-, corresponding to Hittite -el-, was similarly productive. Luwian generally shows much more productivity of older Anatolian suffixes than does Hittite, as shown by Starke (1990 passim). The Hittite (and possibly also Hattic) milieu of Kanes» had Luwian as a neighbouring language. This old Luwian gave loans to Hittite as well as to Akkadian. The perhaps most interesting loan is Akkadian targumannu(m), also brought into Hittite as the verb tarkummie- (from Luwian tarkummaii'to relate'). The word targumannu(m) is considered by Starke in a recent article (1993) to be an original Luwian formation. It contains the productive Luwian possessive suffix -ann(i)-, added to a productive Luwian suffix -mman- of nomina rei actae. (The Indo-European root is *terk~ -, causative *tork%-eye-, cf. Sanskrit tarkayati). The word survives as Arabic turjumän. Another similar loan is the nomen rei actae arkamman-, which gives Hittite argama- (or argamna-) and Akkadian argamannum 'tribute' (lat. erctum 'inheritance', from a root meaning 'divide'. Luwian upatlt- gives Akkadian upadinnu(m) 'territory'). Luwian was thus already at this early date delivering terms of the political sphere to two adjacent languages. (Hittite ishiul'treaty', however, also occurs in the Akkadian texts and Akkadian dusinnum is from Hittite duzzi- 'army'.) In the cuneiform Hittite literary period military terms like uarissa-, referring to supportive military action and word with the possessive -anni- suffix

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like itranni- 'messenger', from itar- 'road' (also Luwian, rare in Hittite texts, [Starke 1990: 498-503] cf. lat. iter) come into Hittite. Technical loan-words abound, especially nomina instrumenti with the suffix -al-, such as ariialla- 'basket', hüppala- 'hunting net', äppala- 'trap', ardäla- 'saw for cutting stone' (more specialised than Hittite kuruzzi- [Starke 1990: 306]). Hittite sittra-/sittar(r)a- 'point of a lance' is another example (Starke 1990: 4 0 8 ^ 1 0 ) . A legal term äppatrie- 'to pawn', with a Luwian base, is already a loan of the Old Hittite period. (No verbs were derived from the common Hittite nouns in -ätar-.) The Hittite word hannitaluana- 'opponent at court' from Luwian fmnnitaluan-, again with the productive Luwian possessive suffix -an-, is another legal term of Luwian origin. These loan-words, ably analysed by Starke (1990), came into Hittite before the enormous influx of words mainly from the magical-ritual sphere in the 13th century, caused by the political and dynastic circumstances that were mentioned before. An Old Hittite suffix that early lost ground was -stui-, occurring in just a few words as tesha- 'dream', damesha- 'pressure', palzha- 'fundament of a statue', hamesha- 'springtime'. The word armuualasha- 'waxing of the moon', in a text of the beginning of the 13th century full of Luwian loans, is the first of an influx of loan-words from Luwian with this suffix, which still was alive and well in that language. The adjectival suffix -iia- does not appear to have been fully productive in Hittite as stated by Melchert (1990). It was in Luwian. One suffix that seems to have flourished in Hittite was - ä t a r / ä n n f o r m i n g verbal abstracts to factitive denominal verbs in -ahh-. This suffix corresponds in function not to the similar and related Luwian -ttar/ttn-, but to -ahitfrom w denominal verbs in -aii-. Luwian -ähit- is rendered by Hittite -ätar/änn- as in nakkusätar rendering nakkusahit from a Luwian basis. The functional correspondence was obviously well known by the Hittites as shown by Starke (1993). On the other hand words with the Luwian suffix -ttar/ttn- were borrowed on a massive scale and these neuters have a special plural form as in Luwian, whereas the Hittite -ätar/änn- words did not form a plural at all. It is interesting that Luwian words also occur in Hittite-Akkadian vocabularies. 7

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Bilingualism as a determining factor

Bilingualism was the determining factor for the influx of Luwian words and morphemes into Hittite. Hittite-Luwian bilingualism was very marked in the empire, where other languages such as Hurrian were also important. Bilingualism in the higher strata of the population of the capital Hattusa in the late empire is certain. Technical and military vocabulary from earlier periods was succeeded by the cultic vocabulary of imported rituals of Kizzuwatna and the whole Syrian-South Anatolian area. As we have seen, the rituals were celebrated by ritual specialists of Luwian background and language who partly used their own language in the rituals. In the same way the Hattic cults of the region surrounding Hattusa had been celebrated in the Hattic language and Hattic words were used in rituals of that background. When Hattic was disappearing and the new cults of Luwian and Hurrian background dominated, a rescue operation was attempted by the Hittite king, who wanted to restore the Hattic cults which were felt to belong to the Hittite region. Probably he tried to save the language as well as the cults. Nesian Hittite and its purity was not at all part of the project. Indigenous Hittite religion was fundamentally Hattic. Most of the gods either belonged to the Hattic substratum or were Luwian-Hurrian and Semitic imports. Syncretism in the religious sphere was enormous. "Loss of lexical enrichment" as mentioned by Dressier (1981) seems to have been present in Hittite in one sense. Enrichment was made by loan in the linguistic sphere as well as in the religious and cultic domain. In spite of the close relationship between the two languages Hittite linguistic structure may have been endangered to some degree. The process of weakening had begun. What we see is probably not yet a final stage. To some extent we seem, however, to be able to study a process that may have led to natural extinction. Though the weakness of Hittite formative suffixation seems to be an important indication of this process an attempt to count productive suffixes at different periods of Hittite does not seem to be possible and the question is whether it would be meaningful. The corpus material does, however, give sufficient important information of the fact and its social-historical background.

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4.

91

Theoretical observations

Some theoretical observations will be appropriate. Oswald Panagl (1982: 225 et sqq.) stresses the limits of heuristic procedure as regards corpus languages. He also discusses the meaning of "productivity". In the ideal case of productive nomina agentis it should be possible to derive from every verb a noun that designates an actor. As this is just an ideal case one will have to speak of "more or less productive forms", which is not meaningful. He therefore suggests some criteria: quantitative = frequence of new formations during a specific period, qualitative = semantic closeness to the fundamental word without lexicalisation, predictability from the semantics of root and function of derivational type. Grammatical and typological criteria are added. According to Panagl, among nominalisations of inflected languages nomina actionis are most productive, followed by nomina agentis and nomina instrumenti. We in fact observe that nomina instrumenti are the first to be invaded by Luwian loanwords and forms, in the technical vocabulary, whereas nomina actionis seem to be most resistant, -ahit- being replaced by pure Hittite -ätar/änn- in loanwords. The normally least productive class is being invaded by loans with foreign suffixes. The normally most productive class is filled up by integrated transfers. Probably this should be taken as a beginning weakness of language structure in late Hittite. Amanda Pounder (1989) defines productivity in the following way: .. probability that a given operation be applied to a stem of type Τ in subsystem S of language L at time Z." a. According to Pounder productivity is a property of a morphological operation. It contains a form rule and a semantic rule. An operation is either productive or non- productive at a point in time. The notion of "productive affix" is meaningless. b. Productivity is gradable and relative. One operation is more productive than another. c. Productivity is dynamic. "Dynamicity is relevant to operations, that is to the word-formation act itself." Interparadigmatic relationships between lexical units are static, and are only indirectly related to productivity. d. Productivity is relevant to (i) synchrony and (ii) diachrony. Pounder stresses the importance of diachronic studies. Gains and losses of the operations are relative to each other. Neglect of the diachronic dimension can lead to incomplete understanding of the synchronic. A reliable indicator

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of productivity is the diachronic observation that the domain of applicability of an operation is being expanded or reduced. Exactly this kind of study will be possible to attempt in comparison of the two Anatolian languages, as a result of the important dating activity of the last decennia, based on historical and epigraphic criteria and the subsequent study of spelling. Very important observations as to the applicability of operations in Luwian have been made by Starke (1990). The study of Hittite borrowings of Luwian words and suffixation and the Hittite reaction to these borrowings tell us something about weaknesses in the Hittite linguistic system. The important prehistoric and early historic reductions in the number of Hittite suffixes being used for word-formation may or may not have something to do with the bilingual situation. (Pounder says: "The actual rise or drop in the frequency of word-formation acts must not be neglected".) All this will serve as an incitament to future study of the applicability of operations in Hittite.

5.

Productivity of suffixation in Hittite and Latin

Both Hittites and Romans administered small states that built empires and assimilated foreign cults and other cultural phenomena in the process. Both had a fundamental interest in legal matters with very interesting inherited similarities of legal language and terminology. Hittite sarni(n)k-, referring to making reparations for an injury, is a good example. Latin sarcire has the same meaning. The Latins were once dominated and influenced by the Etruscans, but the Latin language was not profoundly changed. As regards nominal word-formation Hittite and Latin went very different ways. In Latin, even the archaic category of root-nouns showed increased productivity (cf. Untermann 1992). Real productivity of suffixes in accordance with all the requirements of the theoreticians is witnessed by the development of Latin medical terminology as studied by Langslow (1991). He puts the questions: .. how important is word-formation as compared with borrowing and with reusing an established Latin word?" "To what extent is it characteristic of the technical vocabulary, in comparison with the ordinary vocabulary, to regularize correspondences between form and function ... ?" "Do borrowed terms tend, as one may expect, to occupy the lower position in the lexical hierarchy, that is as hyponyms with smaller extension and greater intension, or not?" He shows how the suffix -or- is used for medical symptoms: frigdor, rancor, torror. The word timor (aquae) is used for hydrophobia. The more com-

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mon word metus is used to elucidate the word. Among words for concrete symptoms (signa, notae) we find mucor, sordor. Present participles are used for sufferers and afflicted parts. Drugs and treatments end in -torius. Greek -ικός, when referring to a patient, is rendered by -icus, -osus or participle. Greek ασθματικός is rendered by anhelosus. The suffix -ικός for a group of treatments named after body part or disease is rendered by the Latin suffixes -alis or -aris. Στοματικός is rendered by oralis. When a Greek word in -ικός signifies effect, the manner in which the treatment is intended to work, Latin has the suffix -torius: Καθαρικόν is thus rendered by purgatorium. This suffix also renders terms in -τός. In Greek, a grammatical distinction between an active and a passive verbal base is reflected by -ικός versus -τός. In Latin the word-formation of the derivation is governed by lexical considerations. A similar lexical interest of the Romans has been noted by Paul Kent Andersen in a recent study (1994: 178-179) of Latin and Greek grammatical terms: genus verbi as a lexical class as against διάθεσις as a grammatical phenomenon and genera as lexical classes of the nouns. The Latin procedure of translating and ordering the medical terms of Greek doctors shows an extraordinary systematic productivity of suffixation. It forms a marked and interesting contrast to the imported magical and ritual vocabulary of the Hittites, completely dominated by the foreign ritual specialists who are mentioned in the cuneiform tablets. The larger social factors involved in the building of the Roman empire were very different in the Italic and the later Hellenistic world as compared with the precarious Hittite domination of the South Anatolian-North Syrian area, which ultimately lost the struggle with the Luwian languages that advanced in several directions, survived the empire and adopted the Hittite name. Complete language shift might well have come about even if the capital had not collapsed, by reason of the minority status of the Hittites and the progressive Luwian influence in the state.

6.

Transfers and loans

Whether the closeness between the two languages Luwian and Hittite may also contribute to explain the difference between the Anatolian scene and that of Rome should perhaps also be considered. The shared background during many centuries may have made for integrated transfers and unintegrated

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transfers in Anatolia, whereas loan translations and loan creations were made more necessary at the meeting of Latin with Greek.

7.

Conclusion

To continue the track in the terms brought up at this symposium by Els Oksaar it is quite clear that language X was the one used by high-ranking priests and scribes of language 2 in their interaction with language 1 in the cosmopolitan capital of the Hittite kingdom and its intimate atmosphere, where cultic activity was very important. In the context of this symposium I should like to ask my colleagues about their views on the questions raised in this paper and on the possibility of studying social origins of language change in a corpus language of great antiquity.

8. References Andersen, Henning and Konrad Koerner (eds.) 1989 Historical Linguistics 1987. Papers from the 8th International Conference on Historical Linguistics (8 ICHL). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. Andersen, Paul Kent 1994 Empirical Studies in Diathesis. Münster: Nodus Publikationen. Brekle, Herbert Ernst and Dieter Kastovsky (eds.) 1977 Perspektiven der Wortbildungsforschung. Beiträge zum Wuppertaler Wortbildungskolloquium vom 9.-10. Juli 1976, anläßlich des 70. Geburtstags von Hans Marchand am 1. Oktober 1977. Bonn: Bouvier. Dressler, Wolfgang 1977 "Wortbildung bei Sprachverfall" in: H. Brekle and D. Kastovsky (eds.), 6269. Dressler, Wolfgang 1981 "Language Shift and Language Death - a Protean Challenge to the Linguist", Folia Linguistica 15: 5-28. Langslow, David 1991 ' T h e formation of Latin technical vocabulary with special reference to medicine" in: R. Coleman (ed.), 187-200. Coleman, Robert (ed.) 1991 New Studies in Latin Linguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. Laroche, Emmanuel 1966 Les Noms des Hittites. Paris: Klincksieck. Markey, Thomas L. 1981 "Diffusion, fusion and creolization: a field guide to developmental linguistics", Papiere zur Linguistik 24/1: 2-37.

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Melchert, H. Craig 1990 "Adjectives in *-iyo in Anatolian", Historische Sprachforschung (Historical Linguistics) 103, 198-207. Panagl, Oswald 1982 "Produktivität in der Wortbildung von Corpussprachen: Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Heuristik" Folia Linguistica 16: 225-239. Panagl, Oswald and Krisch, Thomas (eds.) 1992 Latein und Indogermanisch, Akten des Kolloquiums der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft, Salzburg, 23.-26. September 1986. Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft, Band 64. Innsbruck: Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft. Pounder, Amanda 1989 "Local and Global Change in Word Formation" in: H. Andersen and K. Koerner (eds.) 411-424. Starke, Frank 1990 Untersuchung zur Stammbildung des keilschrift-luwischen Nomens. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. 1993 "Zur Herkunft von akkad. ta/urgumannu(m) 'Dolmetscher'" Welt des Orients 24: 20-38. Untermann, Jürgen 1992 "Wurzelnomina im Lateinischen" in: O. Panagl and T. Krisch (eds.) 137-153.

Historical code-switching and bilingualism

Mixed-language business writing: five hundred years of code-switching Laura Wright

1. Introduction At the 1987 Troms0 Symposium on the causes of language change, Peter Mühlhäusler presented a paper in which he introduced a metaphor for language change due to external economic reasons. His metaphor was the mushroom, and he said that we could regard the languages of the Pacific Basin as: a field of mushrooms where the visible individual mushrooms above ground are linked by a complex network of underground roots. Changes in the ecology cannot be explained by studying the growth and decay of individual mushrooms but rather by paying attention to the complex underground lifelines and the environmental factors maintaining them. (Mühlhäusler 1989: 139)

Mühlhäusler's analogy was developed to explain recent change in the languages of the Pacific Basin, which are all affected by the same economic processes. However, it also works for the European phenomenon of medieval business writing, which was produced not only in Great Britain, but wherever merchants needed to bill each other. The 'network of underground roots' is in this case the activity of mercantile trading (if mushrooms can be said to have roots), and the 'mushrooms' are the functional variety of mercantile accounts and bills, in the various European countries. I have elsewhere called this phenomenon "macaronic" writing, because it involves the use of two or more closely-integrated languages. The term "macaronic" has previously been used to refer to medieval literary texts written in two languages, but I have appropriated it here because the many linguistic labels for types of language mixing have usually been technically defined and thus cannot accurately be used to describe the phenomenon found in business writing. It seems to me that the term code-switching is also useful in the present context, so long as we interpret it in its widest application; that is, simply the use of two or more distinct languages in the same string.

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1.1.

Introduction to macaronic business writing

My first example is a single entry from the records of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne for the year 1358. The castle needed repair that year, in particular, the castle prison known as the Heron Pit: (1)

Newcastle upon Tyne, Castle Records, 1358. In maeremio (vpecf) empf de Johe Wodseller ρ .V. gistis ρ dco loftflore re ρ an 4 ρ reef cuius It / xviijd vijs vjd 'In timber (5 feet) bought from John Woodseller for 5 joists for repairing the said loft floor, price of each 18d, 7s 6d'

This entry records the buying of wood to repair the castle prison at Newcastle upon Tyne. It is written in a mixed language form. The base language is Medieval Latin, as can be seen by the vocabulary: (maeremio, cuiustt) and the morphemes, both free and bound: (prepositions de, ρ, inflexional suffixes maeremlO). However, some of the vocabulary is English: (OE loft, OE ftore), and some is Anglo-Norman, that is, French-derived vocabulary that does not necessarily have a continental counterpart, and which ends up as English: (AN gistis). Further, there are morphemes which cannot satisfactorily be assigned to one or other language, but which are members of both: in, gistlS. -IS was a bound morpheme which marked the plural of some classes of nouns in both Medieval Latin and Middle English. Moreover, there is one form here where neither the root nor the inflexional suffix can be assigned to one or the other language, but where each is a member of both languages: repanq[. The root, REPARA-, is a Latin borrowing into English and hence a member of both languages. The inflexion, -AND-, performs different (though overlapping) functions in Latin and English. In Medieval Latin -AND- marks the gerund, and in Middle English -AND- marks the present participle (at this date (1358) the suffix -ING was still waxing in English, and -AND- was the default Northern present participle marker). The abbreviation and suspension system is integral to this kind of text, and it facilitates the mapping of one language onto another. If it didn't exist, the scribe would have to write something like *reparando, which would have been indisputably Latin, or *reparande, which would have been uniquely English. Thus the form repanc( can be interpreted as entirely Latin, entirely English, or an example of intra-word code-switching. It may sound rather perverse to interpret it as an example of code-switching when it could be interpreted as monolingual, but macaronic

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business texts frequently show intra-word switching, as will be demonstrated below. This kind of mixed-language text is extraordinarily common. We can distinguish macaronic writing by syntactic domain: that is, whereabouts in the string the switch-points occur; and we find that if a text displays the kind of frequent switching displayed in Example 1, then it will belong to the functional variety of a bill, an account, or an inventory. This distinguishes it from other kinds of bi-, tri-, and quadrilingual medieval business documents, which switch over far larger syntactic units, invariably have white space around the switch-points, and which express matter other than accounts, inventories and bills. For example, entries in the City of London Letter-Books (which can be regarded as legal texts) are frequently bilingual, in that a text will be entered in Medieval Latin, and then translated into Anglo-Norman or English.

1.2.

Time parameters

The earliest form of such macaronic business writing that I have looked at is Domesday Book - though I do not claim that this is the earliest. Domesday Book (an inventory of the people and their holdings in William of Normandy's new territory) is written in macaronic Medieval Latin and English. The latest that I have come across - though I do not claim that it is the latest - is an inventory of the contents of a printshop in London in 1550, also written in macaronic Medieval Latin and English. So the macaronic functional variety was in existence for about five hundred years, spanning the late Old English to the Early Modern period.

2.

Macaronic syntactic rules

As one would expect, the macaronic rules of syntax change over such a long period of time. I therefore divide macaronic writing into three broad categories, that is, what I call "youthful", "mature", and "moribund":

2.1.

Youthful macaronic writing

In youthful macaronic writing, it is mainly stems of nouns and verbs which surface in the vernacular language - although there may be morphemes present which are common to both languages. Further, the frequency of vernac-

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ular words to acrolect words will be low. I've taken as an example of youthful macaronic writing the entry in Domesday Book for Aldenham, Hertfordshire: (2)

Domesday Book, Hertfordshire, 1086. In Eldehä . terf Goisfricf de bech sub abbe .j. hid . fra . e .j. car sed deest car . Ibi .ij. coi . Silua C. pore?'. Vat & ualuit .xij. sot .T. R. E.' xx. solid. Hanc irä tenuit Β lache hö $ A Ibani. fi poiuendS. 'In Aldenham Geoffrey of Bech holds 1 hide under the Abbot. Land for 1 plough, but the plough is missing. 2 cottagers there. Woodland, 100 pigs. The value is and was 12s; before the time of Edward the Confessor (1066), 20s. Blache, a man of St Albans, held this land: he could not sell.'

This text is mostly written in Medieval Latin, albeit heavily abbreviated Latin, with a few English lexemes. Apart from the proper names, there is OE hid Ί 2 0 acres'; and the abbreviated form coi 'cottager', 'cottage'. The root is OE cot 'cottage', with a suspension mark appended. This is one of those words which could be interpreted as either English or Latin. It is up to the reader to supply either -IUS, to give Latinized cotarius 'inhabitant of a cot', or to leave it as OE cot 'cottage, person who lives in a cottage'. Abbreviation and suspension marks could be otiose in medieval writing. That is, just because a mark was present, it did not necessarily mean that it stood for anything. In this case, there are two cots, or inhabitants of cots, so the suspension mark indicates a plural morpheme. Interestingly, the female form cotaria is spelt out in full elsewhere in the text, but the male form is always suspended.

2.2.

Mature macaronic writing

In mature macaronic writing, the frequency of vernacular to acrolect words will be higher, and the noun phrase may contain more than one vernacular word. This may consist of more than one noun, or include adjectives and substantival -ing forms. Prepositional phrases are extremely common, and vernacular -ing forms may, in certain contexts (such as a proper noun like the name of a building) attract a preceding article in the vernacular. The word order may follow both the acrolectal, and the vernacular, pattern. It is possible to find the same lexeme, written by the same scribe (and even on the same folio) surfacing in both its acrolectal and vernacular form.

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Example (3) is an extract from a fourteenth-century will, itemising the disputed contents of a London household: (3)

London, Will presented in the Mayor's Court, c.1363. se pleynt Wilfm Bukyngham qe Geffrey Wäldern Draper & Cecile sa feme a tort luy deteignent (fteins biens cestasarf vn lit entierOue lyncheux & blaunkes j celuf viij verges de Caneuas j baceon gant vj lauS iij bordclothes iiij tuales j gant huche iiij peluwes dont les beres de soi ij pots daressme j bone paiel & gant lies de fere j petit paiel j skilet paiel j demy de^ene garnises de peutfuessele j gant gredire ij stokaxes j weeg de fer' j table ij salars de peutf j chalon ij chaundelers de latön iiij bordes peinteej ρ j lit j hachet j buffet enbataille oue vn barf de fer j cote ruge ifurres oue la chap δη $ sa fame oue vne rerfs j coffre oue pluses munimentj chart's & endentes & remembraunces j forcer de fer" ij lampes j wettyngystön j morter j pestel iiij long formes & j stol j baunker long ij court baunkers ij tariers j gimelet en seu cas viriles & cappes dar gentζ j croslyn lies dargent ij peces de ceuerchefs de soi de cipre ij chap ens nouelt j linehen al test de lit ij smokes nouelt j chemise j paltoc ij virges de linge drap ij pairs de sefs pa cheuaux ij tripes lun veile & laut?nouelt iij fflaundfs bastles faies de /ges j hadise dargent ij colteux tfncheos ρ la table j cappe de Russet nouelt / j sealdargent oue la cheyne j double cloche blu a blaunc j baselard j espee j broche de fer" j handifn j mirS gant ij cruets peutf j drap arftenaunt deuaunt lanlr iiij cokerbelles dargent j petit maser lies dargent & endores eiant pes dargent j dagger3 harnise dargent ij liu de romaunes de firumbras & j potys j ßmer bien & honestement enorme oue ij elapses dargent j registf dargent j saltyng trogh j peni bord peintes & barf dargent j cist' del οι/age de tapieer j maceras ij furuf de noir lamb ij pots de f re peintes & de flaundfs corfes de quir j gant hamS j pair de pinsons j ruban dargent ij Calles de soi j vernisbailt j paiel defer pfu oue juels ala vailaunce vn xiiij marcs 'Plaint of William Buckingham against Geoffrey Wäldern draper and Cecily his wife: that they wrongfully withhold from him certain goods, namely: a complete bed with bedsheets and blankets; 1 canopy; 8 yards of canvas; 1 large basin; 6 waterjugs; 3 tablecloths; 4 towels; 1 large chest; 4 pillows with silk pillowcases; 2 brass pots; 1 good large pan bound with iron; 1 little pan; 1 skillet pan; 1 half-dozen set of pewter vessels; 1 large grill; 2 stockaxes; 1 wey of iron; 1 table; 2 pewter salt-

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Laura Wright cellers; 1 coverlet; 2 latton candlesticks; 4 painted boards for 1 bed; 1 hatchet; 1 stool strengthened with an iron bar; 1 red coat with a furry hood, for his wife, with a lining; 1 coffer with several muniments, charters, indentures and remembrances; 1 iron casket; 2 lamps; 1 whetstone; 1 mortar; 1 pestle; 4 long forms and 1 stool; 1 long bench cover; 2 short bench covers; 2 augers; 1 gimlet in its case with hinges and caps of silver; 1 crossline bound with silver; 2 pieces of silken coverchiefs from Cyprus; 2 new hoods; 1 linen for the bedhead; 2 new smocks; 1 chemise; 1 short coat; 2 yards of linen cloth; 2 pairs of bits for horses; 2 tripods, the one old and the other new; 3 flanders ?vessels made of glass; 1 adze with silver hinges; 2 trencher knives for the table; 1 new russet cap; 1 silver seal with a chain; 1 double blue and white cloak; 1 dagger; 1 sword; 1 iron lance; 1 hand iron; 1 large mirror; 2 pewter cruets; 1 cloth belonging in front of the entrance; 4 small silver bells; 1 little mazer bound with silver and gilded with silver feet; 1 dagger mounted with silver; 2 books of romances of Firumbras and Ipotis; 1 well and truly enormous primer with 2 silver clasps; 1 silver register; 1 salting trough; 1 penny board painted and barred with silver; 1 chest of tapestry work; 1 mattress; 2 furs of black lamb; 2 painted earthenware pots from Flanders covered with leather; 1 large hammer; 1 pair of ?pincers/shoes; 1 silver ribbon; 2 silk hairnets; 1 varnished bucket; 1 iron pan ?with jewels worth 14 marks . . . '

In this inventory of household effects, the base language is Anglo-Norman, but much of the vocabulary is of Old English etymology: hadise 'adze'; beres 'cases'; bordclothes 'board cloths, tablecloths'; croslyn 'crossline'; hämo 'hammer'; handifn 'handiron'; lamb 'lamb'; peni bord 'penny board'; peluwes 'pillows'; saltyng trogh 'salting trough'; smokes 'smocks'; stokaxes 'stockaxes'; stol 'stool'; wettyngystön 'whetstone'. 2.2.1.

Word order

Mature macaronic writing shows both Romance and Germanic word order within the noun phrase. In Example (3.) there is baunker long, court baunkers and long formes', where the adjectives for 'long' and 'short' are placed both fore and aft of the noun. Similarly, there is cote ruge, and noir lamb·, where the adjectives for 'red' and 'black' are placed both fore and aft of the noun. There is English word order in the entry linge drap, 'linen cloth', but French

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word order in ceuerchefs de soi, 'silk coverchiefs'. Similarly, there is peutf uessele, 'pewter vessels', but salars de peutf, 'pewter saltcellers'. In other words, it's not that the writer did not know the word order rules of both languages; rather, he chose to use both in close proximity. He was producing a deliberately combined form. Notice that some of these adjectives can occur before the noun in French today. 2.2.2.

Concord

Mature macaronic writing may also mix the Romance and Germanic rules on agreement within the noun phrase. There is cappes dargentj, which shows plural agreement between noun and adjective; and cokerbelles dargent, which does not. Similarly, there is the singular j cappe de Russet nouelt, and the plural ij chapens nouell·, where the postposed adjective is rendered the same in both cases. Examples 4-8 are further examples of Anglo-Norman macaronic writing displaying these features, also from London, but thirty years later: (4)

London, Gilbert Maghfield's Account Book, 1392. Itrh vij lasf de haryngg blanl^ a vij tl... It il doit pur ij last de Blanke heryng xiij Ιϊ... 'And 7 lasts of white herring at 7 pounds sterling . . . And he owes for 2 lasts of white herring 13 pounds sterling'

Gilbert Maghfield (he spells his name in many different ways) was a merchant and money lender, naming among his customers Geoffrey Chaucer. I have taken these brief extracts at random from his account book, to show the inclusion of both Romance and Germanic noun phrase word order rules. In Example (4) there is both the postposed adjective: harynge blan!^; and the premodified version Blankg heryng. (5)

London, Gilbert Maghfield's Account Book, 1392. Thorn Newentön vn de j Visconf de Loundres doit en le xij io de juyl ρ vn tön de vin blank a vj marc5 sane gauge vj mra... Geffray Grygge de Estchiep vyneter doit en le mesm temps pur ij tön de blank vyn de la Röchele a vj mracj vs le tön a payer ... 'Thomas Newenton one of the sheriffs of London owes on the 12th day of July for 1 tun of white wine at 6 marks without duty, 6 marks; Geof-

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Laura Wright frey Grygge of East Cheap vintner owes at the same time for 2 tuns of white wine from La Rochelle at 6 marks the tun to be paid'

Similarly, in Example (5) we find both the order vin blank and the order blank vyn. (6)

London, Gilbert Maghfield's Account Book, 1392. It j drap blew longg xxs... If j W kokkoisin ~ kokkoosin (conditional first person singular of koota 'to gather'), sekkaintunnu - erkkaantunnu (active second participle of sekaantua 'to interfere' and erkaantua 'to part'), nukkuissa ~ nukkuussa (second infinitive of nukkua 'to sleep') Variation in Raisi and Pyssyjoki, no change in Annijoki. Variation in some northern parts in Tornio and Gällivare dialects. No change in the central area of Far North dialects. A3. VA > W tohtia ~ tohtii 'to dare', lähteä ~ lähtee 'to go', vajoä ~ vajjo 'to sink', kysyä ~ kyssyy 'to ask' Variation in Raisi, almost regular new system in Pyssyjoki, no change in Annijoki. Variation in some northern parts of the Tornio and Gällivare dialects, no change in the central area of the Far North dialects. A4. C > CC before a long vowel (the so-called special gemination in Finnish) ampuu ~ amppuu 'shoots', huutaavat ~ huuttaavat 'they shout'

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Anna-Riitta Lindgren

Variation in Raisi and Pyssyjoki; Pyssyjoki is closer to the new regular system than Raisi. No change in Annijoki dialect. Variation in one village in Gällivare dialect. No change in the central area of the Far North dialects. A5. ο > u kyllä sen näkkee kuonusta mistä se ov vuonusta ~ kyllä sen näkkee kuonosta mistä se ov vuonosta 'You see in the face of a person which fjord he/she comes from' Variation in Raisi and Gällivare dialect, no change in the other Far North dialects. A6. s > h between two vowels kokosin ~ kokohin (conditional first person singular of koota 'to gather'), voitelisin ~ voitelihin (conditional first person singular of voidella 'to grease') Variation in Pyssyjoki, no change in the other Far North dialects. Another reason for more variation on the periphery is that six additional sound changes have progressed to a new system in the central area or in some of the central area subdialects, whereas on the periphery they are at the variation stage in the whole area or in most of it. I call these changes group B: Bl. Length of n, m, I, r according to the stress and length of the syllable4 which very often means shortening or lenghtening of these sounds kuulla ~ kuula 'to hear', pölänny ~ pöläny (active second participle of pelätä 'to be afraid', viivähtänny - ymmärtäny (active second participle of viivähtähtää 'to stay' and ymmärtää 'to understand') Variation in all contexts in Raisi, Pyssyjoki, and Annijoki. Regular new system in the central area of Tornio dialect, variation in other areas in Tornio and Gällivare dialect, no sound change in other Far North dialects. B2. Lenghtening of the short vowel in the second syllable after a short first syllable menen ~ menen Variation in Raisi and Pyssyjoki, no change in Annijoki. Regular new system in Tornio dialect, no change in other dialects of the central area of the Far North dialects. B3. The original diphtong Vi > V ajoi ~ ajo (imperfect second person singular of ajaa 'to drive'), ajoit ~ ajot (imperfect second person singular of ajaa), soutaisimma ~ souta-

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simma (conditionalis first person plural of soutaa 'to row'), aukaisi ~ aukasi (imperfect second person singular of aukaista 'to open'), kirjoittivat ~ kirjottivat 'they wrote' There is variation in Raisi, Pyssyjoki and Annijoki in many case groups 5 , and no change in some few case groups. In the central area of the Far North dialects there is the new regular system in many case groups, the old regular system in some few case groups, and variation in one case group in Kemi dialect. B4. Final si > s ajaisi - vetäis (conditional second person singular of ajaa and vetää 'pull'), viskasi - vastas (imperfect second person singular of viskata 'to throw' and vastata 'to answer'), aukasi ~ aukas (imperfect second person of aukaista) Variation in most case groups in Raisi, Pyssyjoki, and Annijoki. Either the old or the new state of affairs in most case groups in the central area of the Far North dialects. B5. Proto-Finnic d > 0, (j, v) Variation in Pyssyjoki, e.g., syödä ~ syöjä 'to eat' Regular loss of d in Annijoki, Raisi and the central area of the Far North dialects. B6. Proto-Finnic final -k> -t> 0 6 In Pyssyjoki there is variation of t ( W and A4, C > CC). A2 has almost progressed to the permanent system; the phenomenon is very frequent and I have a large body of material from Pyssyjoki, but there are only three examples where this is unchanged. Also, A4 is more regular here than in the Raisi dialect. On the other hand, when we look at group Β in Pyssyjoki, there are some old features that are better preserved in the Pyssyjoki dialect than in Annijoki and Raisi. The dental spirant d in B5 is an old feature from Proto-Finnic, which has disappeared from all other Finnish dialects but in Pyssyjoki. It is here at the variation stage but still quite common. One of the two contact languages, Sami, has this sound, and it has been supposed that it is the influence of the Sami language which has supported this sound in the Far North dialects and so retarded the sound change (Virtaranta 1958: 209-210). Another old feature is the final consonant t (CC) before a long vowel, thus vetä+ä > vettää. In Pyssyjoki, there are new formations where this form is used as a stem in other forms, like in present second person plural, active first participle and second infinitive illative. So the form of present second person singular has now become a new stem allomorph. There are also some infrequent examples in Raisi dialect of these new kinds of forms, whereas in Pyssyjoki these new forms are now the majority in some very frequent case groups. This phenomenon is not found in Annijoki dialect at all. Some examples from Pyssyjoki are shown in Table 4. The sound change VA>W (A3) plays a role in connection with this morphological change in Pyssyjoki and Raisi (further details in Lindgren 1993: 97-98). The explanation is based on the linguistic structure. There is also a correlation with these phonological and morphological features in the three dialects, because the sound change has almost reached the regular new sys-

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Lindgren

Central area of Far North d. b c d e ) I m η

I

m η

I

m η

G Η I J Κ L Μ

Pyssyjoki b c d

e j

I

Annijoki b c d e

m η Η ι J

j

Ε

κ L Μ

I

forms with short stem forms with short and long stem, variation no forms with short stem

Inflection types (cf. figure 1): b. mennee-verbs, c. muistelle-verbs, d. kylästelfeverbs, e. aukasee-vo,rbs, j. leppää- and haluä-verbs, 1. tarkene-verbs, m. punnittöverbs, n. haravoitti-verbs. Inflection forms: G. imperative active, 2nd person plural; H. present indicative passive, affirmative; I. imperfect indicative passive; J. present indicative passive, negative; K. other passive forms; L. first infinitive; M. second participle active. Figure 2. Case groups with short stem

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Table 2. Different passive forms with t in suffix from verbs soutaa 'to row', lukea 'to read', kirjoittaa 'to write', levätä 'to rest', syödä 'to eat', kuulla 'to hear', voidella 'to grease', Annijoki dialect present

negative present

imperfect

2nd participle

souve+than luje+than kirjote+than levä+thän

ei soue+ta ei luje+ta ei kirjote+ta ei levä+tä

souve+thin luje+thin kirjote+thin levä+thin syö+thin kuul+thin voijel+thin

souve+ttu lue+ttu kirjote+ttu levä+tty syö+ty kuul+tu voijel+tu

Table 3. Passive present forms in Annijoki dialect Old passiv forms without t

New forms with t

present

~ syö+thän ~ kuul+than ~ näh+thän ~ voijel+than ~ haravoi+than ~ ei syö+tä ~ eipan+ta ~ ei teh+tä - ei voijel+ta ~ ei haravoi+ta

negative present

syö+hän ~ syy+hän kuul+han näh+hään voiel+han haravoi+haan ei syy+(h)ä ei pan+na ei tehhä ei voije(l)+la ei haravoi+ja

(nähdä 'to see') (haravoida 'to rake') (panna 'to put') (tehdä 'to make')

tem in Pyssyjoki, it is at the variation stage in Raisi, and it is not found in Annijoki, so that it correlates with occurrence of present second person forms as a new stem allomorph. This complex of phonological and morphological change also has consequences for the inflection-type dynamics. The direction of the approach of the dominating inflection type (pittää, lähte, figure 1) and the so-called contract verbs ( l e p p ä ä , haluä) is in Annijoki only towards the dominating group, in Raisi mostly towards the dominating group; but there is also an innovation in the opposite direction, and in Pyssyjoki mostly in the opposite direction, see figure 3, (further details Lindgren 1993: 196-217, 207-208). The other aspect to compare in the three dialects is the amount of variation and the rate of the morphological process of change. How to measure that?

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Anna-Riitta

pittää lähtd

Lindgren

/

\ I

^

(=• 1

9

leppäö haluä

\

Figure 3. Inflection-type dynamics between pittää- and leppää-\erbs. The arrows illustrate the number of new forms with a structure according to the other declension type.

Linguistic variation and historical multilingualism

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Table 4. Examples from Pyssyjoki

present 3rd p. plural

active 1st participle 3rd infinitive illative

Old forms

New forms

souta+vat pese+vät vetä+vät luke+vat juokse+va seiso+va souta+mha ~ souta+han

souttaa+vat pessee+vät vettää+vät lukkee+vat juoksee+va seissoo+va nouttaa+mhan päästää+hän

(soutaa 'to row') (pestä 'to wash') (vetää 'to pull') (lukea 'to read') (juosta 'to run') (seisoa 'to stand') (noutaa 'to fetch') (päästää 'to let') 9

One simple way is to list up the new forms for each dialect. Accordingly, most new forms are in Raisi, then in Pyssyjoki and then in Annijoki. The new forms can be placed in case groups according to the inflection form and the inflection type like in figure 4. But the lists and the figures do not tell anything about the variation of the new and old forms in the different case groups. In some cases, the new forms are only few; in other cases, the new forms are the majority and the old forms have become infrequent; and there are also some case groups where the old forms have disappeared. Another thing is that the same phenomena exists in many case groups, like the expansion of the long stems, the merging of some inflection types etc. Because of this complexity I have compared dialects regarding each phenomen that is a part of the whole morphological process, and I have taken into account both the qualitative and quantitative sides of the changes and given ratings to each dialect (further details in Lindgren 1993: 244-251). The result is that the dialect of Raisi has 40 points, Pyssyjoki 28 points and Annijoki 21 points. So in this way the hierarchy of the dialects also is the same. And it is the same as the hierarchy which resulted from the study of the phonological variation in the dialects.

5.

Conclusion

The key question is that of the nature of the linguisitic normativity of the language community. According to the examination of the linguistic variation at the phonological and morphological levels, the character of the normativity

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Anna-Riitta Lindgren

Central area of Far North dialects A B C D E F G H I JKLM al 1 a2 b 1 c 1 d 1 e f g 1 h 1 i 1 j 1 k 1 1 m 1 D

Raisi ABCDEFGH 1 1 II 1 al a2 b 1 1 1 1 1 c 1 d e 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 f 1 1 1 1 1 ε h 1 i 1 III II j k 1 III III 1 1 1 m 1 II 1 1 1 1 III 1 η 1 1 1

Pyssyjoki AΒ C D al 1 1 a2 1 1 b 1 c d e f 1 1 1 1 g h i 1 j k 1 1 m 1 1 η

Annijoki A B C D E F G H I JKLM 1 1 1 1 al 1 a2 1 b II 1 II 1 c 1 II 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 d e 1 f g h i 1 1 j k 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 m 1 III 1 1 II III 1 1 1 1 II II η 1 III II III III 1 1

Ε F GΗ I J κ L Μ 1 1 1 II 1 II 1 1 1

II 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1

II 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 II 1 II 1 1 II 1 1 1 1

I JKLM 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 II II 1 1 1 1 II 1 II II III II II II II 1 1 1 1

II II 1 II 1 1 1 II II II

1 II II II

Inflection types (cf. figure 1): al. juopi-verbs, a2. saapi-verbs, b. mennee-verbs, c. muistelli-verbs, d. kylästelli-vzrbs, e. aukasee-verbs, f. pittää-vcrbs, g. lähti-verbs, h. kirjottä-verbs, i. sekkaintu-verbs, j. leppää-vcrbs, k. haluä-\erbs, 1. tarkenkverbs, m. punnitt£-verbs, n. haravoitt^-\Qrbs. Inflection forms: A. present indicative active, 3rd person singular; B. present indicative active, 1st and 2nd persons, singular and plural; C. present indicative active, 3rd person plural; D. imperfect indicative active, 3rd person singular; E. imperfect indicative active, 1st and 2nd persons, singular and plural; F. present conditional active; G. imperative active, 2nd person plural; H. present indicative passive, affirmative; I. imperfect indicative passive; J. present indicative passive, negative; K. other passive forms; L. first infinitive; M. second participle active. Figure 4. New forms in the central area of Far North dialects, and Raisi, Pyssyjoki and Annijoki dialects.

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163

of the three dialects differs so that the language community in Raisi is the most tolerant of variation, then Pyssyjoki, and then Annijoki. If the phonological and morphological variation is most abundant in Raisi, this may be seen to agree with the fact 1) that Raisi is the smallest language community using Finnish, 2) that Finnish has been traditionally spoken as a second and third language both among Sami and Norwegian people, 3) the area has been trilingual already in the 19th century, and 4) that Norwegianization started there earlier than in Pyssyjoki and Annijoki. In Pyssyjoki there are many Finnish-speaking Sami people, but there, Norwegianization began last, and the Finnish-language community is proportionately the largest. The official language, Norwegian, was little used until the 1960s. Annijoki has the largest Finnish-speaking community, and there have been fewer users of Finnish who belong to different ethnic groups in the other localities under examination, and there have been many monolingual Kven at the end of the 19th century. The main stream of immigration to this area was later than in western Kven communities, which explains the fact that the dialect is phonologically much more like the dialects in the central area of the Far North than the western Kven dialects. The correlation between the village profiles and the character of variation seems to be to some degree different of the phonological and morphological levels. The difference in morphology between Annijoki and Pyssyjoki is smaller than the difference in phonology. In this case the earlier immigration seems to be a more important factor in phonology than in morphology. It seems that the multilingual situation now as well as the history of the multilingualism in the three communities is in a good correlation with the nature of normativity as regards the linguistic variation.

Notes 1. Finland was the eastern province of Sweden in 1155-1809, an autonomous Grand Duchy under the Czar of Russia 1809-1917 and an independent country since 1917. 2. This group corresponds to the inflection type leppää, haluä on the figure 1. 3. The contract diphtongs have come into being through the loss of a consonant between the vowels.

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Lindgren

4. Short quantity in long syllable and short unstressed syllable, long quantity after short stressed syllable. The first, third, and fifth syllables, and so on, are stressed in Finnish. 5. "Case group" is used in this study as a technical term. The data are handled in case groups determined by inflection type and inflection form. 6. There is another final t which has not been k in Proto-Finnic, and this t has different representations today. 7. There also exists a very infrequent form, the fifth infinitive, which is unknown in many varieties of Finnish in Finland. 8. In most cases the short stem is historically the same as the stem which is traditionally called the consonant stem in Fennistic, and the long stem is in most cases the same as the vowel stem in the Fennistic tradition. 9. soutaa, noutaa and päästää belong to the same inflection type.

References Aikio, Maijut 1988 "Om to minoritetsspräk og flerspräklighetsprofiler i Nord-Skandinavia" [On two minority languages and profiles of multilingualism in Northern Scandinavia]. In: Tredje nordiska symposiet om Nordskandinaviens historia och kultur. Studia Historica Septentrionalia 14: 2, 132-163. Jyväskylä: Gummerus. Andreassen, Irene 1994 Om variasjon i kvendialektenes leksiko [On variation in the lexicon of the Kven dialects]. In: Ulla-Britt Kotsinas - John Helgander (eds.), Dialektkontakt, spräkkontakt och spräkförändring i Norden. Meddelanden frän Institutionen för nordiska spräk vid Stockholms universitet 40. Stockholm. 140-150. Dorian, Nancy 1981 Language death: The life cycle of a Scottish Gaelic dialect. University of Pennsylvania Press.

Philadelphia:

Eriksen, Knut E i n a r - Niemi, Einar 1981 Den finske fare. Sikkerhetsproblemer og minoritetspolitikk i nord 1860-1940 [The Finish menace. Boundary problems and minority policy in the North 1860-1940]. Oslo - Bergen - Troms0: Universitetsforlaget. Hakulinen, Lauri 1968 Suomen kielen rakenne ja kehitys [The structure and development of the Finnish language]. Helsinki: Otava. Itkonen, Terho 1964 Proto-Finnic final consonants. Their history in the Finnic languages with particular reference to the Finnish dialects. Helsinki: Suomalais-ugrilaisen seuran toimituksia.

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Karlsson, Fred 1983 Suomen kielen äänne- ja muotorakenne [Phonological and morphological structure of the Finnish language]. Porvoo: Söderström. Lindgren, Anna-Riitta 1974 Konsonanttivartaloiset verbimuodot Raisin murteessa [Verb forms with consonant stem in the dialect of Raisi]. Unpublished manuscript, University of Helsinki, Department of the Finnish language. 1993

1997

Miten muodot muuttuvat. Ruijan murteiden verbintaivutus Raisin, Pyssyjoen ja Annijoen kveeniyhteisöissä. [How forms change. Inflection of verbs in the dialects of Raisi, Pyssyjoki and Annijoki.] Unpublished doctoral dissertation presented to the School of Languages and Literature, University of Troms0. "Die Wirkung der Modernisierung auf die sprachliche Situation der Kvenen und Samen." In: Wolfgang W. Moelleken - Peter J. Weber (eds.), Neue Forschungsarbeiten zur Kontaktlinguistik, Plurilingua XIX. Bonn: Duemler. 327-338.

Niemi, Einar 1978

"Den finske kolonisasjon av Nordkalotten - forl0p og ärsaker" [The Finnish colonization of the Arctic Area], Ottar 103: 49-70. 1997 "Sami History and the Frontier Myth: A Perspective on the Northern Sami Spatial Rights History." In: Harald Gaski (ed.), Sami Culture in a New Era. Karasjok: Davvi Girji OS. 62-85. Paunonen, Heikki 1976a "Allomorfien dynamiikkaa" [Dynamics of allomorphs], Virittäjä 80: 82-107. 1976b "Sünna juoksi suuret korvet. Arkaistisia konsonanttivartaloisia essiivejä kansanrunoissa." [Archaic essive forms in folklore]. In: Raija Lehtinen - Tapani Lehtinen - Pirkko Nuolijärvi - Heikki Paunonen (eds.), Kielitieteellisiä lehtiä. Suomi 120: 4. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. 111-122. 1989 "Frän Sörkka till kulturspräk. Iagttagelser om Helsingforsslangen som spräklig och sociokulturell företeelse" [From Sörkka to civilized language. Findings on Helsinki slang as a linguistic and sociocultural phenomenon], Historisk tidskrift for Finland 74: 585-622. 1990 "Miksi muutut suomen kieli?" [Why do you change the Finnish language?], Kielikuvia 1: 19-23. 1993

"Suomen mieli - oikea kieli" [Finnish mind - right language], Virittäjä 97: 81 -88.

1994

"The Finnish language in Helsinki", in: Bengt Nordberg (ed.), The sociolinguistics of urbanization: the case of the Nordic countries, 223-245. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter.

1997

"Language contacts in Northern Europe. Finland." In: H. Goebl - Peter Neide - Zdenek Stary - W. Wölck (eds.), Contact linguistics. An international handbook of contemporary research. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter.

Schmidt, Annette 1985 Young people's Dyirbal: an example of language death from Australia. London: Cambridge Studies in Linguistics. Virtaranta, Pertti 1958 Pääpainollisen tavun jälkeisen soinnillisen dentaalispirantin edustus suomen

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murteissa [Representation of the Proto-Finnic dental spirant in the Finnish dialects]. Vammala: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Wurzel, Wolfgang Ullrich 1984 Flexionsmorphologie und Natürlichkeit. Studia Grammatica XXI. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.

Historical sociolinguistics - varieties of English

Middle English variation: the London English Guild Certificates of 1388/89 Laura Wright

1.

Introduction

Currently, there is only one correct way of spelling most English words. We have to learn them all by heart, and not surprisingly, this feat of memory often lets us down. Many of us make mistakes, and may, indeed, suffer from social embarrassment upon doing so. How did people regard spelling in a pre-standardised society? If instead of learning one spelling for each word, people learnt a small repertoire of spellings per salient sound, then the charge on the memory was much lower. If, for the sound /ei/, you learn that , , , , etc., are all possible spellings, then you no longer have to hold 'one word, one spelling' in your memory. Instead you have a group of spellings, a group of sounds, and spend perhaps a fractionally longer time when interpreting a text. Cognitively, then, it is a better method, demanding far less memory space and not necessarily more 'central processing unit' time: after all, with the present system, each word you see has to be retrieved from your memory and interpreted individually; whereas with the medieval method, words did not have to be recalled one by one. Where the present method prevails, of course, is in its ability to encode information about the educational background of the writer. We have a spelling system which gives us social information about the writer, whereas the medieval system, it seems, gave the reader regional information about the writer. Historical dialectologists have taken advantage of the medieval spelling system to plot whereabouts scribes learnt to write. For example, a scribe growing up in East Anglia learnt that < x > and were possible spellings for the sound /JV in the word 'shall'; whereas a scribe in the North learnt that < s > and were possible spellings for this sound. Whether the sound was actually produced differently in these areas we cannot know for certain, but we can see that their spelling systems were different. This observation is the basis for the 'fit technique' of medieval dialectology pioneered by Angus Mcintosh and Michael Samuels, and expounded in A Linguistic

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Atlas of Late Medieval English. It is an excellent diagnostic technique, so long as you know roughly the date of the document you wish to locate, and are comparing its spellings with documents of similar date and preferably of similar text type. All medieval texts will show spelling variation (unless of course they are very short) because the 'one word, one spelling' system was not yet in operation. Standardisation of a language encompasses not only its spelling system, but also its vocabulary and grammatical system. In fact English syntax has not fully standardised (consider, for example, the relative pronoun system). To make claims about the extent of standardisation of a given text not just spelling, but vocabulary and grammar as well need to be investigated. These will almost certainly vary from text type to text type. Some new data (given as an Appendix) has recently come to light, and in this paper I propose to make a start by analysing morphological variation.

1.1.

The Guild Certificates of 1388/891

Caroline Barron has recently discovered four new guild certificates and hence four new sources of Middle English, written in London in the winter of 1388/89. There are about five hundred documents known as guild certificates, only fifty-two of which were thought to be written in English. The new discoveries add to these fifty-two. Forty-six of these fifty-two come from Norfolk, and six were previously known to come from London. They were all written between November and February in the winter of 1388 to 1389. In the autumn of 1388 the House of Commons petitioned Parliament that, among other changes, all guilds and fraternities should be abolished. The target was not so much religious societies as those guilds and fraternities which had an ulterior, political purpose. The Commons suspected that certain aristocratic guilds and fraternities had collected considerable funds, which might be used to subsidise the then current war with France. This petition provoked a government inquiry into the whys and wherefores of all guilds and fraternities. They were instructed to reveal information about their foundation, their organization, their oaths, meetings and assets; and to do this by February 1389. The religious guilds and fraternities responded; the trade and craft guilds did not, because it was presumed - not necessarily correctly - that they were already licensed and so all that was required was a verification of their license.

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171

The five hundred-odd guild certificates now in the Public Record Office, London, are the responses to this inquiry. They come from twenty-three counties. What use they were ever put to is not clear; it is entirely possible that after having been amassed, they were merely put on one side and eventually filed away. In all there are just over five hundred guild certificates from the 1388/89 inquiry. It is not easy to be precise because not all documents can now be issued to readers at the Public Record Office, and not all of those that can be issued can be deciphered. They are written in Medieval Latin (c.75%), Anglo- Norman (c.9%), Middle English (c.12%), and more than one language (c.4%). The Middle English certificates emanate from Norfolk (46) and London (10) only.

2.

Scribes of the Guild Certificates

Taking the ten London Middle English guild certificates together, there are seven scribes in all (on palaeographical evidence): Scribe 1. (hereafter called Scribe A) wrote four certificates:2 1. Bodleian Library MS London Rolls 2, Brotherhood of St Anne, St Lawrence Jewry. 2. Public Record Office MS C47/41/196, Brotherhood of SS Fabian and Sebastian, St Botolph Aldersgate. 3. Public Record Office MS C47/41/198, Fraternity of St Katherine, St Botolph Aldersgate. 4. Public Record Office MS C47/46/464, Brotherhood of the Annunciation and Assumption of the Craft of Pouchmakers, St Mary Bedlam without Bishopsgate and St Paul's. Scribe 2. wrote lines 1-8 of Bodleian Library MS London Rolls 3, Yeomanry of Curriers, White Friars, Fleet Street. Scribe 3. wrote lines 9-25 of Bodleian Library MS London Rolls 3, Yeomanry of Curriers, White Friars, Fleet Street. Scribe 4. (hereafter called Scribe B) wrote two certificates: 1. Bodleian Library MS London Rolls 4a, Brotherhood of St Nicholas, St Stephen's Coleman Street. 2. Public Record Office MS C47/42/213, Brotherhood of the Holy Trinity, St Stephen's Coleman Street. Scribe 5. wrote Bodleian Library MS London Rolls 4b, Brotherhood of the Light of St Mary, St Stephen's Coleman Street. Scribe 6. wrote Public Record Office MS C47/46/465, Fraternity of Carpenters, St Thomas Aeon and St John Baptist Haliwelle.

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Scribe 7. wrote Public Record Office MS C47/41/191, Fraternity of St James, St James Garlickhythe.

3.

Morphemic analysis

The London Middle English guild certificates were written within a few months of each other, for the same purpose, and several shared the same scribe. Nonetheless, because they were written before the introduction of Standard English, they vary morphologically. What are the parameters of such variation, and did it have any sociolinguistic significance at the time? I have chosen to look at the distribution and frequency of some grammatical variables, starting with the four newly-discovered texts. Four separate scribes wrote the Bodleian texts labelled Rolls 2, Rolls 3, Rolls 4a and Rolls 4b by the library. In fact, Rolls 3 was written by two scribes, but I will ignore the first scribe because he did not write enough text to analyse. How do the grammatical practices of these four scribes compare? Are they in any respects similar, so that we can identify a London practice?

3.1.

Infinitive markers

The first thing I looked at was how the scribes formed the infinitive. Today we do not add a suffix, but we do use the preposition to. In 1388/89, one could add a -n suffix (e.g. to singen, to walken). This was the older form. Alternatively, no suffix need be added. Which scribes added the suffix and which did not? Table 1. Infinitive suffixes -n

Rolls Rolls Rolls Rolls

2 3 4a 4b

-n(e

-e

-0

2 44

58 23 37 40

2 4 1 5

1

12

-y 2

η-forms in % 2 6 54 21

non-n forms in % 98 94 46 79

The scribes of Rolls 2 and Rolls 3 hardly use the older -n suffix, just 2% and 6% of the time. But the scribe of Rolls 4b used the -n suffix 21% of the time, and the scribe of Rolls 4b used it over half the time, 54%. So we can

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conclude that there is no consistency. Two scribes rarely used the old form, one used it about a quarter of the time, and one over a half the time. Was he older than the others? Today, the most common preposition preceding the infinitive is to. Some dialects preserve an older form, for to. In 1388/89, there was a third possibility, a (e.g. to sing, for to sing, a sing). To alone is the modern form, for to and a were on the way out: Table 2. Prepositions preceding infinitives

Rolls Rolls Rolls Rolls

for to

to

3 2 2 2

12 4 30 12

2 3 4a 4b

a 1

to-forms in % 80 57 94 86

other forms in % 20 43 6 14

The scribes of Rolls 4a and 4b used the to form 94% and 84% of the time. So two scribes look modern with regard to this feature, but it is not the same two scribes! The scribe of Rolls 2 used to 80% of the time, but the scribe of Rolls 3 used it 57% of the time. So again, there is no consistency, but this time it is the scribe of Rolls 3 who is old-fashioned (before it was the scribe of Rolls 4a).

3.2.

Past participle markers

The past participle could also, at this date, take a prefix and a suffix. Strong participles could take an -n suffix, and some still do (e.g., worn, torn): Table 3. Strong past participle suffixes

-n Rolls Rolls Rolls Rolls

2 3 4a 4b

-n(e

1 15 8

-e

-0

10 4 6 1

10 1 5 5

rc-forms in % 5 58 57

non-n forms in % 95 100 42 43

The scribes of Rolls 2 and 3 rarely or never use the -n suffix (95% and 100%), whereas the scribes of Rolls 4a and 4b use the -n suffix just over half

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the time (58% and 57%). So again, no consistency, and no pattern as to who was the most old-fashioned, or what the London grammatical fashion was. In Old English, past participles took a prefix, ge- (e.g., infinitive: singan, past participle: gesungen). By the Middle English period, ge- had reduced to i-/y-, if it was present at all. So, how many of our scribes used this residual past participle prefix? Table 4. Prefixes

Rolls Rolls Rolls Rolls

2 3 4a 4b

Ρ

non-p

6 12 4

43 3 38 32

y-

5

a-

i-

1 12

4

prefixed forms in % 0 66 24 11

non-prefixed forms in % 100 33 76 89

(n.b. The scribe of Rolls 4a prefixes strong past participles only. The scribes of Rolls 3 and 4b prefix both strong and weak past participles.) Thus, the scribe of Rolls 2 never used the residual past participle prefix. The scribe of Rolls 4b used it 11% of the time, the scribe of Rolls 4a 24%, and the scribe of Rolls 3 66% of the time. Once more, no consistency; no overall pattern.

3.3.

Present tense indicative, third person singular marker

This proved to be a less interesting feature as all texts show -th forms. It is not always clear whether a form is indicative or subjunctive, so it is possible that some texts have zero markers. However, there is only one instance of the incoming -s form, in Rolls 4b.

Middle English variation

3.4.

175

Present tense indicative, third person plural marker

(again, it is not always clear whether a form is indicative or subjunctive) Table 5. Third person present plural markers

Rolls Rolls Rolls Rolls

2 3 4a 4b

-n

-e

-0

4 1 5 8

1 1 1 4

7 4 6 10

-th

-th markers in % 0 25 20 0

2 3

other markers in % 100 75 80 100

(n.b. Strang (201): the -th ending was the older form; -e(n forms were entering at this date)

3.5.

Pronouns, third person plural

All four texts show they forms in subject position, hem forms in object position, and here forms in possessive position, and hence all we can say is that this distribution was stable (as evidenced by the guild certificates) in London in 1388/89.

3.6.

Negators

expressed as a ratio of plus [ne + verb + neg] to minus [ne + verb + neg]: Table 6. Negators + ne in % Rolls Rolls Rolls Rolls

2 3 4a 4b

21 75 0 60

— ne in % 79 25 100 40

Once more, tremendous variation. The scribe of Rolls 4a never uses [ne + verb + neg], the scribe of Rolls 2 uses [ne + verb + neg] just under a quarter of the time, in Rolls 4b it is just over half the time, and the scribe of Rolls 3 uses [ne + verb + neg] three-quarters of the time.

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3.7.

Adverb markers expressed as a ratio of -ly markers to -lich(e markers

Table 7. Adverb markers

Rolls Rolls Rolls Rolls

2 3 4a 4b

-ly

%

-lich

3

60 0 0 0

2 2 2 3

% 40 100 100 100

At last, there seems to be a preferred form (but this may be a false impression, due to the extremely low token counts of this word class). Only the scribe of Rolls 2 uses the modern suffix; the others use the old southern form. To sum up, there is no overall pattern. We cannot infer that all scribes made the same choices, or that three scribes made the same choices but one was different (and therefore perhaps older or younger or from somewhere other than London) or that two scribes were consistently different from the other two. Rather we have to conclude that these morphological variables were used at different rates by the different scribes.

4.

Comparison with the Public Record Office certificates written by the same scribe

I mentioned earlier that there were ten Middle English certificates from London, four newly-discovered in the Bodleian Library, and six in the Public Record Office, and so far I have been analysing the four Bodleian ones. In fact, some of the Public Record Office and Bodleian Library certificates were written by the same scribe. So, I decided to compare the certificates that were written by a single scribe. There are two scribes to compare, Scribe A and Scribe B. Scribe A wrote Bodleian Library London Rolls 2, PRO C47/41/198, C47/41/196, and C47/46/464. For ease of reference I shall abbreviate these to the last part of their label and refer to them as 2, 198, 196 and 464. Scribe Β wrote Bodleian Library London Rolls 4a and PRO C47/42/213. I shall refer to these as 4a and 213.

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Scribe A Infinitive markers Table 8. Suffixes Rolls 2 198 196 464

-n forms in % 2 0 0 10

non-n forms in % 98 100 100 90

Table 9. Prepositions preceding the infinitive Rolls 2 198 196 464

-to forms in % 80 62 80 100

other forms in % 20 38 20 0

Past participles Table 10. Strong participle suffixes Rolls 2 198 196 464

-n forms in % 5 21 14 12

non-n forms in % 95 79 86 88

Table 11. Prefixes Rolls 2 198 196 464

prefixed forms in % 0 8 3 8

non-prefixed forms in % 100 92 97 92

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Table 12. Third person present plural markers Rolls

-th forms in %

2 198 196 464

0 0 0 16

non-th forms in % 100 100 100 84

Table 13. Negators Rolls

plus [ne + verb + neg] in %

minus [ne + verb + neg] in %

2 198 196 464

21 0 10 0

79 100 90 100

This time, the similarities are striking (remember the texts are quite short, so the tokens low in number, and hence any difference between the texts can show up as what looks like a fairly high percental difference. What indicates consistency is the general area; e.g. prefixes on past participles are found 0%, 8%, 3% and 8% of the time, never 66%, as is found in the second scribe of Rolls 3). Scribe A can be said to be very consistent in his rate of morphological choices. Do we find the same thing happening with Scribe B? Scribe Β Infinitive markers Table 14. Suffixes Rolls 4a 213

-n forms in % 54 57

non-n forms in % 46 43

Table 15. Prepositions preceding the infinitive Rolls 4a 213

-to forms in %

other forms in %

94

6

100

0

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Past participles Table 16. Strong participle suffixes Rolls

-n forms in %

4a 213

non-n forms in % 43 54

58 46

Table 17. Prefixes Rolls

prefixed forms in %

4a 213

non-prefixed forms in %

24 25

76 75

Table 18. Third person present plural markers Rolls

-th forms in %

non-th forms in %

20 33

80 66

4a 213 Table 19. Negators Rolls

plus [ne + verb + neg] in %

4a 213

0 0

minus [ne + verb + neg] in % 100 100

Once more, we can say that this scribe is internally consistent. Scribe Β also makes the same ratio of morphological choices across the two texts. In other words, a scribe's grammatical practice is not random. We can show that scribes have an individual morphological 'fingerprint'. What can we conclude from all this?

5.

Conclusion

Firstly, morphological variables seem to be a diagnostic of idiolect. We have seen that both Scribe A and Scribe Β consistently made pretty much the same choices when writing their various texts. The fact of a given individual's morphological consistency has already been employed in diachronic studies;

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notably by Jonathan Hope in his work identifying the separate contributions of different individuals in co-authored Early Modern English plays (Hope: 1994). Secondly, the morphological variables in these London texts are not a geographical diagnostic. The six scribes I have been looking at here all differ from each other (remember there are six scribes because Scribe A wrote four texts, Scribe Β wrote two texts, and the other four scribes wrote one text each, giving ten texts). Traditionally, this kind of variation has been regarded as regional. The argument is that the scribes cannot all have been Londoners, because if they were all Londoners they would have made the same morphological choices. They must come from different parts of Britain and represent regional grammatical variation. London was the biggest, most international city of the time, with many people immigrating from the provinces, so it is reasonable to infer that at least five of our scribes come from outside London. But variation is typical of manuscripts produced in London throughout the Middle English period and beyond. It is indeed possible that this is due to scribes migrating to London from all over the country, with all sorts of scribal training. Nevertheless, compare Raumolin-Brunberg and Nevalainen's comment on their orthographical search of Early Modern texts produced in London: "Some of the spelling variation seemed, however, so frequent and so random that it could hardly be taken to reflect any dialectal features either in written or in spoken language" (1990: 124). If we remain wedded to the idea that all variation is due to regional scribal upbringing, it leads us into the position of saying: we know where these documents were written, we know why, we know when, to within three months. But nevertheless we will still discount them as evidence of written London English, because they are not consistent in spelling or morphology. A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English does list the six Public Record Office guild certificates as London local documents, but does not include them as source documents for dot-maps, prefering to use for this purpose literary and religious documents which are not internally dated or located. I believe we should accept the implications of a pre-standardised system. It is illogical to say on the one hand that Standard English did not begin until the fifteenth century, yet on the other, say that because the six scribes vary, they must come from different places. This is contradictory. These certificates were very formal documents. We can be sure that the variation we have found constituted good business practice of the day, and

Middle English variation

181

cannot have been very outlandish. They must have been expressed in a fashion suitable for reception by the king. All big cities have a migrant population, but that does not mean they do not have identifiable dialects. Modern sociolinguistic analysis of urban dialects has uncovered a wide range of variation, even within the same individual (see, for example, Milroy (1992: 81-122)). I suggest that the variation shown by the six scribes expresses the kind of social information uncovered by modern sociolinguistic analysis of present-day urban dialects, and that the ten London English guild certificates do indeed tell us about the speech of medieval Londoners. How we go about identifying the nuances of social information encoded is another matter. But to discount variation per se as due to regional interference goes against the findings of modern-day sociolinguistic investigation, and leads us to ignore much of our primary evidence.

Appendix A: Text of the four Bodleian Library London Guild Certificates of 1388/89 Editorial procedure: Spellings, abbreviation and suspension symbols and punctuation have been reproduced here as in the manuscripts. Paragraphing is as in the manuscripts, except for Rolls 4a and Rolls 3, which are written in blocked text (paragraph breaks have been introduced systematically wherever a punctuation symbol of some kind is followed by a word starting with a capital letter). Letter-graphs that cannot be deciphered are indicated by diamond brackets; letters decipherable only with difficulty or under ultraviolet light are represented within diamond brackets. An expanded version of these texts, together with a manuscript description, can be found in Barron Wright (1995).

Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS London Rolls 2 The return of the brotherhood of St Anne's Chantry, St Lawrence, Old Jewry Supvisor Adam Holt Alexander Seyuyle Willms Reymnd Thom & worschepe of our lord ihu crist & of his blessed moder our lady seinte Marie & of seint Anne of whom t>e ymage stant in the chapell of seint John in the chirche of seint Laurence in the Juwerie in london begynne{) this bro^erhede and good companye on the day of seint Anne in t>e 3eer of J>e regne of kyng Edward the iij a f f ^ e conqueste xlvf of J)e godeme in Jje pap write in meyntenance of good loue & for to norische good & trewe companye in desfccion & amendemet of men of wikked fame & of euel berynge be wey of almesse & of charite These ben J>e poyntes and ordinances sy wynge maad & stablisshed by wil & assent of al £>e companye ffurst atte begynnyng in the worschepe of god almijty & of his blessed moder seinte Marie & of seint Anne ou^ ladies moder our" auowe we bej> alle assented in J)is mane^ that is for to witene J>at seint Annes day be holde ferm & stable halyday W alle oure brej5en & sustren that 3if it may be wist any of vs werche J> day he schal lese apound of wex with oute any forjiuenesse and 3if any of hem grucche to paie t>e foreseid peyne he schal be put out of companye Also we bej) assented that J>e same day £>ey come to gydere Jrider where J)e maistres wile assigne he & ther' to dyne euf brojS & eueri soster payenge vj e maistres J?at ben for at 3eer make non oj5 costages but as J)e vj pans wil pfo ff ne & 3if ^>ey do on hefowne pil Also 3if seint Anne day falle on a fischday we bej) assented that thilke day schal bet°ned to J)e sonday next after with o < u > t e any delay and what man so faile J)at be nat J5 he schal paie ij s but 3if he mowe be resonablely excused which ij s schul go to J5 almesse Also what man is in eleccion to be chose maist" be he in towne be he out of towne he schal be chose & 3if he forsake J)e choys he schal paie half a mark to J)e almesse & £>e nexte 3eer neif £>e rather excused Also J)e same maystres £>at ben for Jaat 3eer schul gadre vp J>e same peyne so lost & amercemet atte costages of broJ5hed And but 3if t>e maystres gadre it vp elles schul J>ey renne in J)e same peyne And also that same tyme anounper schal be chose by J>e cöe assent and that same nounper* to take J)at catel in to his warde nou3t delyuering J)at but as he wile answer7 {Sfore to J>e brotherhede And also the maistres £>at for J>at same 3eer be chosen schul come to Nounpere & bringe with hem süffisant borwes for catel of J>e box J)at he

Middle English variation

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schal resceyue be it mor" be it lasse Also that ther be but tweie comyng^ togyder* in J?e 3eer that is to seyen the furste comynge at cristemasse < & £>at other> < o n > seint Annes day whe/ J>e maistres assigne he & J>at J)e maistres gadre £>e quartcrges amög J>e bretherhed at> tyme no brother no suster misseye ne reuyle other vp peyne of apound wex at J)e dom of J)e mai to paie it Also eueri man & woman of J)is companye paie for his entre as £>e maystres & he mowe acorde by assent of foui7 otheCre brejSen W J)e maistres> and also non of £>e maystres ne non other of Jje companye ne resceyue noma in J>is bretherhede butjif he be < o f > berynge & of good fame by record of his neschebores so J) Jais companye be nat holde for meyntencros of wikked men & ame Also that euf man & woman of J>is companye paie eueri 3eer by fme of his lyf foure tymes ajeer iij c[ for his quartzes in ce of hem that be syke & be bycome in meschief by J)e g°ce of god & 3if any be behynde of his quartzes a 3eer & be of power faie it & wil nou3t he schal be put of for eifmore And Cthat the mai>stres go to gidre with other* foure felawes to ordeigne clothinge eueri 3eer for he that wile take hodes of her' ppre costagg a3ens J>e day of seint Anne & J>at it be bou3t as pfitablich as they mowe and J) eueri man of £>e company < e > hoded be redy in his hodynge with his other' felawes at the heye masse of seint Anne on the same day & offre j 4 & dwelle til masse be do in the chirche foreseid & aff J) go J5 < φ ε > maystres wile assigne he Also 3if any of J)e companye 3yue awey £>e hood of his lyuer" with inne to 3eer to any other J)' is nat of £>e companye ne of J)e lyuei^ of J)e frafnite he schal paie J)e double J)at it coste to t>e almesse or elles he schal be put of J>e company for eifmor Also whan any brother or suster of t>e company be ded . he schal haue two tapres of wex of xl pounc[ wex & xxx masses the day of his dyenge or elles of his enterement & Jaat al ^e companie be to gydere in her' hodes atte dirige & on the morwe at masse & offre at fou/ masses j c[ & dwelle til £>e body be entered . & who so faileth J5of paie apound wex to J>e 113t but he may resonabelich be excuse^ Also is ordeigned that bifore £>e same ymage of seint Anne eifmof schal stonde thre tapres of wex eche of ^>e wi3te of two pönd and in the day of seint Anne whan t>e companye is to gydei7 at masse schal stonde bifore J>e same

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ymage an other taper grettei^ than on of the iij. by a pound brennyng by fore hef til al J>e s'uise be do Also in the tyme of lente schal be aboute J>e sepulcre ataper of xxiiij li wex of J)e companyes & ^er" schal stonde brennyge as longe as any other schal in J)e same chirche of seint Laurence in worschepe of god & his holy sepulcre Also is ordeigned £>at eche man of J>e companye at his entre schal be charged on the book to holde \>is companye to fme of his lyf & neu£ it forsake while he is of power to paie as an other doj) of J>e companye but 3if it be so J>at he be of euele berynge the rather to do euel vnderstondynge to be meyntened in his wikkednesse nat withstondyng his charge he schal be put of & out of J>e companye for eifmore til he crie rricy to £>e companye & fynde süffisant borwes of his amendemet & of his gode berynge Also 3if any of {>e company be of wikked fame of his body & take o£>£ wyues t»an his owene or 3if he be a sengle man & be holde a cöe lecho0^ or conteco0 or rebell of his tonge he schal be warned by Jje wardenis iij tymes & 3if he wile nat hym self amende he schal paie to t>e wardenis al £>e arrerages jj he owej) to £>e companye & he schal be put of for eifmor so £>at t>e godemen of J)is companye ne be nat sclaundred bi cause of hym Also is ordeigned 3if any of t>e companye falle in meschief by syknesse of body or by robberie by lond or by watir or by fyr brennynge or by elde of body or by contek J>at he lese hand ffynger or other membr' of his body wherefore he may nat werche ne lyue on his craft so J>at it be nat at his assant ne at his desert but at his defens by record of his neschbores & 3if he haue wel & trewely paid his quartzes & other thynges as oj5e godeme of J)e companye don he schal haue of J)e seluer of J)e quartzes in J>e box eueri wyke for fme of his lyf χ c^ ob in helpynge of his sustenance he j3yenge for al t>e cumpanye and at his dyenge schal haue t>e 113t & masses as it is afore seid And also that no brother ne suster schal haue J>at almesse of χ. ob but 3if he haue be broj? or suster v. 3eer & haue wel & trewely paid his quartages Also 3if any man be of good stat & vse hym to lye longe in bedde & atte risyng of his bed ne wil nat worche to wynne his sustenänce & kepe his ho9 & go to J)e tauerne to J>e wyn to £>e ale to wrastelynge to schetynge & in this manef fallej) pou£ & lest his catel in his defaute for soco0^ & trust for to be holpe of J)e frafnite J)at man schal neuS haue good no help of J)e companye nother in his lyf no at his def} but he schal be put of for eif more of £>is companye Also is ordeigned 3if any of £>e companye faile in anye of Jje poyntes a foreseid he schal paie to |>e wardeynes a pound wex in help of here light at

Middle English variation

185

t>e ordinance of J>e wardeyns but 3if it so be £>at he mowe J)e more resonabely be excused Custodes ffrafnitaf supffdicte dicunt qc[ non hent aliqua fras seu ten < r > eddit9 seu £moa mortificata vel non mortificata nec alia bona siue catalla mortua seu vnia pt" quam cftam suir^nia pecunie in manibz fraf

MS London Rolls 3 The return of the yeomanry of curriers, White Friars, Fleet St On litel copanye of a light of on taper in £>e qweer of £>e white ffreres in ffletestret of £>e 3omanrie of curreio a s wherof e ben maistres Geffrei Tolyndon & Robt Stor Hit is to wite f j in {je 3er of kyng^ Edwarc[ J>e J)ridde aff J)e conquest .xlj. Richarc[ Leuered John heerde John p o d e Robt Sharp and oj3e which now ben dede. bigüne a 113h t of ο tap in J>e qweer of J>e ffrere Carmes in f f l e t e s t r O t in wursship of e J>e trinite & of our lady & aff hit encreced of folly. & eify pay de a ferthing,, a weke and made c f t e n O poynt3 as is by nej)e y write / And now ]De forseyd brethered is al most a falle so J> JS be no mo at J>is tyme J> paiej) $ to but .x. or xij. psones. and J?ei han in catel at J>is tyme. xxiij. s ' . ij. c[. ob. and J3 be of detto^s t>e süme of .iiij. IT . t>e which t>e maystres ne mow nou3ht gete

Hand Two This ys Jf charge of the oth of J? brojfrede what man ji ys resceyuyd ther to schal be good and trewe ther to And alle J) brojfres shulle be a redy at ecche a somänce of hem J> bej) ordeynyd maistres for jj Craft of J)is bro^red what man J) faillij) atte somaunce paie six pans 0$ a pound of wex Der1 and good cheep J) ys J>e rilcement 3if {j he in J> Citee be y founde at J)e morwe tyde he ne shal nau3t go out of towne Woute gretter nede and askynge of leue of on of J>e four maistres of t> Craft thurgh which he may be y founde ji he haj) cfteyn enchesön to doune whanne brojfres ojS suster^ of Ja brojfred J) ony of hem ys ded alle Ja bro^res & susters shull be atte t>e dirige and bidde for Jf soule worschipfullich a morwe Also thei shull be ther" and offre a pany atte four* messes and though t? cors haue but on masse he shall offry a pany and 3if J) body haue y be of good loos and trowe wher' euer" yt bee ded we shull make jf mynde W alle t? brotheren and sustryn atte ffrer1 Carmes and there eifych of J? brothered

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shall haue of the box a trentall to pcrye for J) soule on which god haue iricy jJ ys to wetyn thirty massys 3ife ony debate be by twixt ony of the brejfren oj5 susfyn he shal come and playne to Jf iiij. maistr's of Jj brojfreed and hij shull redresset & ordeyne be J? craft who his y founde gulty for to make amendys vJ oute ferner pleynyngg oj5 lawe pcrsuynge Andji no cr'uaunt shall work^ vJ none manne out of his Craft in non o]5 mannys hous ne vJ non oj3 mannes things wherby ji J? craft mowe be y reproued oj5 a peyrid ]J no man of t? Craft ne shall sette non vncouj) man a work«, but 3ifc J) he conne his craft couenablich to worch in J>e Citee and a man J) gooJ> ydell a day be his maistres defaute he shal haue two pans a day / And 3ef he go pleye in his owne defaut whenne he sholde worch he shal restory to his maister of four 1 pannys a day / 3if J) maister haj) ony apj3ntys he ne shall seile hym to no man but to hem ^ be{3 men of J>e Craft and pfitable and wonable for t>e Citee This ys J) acomensinge of J) brothered of 3omanrye of jf Craft of cr 1 Curreo s for to fynde a Taper of wax to for Jf Trinite And to who ys bro]3 and suster hij shull offre J5 to jc[. and t> susters ech ob fcf sonday after J) assumpcioii of our1 lady a nop o f f / n by J) oth J) 3e han mad what man J) faillij) pait> a pound of wax ps o f . vj c[ atte ffrer* Carmes $ to be ^af offrynge

MS London Rolls 4a The return of the brotherhood of St Nicholas, St Stephen's, Coleman St Gilda Sei Stepfii de Colmanstrete london In Jje worsschepe of god almi3hti and of his moder Seynt Marie an of alle holy halwen of heuene and of seint Nicholas . t>is brotherhed was by . gonne in london of gode men of Colmanstret e in noresshyng1 of loue & of charite amonges hem and in helpe to hem Jjat falleth in pouert of J)e brothirhed . J)oru3 auentur* of godes sonde And also in other dedes of Charite J>at be worsschepe to god . J>is brotherhed was bi gonne £>e 3er of oure lord .M. CCC. lx . ix. And at J)e biginnyng it was ferst ordeygned among" ou^ bretherin of deuocion to fynden a ly3t brennyng I resonable tyme by fore t>e ymage of seint Nicholas in £>e Cherche of seint Stephn in Colmanstretg in £>e worsschepe of

Middle English variation

187

almi3ti god & of his Moder Seynt Marie and of alle J>e holy halwen of heuene and of seint Nicholas £>e wheche ly3t schal ben renewed eche 3er a3enes J)e day of ye for seid Seint Nicholas and in alle othir tymes whanne it nedeth And also we willet3 hauen a komune box . of almesse to susteynen our* lyht and other dedes of charite £>e wheche be plesyng1 to god & nedful to our* bretheren to wheche box eche brother schal paye eche quarter .iij. . t>er whyles god 3eueth him grace of stat and of power .' And also 3ef eny . of oure bretheren fallen in nounpower J)uru3 auent°e of godes sonde t>oru3 fir' J>uru3 robberye t>uru3 Syknesse t>uru3 euel happes of ye word and may nou3t him seluen. helpen he schal hauen, eche wyke £>er whiles he leueth of J>e almese box to his sustinaunce .x. (J,. ob. and also an hood onis a 3er a3enes J>e day of seint Nicholas he for to bidden in his j3yeres for alle J)e bre^eren bothe for ye quike & for £>e dede And also in Reuerence of god almi3ti and of his moder Seint Marie of £>e holy confessour Seint Nicholas we willet3 onis a3er be clothed in Sute in on lyuere a3enes £>e day of seint Nicholas bi J>e ordinance of i>e wardeynes eche broker at his owne cost and eche broker come to J>e chirche of seint Steuene in Colmanstrete aforseyd and ben t>er? atte heye messe and offren and he J)at is nouh3t £>ere as it is ordeyned he schal paye apound of wex to J>e sustinance of J?e ly3t but he mowe fynden a uerray encheson and also J>e wheche liuere eche broker schal kepe a 3er in Jae peyne of sex pound wex to oure ly3ht a forseyd .' And also as it was fesst ordeyned we willeth hauen twey wardeynes chosen from 3er to 3er to kepen oure katell to gader" oure quartrages to ordeyne oui7 ly3ht to beye oure lyuer" to ordeyne our* ffeste whanne t>e brej>eren wiln assente to 3eue our* almesse to paye oure prest what tyme J>at we ony h < o > l d i t h to make good acord Jmt it be worsshepe to god & nedful 1 to oure brojjerhed to ordeyne enfement3 whanne ony fallet3 and to done alle thynges Jaat reson asket3 touchyng £>e bro^erhed as for £>e tyme .' And also if god doth his will with ony of oure bre^eren J)at falleth ded Joanne moste £>e wardeynes ben warned, and J>anne schuln J>e wardeynes maken a warnyng" to alle £>e bre^eren to ben atte dirige and on {>e morwen at t>e enterement and offre in her* laste liuere. and if it is abroJ>er J>at is founden bi J)e almesse Jjanne schal hollych al Jje cost of J)e terement ben payed of J)e almesse box so J)at he sshal ben brou3ht on erthe faire & worsshepeliche. and so sshal ony other broker haue J)at nedeth or desyreth in Jje same manei 7 a forseyd J>at is to wetene .iiij. torches couenable and ij tapres rounde of .1. pound atte leste and who J>at is nou3ht at £>e terement schal pay lb of wex. but

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he mowe fynde a verray encheson and ]?at same day J)at he deyeth he schal haue a trentall of messes i don for his soule at J>e ffreres austines. And also t>e Sunday next after £>e ffeste of seint Nicholas, by £>e ordinance of our" wardeynes hauen our" general assemble and J>e wardeynes to make a warnyng1 to alle t>e brej>eren a day biforn. and whether Jsei schul comen and eche broker ben \>ef in his laste liuere of sute and at t>e same assemble. J>e olde wardeynes schuln chese newe be settyng of garlandes as it hat3 ben vsed bi forn. and who J>at is absent schal paye iiij. lb of wex but he mowe fynde a verray encheson And also at ^at same tyme J>anne schul J)e ij. newe wardeynes gon & examynin alle Jje bre^eren eche by him self whom J>ei thinkin best ^at is most able to ben here cheuynteyn and who J)at hat3 most vois be alexioun he schal bere £>at offys Jjat 3er forward.' And also after J)is alexion mad Joanne schul t>e olde wardeynes bringe forthe t>e katel and schewen it to alle J>e bretheren & 3euen rosonable reknyng* of alle thinges touchyng her* offys of t>e 3er bi forn £>at is to sein to J>e ij. newe wardeynes and to him ^>at is chosen her' cheuinteyn and to tweyne of the bretheren to hem i chosen, so {>at in £>is maner* be mad a fair ende .' And whanne J)is is i don and J>e olde Maistres haueth faire 3olden vp here offys t>anne schal J)e chiuynteyn take J)e catell in to his hond & deptid in .iij. and t>e tweye ptes schal be deliuered to t>e .ij. wardeines eche of hem liehe ineche ope surte mad ^at is to witene eche of ye wardeynes by him self / with him t>at 3af him {)e garland be i bounde. with an obligacion to J>e chiuynteyn. to 3elden it a3en J)at he resseyueth J>at day twelf moneth after £>e date of J>e obligacion mad .' And also t>e thridde deel of £>at catell Jjat leueth schal ben put in J)e box in kepynge and in warde of t>e chyuinteyn at what thing Jjat is for to done touchyng J)e broJ)erhed kepyng J)e kynges pees, ^anne schul J>e wardeynes comen to J?e chyuinteyn and seyn what hem nedeth and it schal be delyuered to hem so £>at it be knowen to J)e chiuynteyn in what manere it is dispended and i do forth and £>er of 3euen aresonable reknyng an a kounte And also if £>er ben ony of oure bre^eren J^at is rebel 1 . a3enes his bretheren or a3enes ony poynt of J>e paper £>at beth ordeyned & i writen and wil nouth be reuled bi J>e wardeynes ne by his bretheren he schal ben put out of oure paper and i holde for non broker in to J)e tyme J>at he wil be reulid and make amendes of his rebelhed bi J)e ordinance of J>e wardeynes and of his bre^eren and in Jjis manei7 he schal ben resseyued a3en and elles nau3ht And also 3if ony man be in wille to comen in to oure bro^erhed J)anne

Middle English variation

189

schal it be enquered amonges oui7 bretherin J)at he be of gode condiciöns and of fair beryng" and a man of good name so £>at J>e bre^eren may ben bi him amended and i holpe bi his goodnesse and J>anne he schal ben resseyued & elles and he to gffunte with his gode wille bi his fey to fulfille ye poyntes of J^e paper J)at beth ordeyned & i wrete and he to don acurteysye at hi comynge to J>e almesse box as J)e wardeynes & he mowen assenten And also 3ef ony of oui7 brej^eren to whom it eife be falle J)at with holdeth tes ]?at beth resonable t>at is to witen for his entres or for his quartzes to £>e box J>at is ordeyned to meyntine oui7 ly3ht and to susteynen oure bre^eren Jjat fallen in pouert and also to fynden oure prest whan god sent tyme to singe for £>e quike & for £>e dede J>at beth now & weren bi fore and also to don oJ>er dedes of charite or elles with holdeth ony siluer of ye box i taken or ony other dettes of what {ring J)at it be touchyng J)e almesse box and with holdeth it ouer a3er he schal be put out of J>e paper and iholde no broker in to £>e time J>at he cometh and restoreth of alle J>e ges and maketh amendes bi £>e ordinance of J)e bretheren . And also we wiln JDIS J)at if J>er be ony of our bretheren £>at kan ordeignen ony poyntes t>at ben worsshepe to god and nedful to J)e bretherhed Jaat it be writen in J>e paper bi comune assent and i holde ferme & stable as J)e poyntes a forseyd and t>er to god 3eue us alle grace wel to holden hem with alle ou/ power amen

MS London Rolls 4b The return of the brotherhood of the light of St Mary, St Stephen's, Coleman St Vne petite ffrafnite dun Lunfe de nre Dame en Leglise Seint Estephe in Colmanstret de Loundres dount les Mestres sont a j3sent Wil^m Gloire et Estephe Baron ffait a remembr q en Lan du regne le Roi Edwarc[ tierce aps? la conquest. xliijce Wil^m Molton Mason John Lenh°m Brewer* John Mushach Smyth John Smyth Curreo0^ Thomcrs Belchambr' Letherdigher' & autres bones gent3 del poche seint Estephe de Colmanstret de Loundres de 1οσ gffunt deuociön & en Ιιοησ de nr'e dame comencerent vn ffrafnite a troif .v. cierges vn a braunche pendaunt d e u ^ t vn ymage de nr'e dame en la dite eglise s le beem. paiant chescun frer' & soer" .xij. cj.. ρ an & firont cftey^ poynt3 come desoutti

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sont esCpt3 La quele ffrafnite ad continue tanq en cea Et ount en j3sent en 1οσ box .xiij. c[ . & null pluys a cause q ρ deux ano3 passe3 vn Richard Thede qadunqs fust Mestre est ale sa voye hors del pays ouesq3 tout 1οσ argent q fust .iiij. II. x. s'. & est fuy3 ρ σ dette ρ σ le quell pluso gent3 ount refuse la dite ffrafnite & le dit lunfe ne fust pas troue. Mes encountre le darrein feste del Assüpciön de nr'e dame cfteyn3 gent3 de la dite cöpaignie eyant3 copassioii del dit lunfe .' firont renoueler de 1οσ deuociön & auxi 1I3 trouent vne ffeme viewe de 1οσ viaunde & paient chescun an .vj. s'. ρ σ vne meson ρ σ ele & vn foit3 en lan son veste*1 de 1οσ almoigne In £>e name of J>e hali Trinite fader & sone and holi gost Amen . In J>e feste of seint John £>e port latyn J) is to witen £>e seuen day of J>e mon^e of May in J>e 3er of J>e Incarnaciön of our' lore}, a ]}ousanc[ & t>re hondrej) sexti and nyne is fulfilled & stablissed a ffrnite Jje which was a litel while before ordeyned and begonnen be som bre^eren & sustren in J>e chirche of seint Stephen in Colmanstrete of london in J)e 1ιοησ of our" Lore blessed Assüpciön of our" lady seinte Marie vp J)e articles J>at folwen Jd is for to sein J) J)e forseyd brejseren & sustren schuln fynden & meyntenen be fore J)e ymage of our' lady in J)e chirche a forseyd a ligtit of .xxxj. pound wex ffirst alle £>e brejjeren and sustren eifich 3er a3eines J)e self feste of J>e Assüpciön of our* Lady seinte Marie shul ben clethed of one sute of couenable clojjingg as fallej) for here astat but 3if ony shal be of £>e compaignie be cause of poortee ne may no3ht make gree 31t he shal haue atte leste a hode of Jje suyte in token ]j he is a bro|5 of J)e frafnite so £>at he be holden brojS or susf of gode condicioii and honest J>e which day of \>e assüpciön J)e forsaid bretheren & sustren shul haue a solempne messe in £>e hon11 of £>e forsaid seinte Marie songen in £>e churche of seint Stephen forsayd / at which messe alle J>e forsayd brej>eren and sustren vp peyne of ij pound wex shulle be f5sent fro f>e biginnyngg of J>e forsayd messe to Jae ende and at t> messe in due tyme eifich broj? & susf a peny shal offre. £>e which messe y songen alle £>e forsayd bretheren and sustren shull go to gidren to a c'teyn place be her maistres whiche be for })e tyme assigned in t>e whiche place alle shullen ete. to gidren on her owne purs or atte leste drynkg / and affjD etyngg or drynkyngg / wher* hit be J>e forseyd maistres hir acompte for J)e tyme shul yelde vp in gode marie and honeste to £>e forsayd bre^eren and sustren and affj)at acompte so made t>e forseid maystres oj5 .iij. breiten of t>e frafnite shul chese settyngg on her' heuedes ij. garlaundes and shal charge hem wij) £>e same charge £>at J>ei wer* in her' tyme occupied wij> outen eny excepciön or gaynsayng^ of any broj5 or

Middle English variation

191

suster of £>e self«, frafnite J>e which ordenances. in none marie shulle be leftg / vp peyne t>at folwe^ / gret seknesse or resonable cause out taken. Also t>ei shul haue be twixen hem a cöe box to J>e which eifiche broj5 and susf shul paie eifich q V .iij. penyes for q rtrage t>e which siluer shul be payd eifich tme wij) in £>e oetaues of J)e festes vnderwriten ji is to wyten £>e Natiuite of seint John baptist seint Michel J>e Archangel / Natiuite of ouf lorcj, and Estren wiJ>outen ony delay Also if ony discord falle be twix ony broß or susf of Jae forsayd frafnite. pie hengyngg be twix hem / J>e pleyntife J) felej) him agreued shul come to J>e forsaid Maistres Jjat ben for J>e tyme and shul shewe hem holeche t>e cause of his greuance and J>en J>e forseyd Maistres shul senden for oj5 twei brejSen and for \>e to$ ptie / & shul here bo^e pties and so be twixen hem .iiij. t>ei shul do her7 diligence to make god acorc[ be twix J>e pties wi^outen mellure of any oj5 straunge cleped J5 to and elles go cöe lawe. Also t)ei shulle haue a cöe bedel £>e which for J>e tyme shul be entendaunt to J>e comaundement3 of J>e forsaid Maistres J>at is to witen to somounde al J>e forseyd bretheren and sustren what tyme J)e forsaid Maistres sen tyme to conseyl vp ony poynt necessarie and couenable to J)e forsayd frafnite and which bro)3 or susfof J)e frafnite ne com noujht to J)e place be J)e forsayd bedel to hem assigned for eifich somons t>ai shal paie to £>e light of J>e ffrafnite. a pouncj, of wex. but he be destoabed be resonable cause . Also if ony broj5 or susfof J>e frafnite be rebel mysdoer or infamis of ony blame bi f)e whiche J)e forsaid brejjeren and sustren haue ony sclaundre or repruf^ or her frendes or straungers J> t>e mysdoer shal be warned twys or thries be his bretheren and sustren of his defaute And 3if he wil amende him of his trespas he shal be holden ί ο φ for a couenable bro|3 and 3if he of his fspas be hef mocion ne wil n o ^ h t amende him Jjen at first fspas repuable a f f ^ e thrid mocion to him y mad to him y mad of £>e forsayd compaignie be he put out / nought gaynstandyng^his dement mad for to kepe J>e gode articles touching^ Jje frafnite. Also if any broj5 or susf of J)e frafnite be godes grace falle seke or be ojS fortune nou3ht his defaute be enpoifist and nou3ht hauyng^ of his owen wherby to lyue he shal haue eifich weke of he^ cöe almes for his sustenance .xiiij. 4 to

tyme ^at he be releued of his meschief^

Also if ony broj5 or suster of £>e frafnite dy he shull haue a trental of Messes songen for his soule of her cöe box and his body shal noght be beried to alle t>e bretheren and sustren ben warned be her forsayd bedel. And also l)at £>ei ordeigne of hei7 cöe box .v. tapres and foure torches for to brenne a boute

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Jje body at firste dirige and ο J>e day and ο J>e day at messe at which dirige and messe, alle £>e forseyd brejSen & sustren shul be ]5 j3sent als longe. as J>e dirige is asaiyngg and at morwe fro £>e begynnyng^ of Jje first messe to alle J>e messes be sayd and J>e body solempnelicti enfed aff his astat / at which messe eifich broj5 and susf of t>e frafnite shul offren a peny atte leste / and more 3if hem like and so als often as such cas befalle^ vp peyne of .ij. pound of wex to paie to J>e light, forsayde but if he be sturbed be resonable cause. / and if ony broj5 or suster die wher so eif Jjat he be / he shal haue a trental of messes als sone as Jje forsaid Maistres ben y warned JS of c / And also if ony brop or susf fal seke in cuntre or die be ten mile aboute t>e Citee t>an J)e brojS shul fetche £>e bodi and bringe it to J>e place in J)e which he first dwelled and in couenable marie sha be beried in matfe a bouesait^ And also alle J?e gode poyntes and ordenances touchyng^ J>e ffra/nite forsayde in alle Ringes to holden and fulfillen and conseyl to helen alle J)e bretheren and sustren now j3sent han mad her oth vp J>e seint3 eu^gelies be pnouncyngg of wordes and wij> here mouthes kissing^ and what bro}5 or susf J>at entres in J>e forsaid frafnite shal swere to holde ^e gode ordeynance in t>e maße forsayc[ /

Appendix B: Data upon which figures in Sections 3 and 4 are based, as extracted from the texts in Appendix A Infinitives Rolls 2 for to norische, for to witene, werche, lese, to paie, be, assigne, to dyne, paie, be, go, to be, be, paie, gadre, renne, be, to take, answer', come, bringe, resceyue, to seyen, to paie, acorde, for to paie, be, to ordeigne, take, assigne, paie, be, haue, be, stonde, stonde, be, stonde, be, to holde, forsake, to paie, to do, to be, be, be, amende, paie, be, werche, lyue, haue, haue, haue, to lye, worche, to wynne, for to be, haue, be, paie Rolls 3 hand 2 be, be, go, be, to doune, be, bidde, be, offre, offry, make, haue, to p^ye, to wetyn, come, playne, redresset, ordeyne, for to make, work«,, be, sette, a workg, to worch, haue, pleye, worch, restory, seile, for to fynde, offre

Middle English variation

193

Roll 4a to fynden, ben, hauen, to susteynen, paye, helpen, hauen, for to bidden, be, paye, fynden, kepe, hauen, to kepen, to gade^, to ordeyne, to beye, to ordeyne, assente, to 3eue, to paye, to make, to ordeyne, to done, ben, maken, to ben, offre, ben, ben, haue, to wetene, pay, fynde, haue, hauen, to make, comen, ben, chese, paye, fynde, gon, examynin, to ben, bere, bringe, schewen, 3euen, to sein, take, deptid, be, to witene, to 3elden, ben, for to done, comen, seyn, be, ben, be, make, ben, to comen, be, ben, ben, to g^unte, to fulfille, to don, assenten, to witen, to meyntine, to susteynen, to fynden, to singe, to don, be, ordeignen, be, to holden Rolls 4b to witen, for to sein, fynden, meyntenen, ben, be, make, haue, haue, be, offre, go, ete, drynkg, yelde, chese, charge, be, haue, paie, be, to wyten, come, shewe, senden, here, do, to make, go, haue, be, to witen, to somounde, to conseyl, paie, be, amende, be, amende, for to kepe, to lyue, haue, haue, be, for to brenne, be, offren, to paie, haue, fetche, bringe, be, to holden, fulfillen, to helen, swere, to holde

Past participles Rolls 2 write, maad, stablisshed, assented, holde, wist, put, assented, assented, bet^ned, excused, chose, chose, excused, chose, chosen, holde, bycome, bou3t, hoded, do, put, entered, excuse^ ordeigned, do, ordeigned, charged, meyntened, put, holde, warned, put, sclaundred, ordeigned, paid, be, paid, holpe, put, ordeigned, excused Rolls 3 resceyued, ordeyned, y founde, y founde, y be, y founde, y reproued, a peyrid, mad

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Rolls 4a bygonne, bi gönne, ordeygned, renewed, clothed, ordeyned, ordeyned, chosen, warned, founden, payed, brought, i don, ben, vsed, mad, chosen, i chosen, mad, i don, jolden, deliuered, mad, i bounde, mad, put, delyuered, knowen, dispended, i do, 3euen, ordeyned, i writen, reuled, put, i holde, reulid, resseyued, enquered, amended, i holpe, resseyued, ordeyned, i wrete, ordeyned, i taken, put, iholde, writen, i holde Rolls 4b fulfilled, stablissed, ordeyned, begonnen, clethed, holden, songen, y songen, assigned, made, occupied, taken, payd, vnderwriten, agreued, cleped, assigned, desto^bed, warned, holden, y mad, y mad, put, mad, enpoifist, releued, songen, beried, warned, sayd, ented, sturbed, y warned, dwelled, beried, mad

Notes 1. For a historical discussion of the 1388/89 guild certificates see Chambers and Daunt (1931: 40), Toulmin Smith (1870: xxiv-xxvi), Basing (1982: xi, 80-81), Strype's edition of Stow (1720: III, 48-9, 62-3, 268), Barron - Wright (1995, 108-118), Baron - Bill (1985: 13-37, 23). For a brief linguistic summary of the Public Record Office London guild certificates, see Richard Morris' Appendix II to Toulmin Smith (1870: 460-61). I am greatly indebted to Caroline Barron and Jonathan Hope for their historical and linguistic expertise. An earlier draft of this paper was presented to the International Conference on Middle English, Rydzyna, Poland, 13-16 April 1994. 2. Scribe 1 wrote 4 certificates in English, plus another two in Medieval Latin: PRO C47/42/209 and PRO C47/42/210.

References Manuscript material 1. Public Record Office MS C47/46/465, Fraternity of Carpenters, St Thomas Aeon and St John Baptist Haliwelle 2. Public Record Office MS C47/41/191, Fraternity of St James, St James Garlickhythe 3. Public Record Office MS C47/41/196, Brotherhood of SS Fabian and Sebastian, St Botolph Aldersgate

Middle English variation

195

4. Public Record Office MS C47/41/198, Fraternity of St Katherine, St Botolph Aldersgate 5. Public Record Office MS C47/46/464, Brotherhood of the Annunciation and Assumption of the Craft of Pouchmakers, St Mary Bedlam without Bishopsgate and St Paul's 6. Public Record Office MS C47/42/213, Brotherhood of the Holy Trinity, St Stephen's Coleman Street 7. Bodleian Library MS London Rolls 2, Brotherhood of St Anne, St Lawrence Jewry 8. Bodleian Library MS London Rolls 3, Yeomanry of Curriers, White Friars, Fleet Street 9. Bodleian Library MS London Rolls 4a, Brotherhood of St Nicholas, St Stephen's Coleman Street 10. Bodleian Library MS London Rolls 4b, Brotherhood of the Light of St Mary, St Stephen's Coleman Street

Printed material Barron, Caroline Mary - Christopher Harper Bill 1985 "The Parish Fraternities of Medieval London", The Church in Pre-Reformation Society. Woodbridge: Alan Sutton. Barron, Caroline Mary - Laura Charlotte Wright 1995 "The London Middle English Guild Certificates of 1388/89", Nottingham Medieval Studies 39: 108-145. Basing, Patricia (ed.) 1982 Parish Fraternity Register: Fraternity of the Holy Trinity and SS. Fabian and Sebastian in the Parish of St. Botolph without Aldersgate. London: London Record Society 18. Chambers, Raymond Wilson - Marjorie Daunt (eds.) 1931 A Book of London English 1384-1425. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Fisher, John Hurt 1977 "Chancery and the Emergence of Standard Written English in the Fifteenth Century", Speculum 52: 870-899. Hope, Jonathan 1994 The Authorship of Shakespeare's Plays: A Socio-linguistic Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mcintosh, Angus - Michael Louis Samuels - Michael Benskin 1986 A Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press. Milroy, James 1992 Linguistic Variation and Change: On the Historical Sociolinguistics glish. Oxford: Blackwell.

of En-

Raumolin-Brunberg, Helena - Terttu Nevalainen 1990 "Dialectal Features in a Corpus of Early Modern Standard English", in: Graham Caie - Kirsten Haastrup - Amt Lykke Jakobsen - Joergen Erik Nielsen - Joergen Sevaldsen - Henrik Specht - Arne Zettersten (eds.), Proceedings from the Fourth Nordic Conference for English Studies 1. Copenhagen: Department of English,University of Copenhagen, 119-131.

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Stow, John 1720

A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster. Edited by John Strype. London. Toulmin Smith - Lucy Toulmin Smith - Lujo Brentano (eds.) 1870 English Gilds. Early English Text Society, original series, 40. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Westlake, Herbert Francis 1919 The Parish Guilds of Medieval England. London. 137-238.

The chaos before the order: New Zealand English and the second stage of new-dialect formation Peter Trudgill 1.

Introduction

In earlier work on new-dialect formation (Trudgill 1986), I argued that certain sorts of sociolinguistic situation involving contact between mutually intelligible dialects - colonial situations, new towns, rapid urbanisation - can lead to the development of new dialects. After examining a number of case studies involving different types of new-dialect formation, I arrived at an analysis in which I described the processes involved in new-dialect formation as follows. In a dialect mixture situation, such as that present in a newly settled colony, large numbers of variants from the different dialects involved in the mixture will abound. As time passes and focusing begins to take place, particularly as the colony or new town begins to acquire an independent identity, the variants present in the mixture will begin to be subject to reduction. This will take place as a result of accommodation between speakers in face-to-face interaction, which may also lead to the development of new, intermediate or hyperadaptive or other interdialect forms which were not actually present in any of the contributing dialects. This reduction will not take place in a haphazard manner. In determining who accommodates to who - and therefore which forms are retained and which lost - demographic factors involving proportions of different dialect speakers present will be vital. Purely linguistic forces will also be at work: the reduction of variants that accompanies focusing, in the course of new-dialect formation, takes place through the process of koineization. This comprises the process of levelling, which involves the loss of linguistically marked and demographically minority variants; and the process of simplification, by means of which even minority forms may be the ones to survive if they are linguistically simpler, in the technical sense, and through which even forms and distinctions that are present in all contributory dialects may be lost. Even after koineization, some competing variants left over from the original mixture may survive. Where this happens, reallocation may occur, such that variants originally from different regional dialects may in the new dialect be-

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come social class variants, stylistic variants, or, in the case of phonology, allophonic variants (see Britain 1996). We can thus perhaps distinguish between three different chronological stages in the new-dialect formation process which may also correspond, at least in certain situations, to three successive generations of speakers. The first stage involves the initial contact between adult speakers of different regional and social varieties in the new location, involving certain types of accommodation and rudimentary dialect levelling. In the second generation, we may hypothesize, children, having many different linguistic models to aim at, will demonstrate considerable inter-individual and intra-individual variability. Unlike in stable situations, where children normally acquire the dialect of their peers, in diffuse dialect contact situations there will be no single peerdialect to acquire, and the role of adults, especially perhaps parents, will be more significant than is usually the case. Children will thus have considerable freedom to select variants from different dialects and form them into new combinations, as well as to develop new intermediate and other interdialectal forms. Only subsequently, in the third generation, will the new dialect appear as a stable, crystallised variety as a result of focusing processes of reduction just described (see Trudgill 1986: ch. 3). Most of the work discussed in my book, and indeed most studies in this field generally, have focused either on individual accommodation in faceto-face interaction in the first stage of the process (see Giles 1973; Trudgill 1982), or on society-wide processes in the third, new-dialect formationthrough-focusing stage (see, for example, Omdal 1977). We are, however, not very well provided at all with descriptions of the second stage. This is hardly surprising. It is much easier to report on what has happened during the course of new-dialect formation after the event, when the new dialect is in place and is readily susceptible to linguistic description, than during the relatively chaotic period while it is actually happening, and when there is no actual guarantee that there will actually be a new-dialect outcome at all (see Maehlum 1992; Kerswill 1994). In this paper, however, we are fortunately, and rather unusually, able to report on the development of a new dialect of English that has been formed out of dialect contact in the last 150 years - the English of New Zealand - by concentrating on some rather remarkable evidence concerning the second stage of new-dialect formation in the case of a variety whose final shape is actually known. This evidence enables us to confirm the largely speculative and theoretical hypotheses concerning the second stage of new-dialect formation which were developed in Trudgill (1986), and

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outlined briefly above, by analysis of actual data taken from the second stage of such a process while it was actually in progress. The data comes from recordings made by the National Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand between 1946 and 1948. These recordings were made by the Mobile Disc Recording Unit of the NBCNZ which travelled around small towns on both the North Island and South Island of New Zealand. The recordings were oral history pioneer reminiscences, mostly from people who were children of the first European settlers in New Zealand - precisely the second generation of speakers that we are interested in for an examination of the nature of the second stage of new-dialect formation. About 325 speakers born between 1850 and 1900 were recorded before the project was brought to a premature end in 1948 as a result of a change of government. In 1989, Elizabeth Gordon of the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand arranged for the purchase of copies of all these recordings, which now form the basis of the Origins of New Zealand English (ONZE) project at the Department of Linguistics at Canterbury. These recordings have subsequently been supplemented by genealogical information about the speakers, obtained from archival research and from contacts with the speakers' relatives and descendants as well as from local historical research concerning settlement patterns in the areas in question. In this paper, we report on the speech of a number of informants born in Otago, South Island, between 1862 and 1885, an absolutely crucial period in the history of the formation of New Zealand English. These speakers were all born in New Zealand of parents who had emigrated from the British Isles or Australia. To set the scene, let us look at a description of the social conditions which pertained in this area in the late 19th century. Nicola Woods (1997: 18-19) reports the following : . . . although immigrants from different parts of Britain tended to settle in different areas of New Zealand, early records indicate that there was considerable contact between speakers of different dialects . . . Nowhere was this pattern of contact more extreme than in areas such as Otago . . . Certainly the dialects of England, Ireland, Australia and, to a lesser extent, America were represented.... far from being a rural outpost, one 1940s informant describes the Arrowtown of the late 19th century as being like "London on a Saturday night".

We should also add that the input from Scottish English into the dialect mixture in this area of New Zealand must have been very significant indeed.

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Census data show that the European population of Otago in 1848 was 620, of which 229 were Scottish-born. By 1858, the population was 6,944, of which 1,505 were Scottish-born, 1,529 New Zealand-born and 1,340 English-born (figures from New Zealand government census publications). All the speakers were recorded, as we have noted, in the 1940s, when they were aged 62-86. It is, of course, an interesting and open question how far their speech at that age is a true reflection of their speech as children and teenagers. It is certainly true (Labov 1994) that, as far as phonetics and phonology are concerned, the basic vernacular is formed by adolescence and is unlikely to change fundamentally. It is also true, however, that individuals may change the way they speak during the course of their lifetimes as a result of accommodation or other processes, and we should be aware of the problems this may produce for our project (see Coupland 1997). Our feeling is that the main danger concerns features of modern New Zealand English that are present in the speech of our informants - it is certainly possible that they have acquired these later in life. However, in our work on variability in the new-dialect formation process, we are most interested in British Isles features not typically associated with New Zealand English, and feel that most such features will have been retained by our speakers from childhood. In this paper we concentrate on three different aspects of the second stage of the new-dialect formation process. We suggested above, hypothetically, that children born into dialect contact situations would be exposed to many more adult and peer linguistic models than would normally be the case, and that they would have much greater freedom in the selection of which linguistic models to follow than would normally be the case. It is therefore likely that we will find children adopting, for whatever reasons, some features from one dialect and other features from another, and so on, thus arriving at new, original and perhaps individual combinations of features. It is also likely that, because of the large number of models present in the mixture, children will be rather more variable in their speech than is usually the case. And it is also likely that, because of this freedom of choice, different children will make different choices from the models with which they are surrounded, giving rise to much greater variability between speakers in a single geographical location than is normally the case. We now examine these three possibilities, concentrating on phonology, the most obvious respect in which New Zealand English is distinguished from other varieties of English around the world.

The chaos before the order

2.

201

Original combinations

Earlier hypothetical work (Trudgill 1986) suggested that children in the second stage of new-dialect formation would be free to combine features from different dialects present in the contact situation into new and hitherto nonexistent combinations. This is, of course, the reason why new dialects consist in part of such new combinations - though at this second stage, these new combinations are likely to be many and individual rather than societal. On our recordings, this does indeed turn out to be the case. We have a large number of instances of such individual combinations, but by no means all of them have had any permanent effect on the shape of modern New Zealand English. A good example is Mr. Malcolm Ritchie, who was born in 1866 in Cromwell of parents who came from Perthshire, Scotland. His phonology sounds very bizarre to anyone familiar with any British Isles variety of English and combines features of Irish and/or Scottish origin with features that are obviously of English English origin. For example, /Θ/ and /δ/ are often Realised as dental stops [[t] and [[d], as in Irish English, and /t/ is often dental [[t h ] before Irl, e.g. in tree, water. Syllable-final IV may also be clear, as in Irish English. On the other hand, he also demonstrates considerable amounts of /h/- dropping, something which never occurs in Irish English. Even more unusual, his /h/-dropping is combined with the presence of the distinction /hw/-/w/, as in which, witch. This is totally unknown in the British Isles, where only those accents, such as Scots and Northumbrian, which have retained /h/ also retain [M], but where the reverse in not necessarily the case, e.g. East Anglia has /h/ but not [M]. Historically speaking, it is clear that the loss of [M] preceded the loss of /h/ in English, so that in most areas of the anglophone world we find implicational scaling such that loss of /h/ before vowels implies loss before /w/, but where the reverse is not the case. That Mr. Ritchie does not fit into this implicational scale is a sure sign that we are dealing with a genuinely mixed dialect. He also pronounces wasn't as wadn, something which in Britain is associated only with the south-west of England. Similarly, Mrs. H. Ritchie, born in 1863 in Arrowtown, combines Scottish features with some very non-Scottish features. Her accent, for example, is rhotic, and Irl is realised as [r]: she pronounces here as [hi'r], square as [skwe'r]. She has /hw/ in which etc., pronounces with with /Θ/, and does not distinguish the vowels of good and food. On the other hand, she has very diphthong-shifted and glide-weakened (see Wells 1982) realisations of /au/ as [ae*3] and /ai/ as [α,Γ], which are typical of Southern Hemisphere English

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generally and strike the British Isles listener as highly anomalous in conjunction with the Scottish features: the contrast between Cockney-style /au/ = [ae3] and the expected Scottish [9-0] as in out is extremely apparent. It is an indication of the possibilities open to children in dialect mixture situations such as that which obtained in Arrowtown (see below) in the 1860s that it is perhaps not too fanciful to suppose that Mrs. Ritchie may be the only English speaker ever in the history of the language to have said things like out here [ae,3t hi-f]!

3.

Individual variability

Given that our recordings give empirical confirmation of the hypothesis concerning original combinations of features, it is not too surprising to discover confirmation also for the hypothesis concerning intra-individual variability. Care does have to be taken at this point, it is true, since some such variability may be the result of accommodation to the speech of younger New Zealanders during our informants' long lifetimes. Nevertheless, the amount of variability in the speech of many of our individual speakers is very striking indeed and strongly suggestive that idiolects formed in dialect mixture situations may be much more variable than idiolects formed in stable speech communities (see also Trudgill 1986: 108). For example, Mr. Riddle, who was born in Palmerston in 1860, shows an astonishing degree of variability. There are clearly a number of phonological features in his accent which are Scottish in origin, but none of these is consistent: 1. 2.

his accent is rhotic, but only variably so he demonstrates some very un-Scottish /h/-dropping, but this is highly inconsistent.

Neither of these two facts are perhaps particularly surprising - most British Isles /h/-droppers are variably so, and there are many parts of the world, notably southern England, where rhotic-accented speakers have only variable rhoticity. The remaining features, however, are most unusual: 3. 4.

/ae/ as in TRAP can be either - and this is particularly astonishing - [ε] or [a] (but not [ae]!) /i:/ as in FLEECE varies between the short monophthong [i] typical of Scots and a long diphthong [ri] typical of southern England - and individual lexical items can occur with both pronunciations

The chaos before the order 5.

6.

203

/ei/ and /ou/ as in FACE and GOAT alternate between very Scottish monophthongal pronunciations with [e] and [o] and very un-Scottish pronunciations with the wide diphthongs [ει] and [DU] similarly, /ai/ as in PRICE alternates between a typical Scottish diphthong [ει] and an open central monophthong [A:], half-way between cardinal 4 and 5 in quality, whose provenance is not entirely clear.

The most likely explanation would appear to be that Mr. Riddle grew up in a community providing both English English and Scottish English models, and that for some phonological features he acquired both variants. Mr. Riddle is by no means the only speaker to display this kind of behaviour.

4.

Inter-individual variability

We have so far hypothesised, and seen our hypotheses confirmed, that during the second stage of new-dialect formation, individual speakers are free to select variants present in the mixture more or less at will - though there is no suggestion that this is a conscious process - and thus develop original combinations of these features. In addition, they are also likely to be much more variable in their speech than individuals who have grown up in more stable, homogeneous speech communities. The extent to which individual choices can be made in the period prior to focusing is also demonstrated by the extent to which people who have grown up in the same place at the same time may differ rather markedly from one another. A very dramatic illustration of this is provided by our recordings from the gold-mining town of Arrowtown (current population c. 1100). From our recordings we can note the following. Mrs. H. Ritchie and Mr. R. Ritchie, for example, were both born in Arrowtown in 1863, went to school together and became brother- and sister-in-law. They have lived close to each other, and have remained in close contact, all their lives. Nevertheless, they differ from one another in their phonologies in a way which one would not expect in a more stable situation, and in a way which cannot be explained in terms of social-class dialect. Mr. Ritchie, for example, distinguishes between [e*] reflexes of ME ä as in gate and [ει] reflexes of ME ai as in chain. This distinction can still be found in the traditional dialects of East Anglia in England and was probably rather widespread in 19th-century British regional accents. Mrs. Ritchie, on the other hand, does not have this feature at all. Instead, she has consistently close realisations of /ae/ as [ε] as in TRAP,

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and /ε/ as [e] as in DRESS - which is, of course, typical of modern New Zealand English and also, as we have argued elsewhere (Trudgill et al. 1998) of 19th-century southern England, while Mr. Ritchie typically has more open realisations. Both speakers are rhotic, but Mrs. Ritchie most often has /r/ as [r], whereas Mr. Ritchie favours a more English English-type [J. The full extent of the variability present in this community can perhaps be revealed more dramatically by an examination of a number of key variables. Recordings of nine speakers, including Mrs. Ritchie and Mr. Ritchie, all born in Arrowtown in the 23-year period between 1863 and 1886, show astonishing variability for certain consonants, particularly bearing in mind that all the speakers knew each other well, and in many cases were related and/or had grown up and gone to school together. Some speakers, for instance, have IhJdropping; others do not. Some speakers are rhotic, others are not, and four quite distinct realisations of Irl occur: [f], [J], [ J , and [r]. Some speakers distinguish between which and witch, while others fail to make the distinction. Some speakers have clear IV in all positions; others have both clear Ν and dark f\J distributed allophonically. Some speakers voice and flap intervocalic IM, but others do not. There is also relatively little implicational predictability. The possibility of each speaker developing individual combinations means that, for example, amongst our nine speakers we have some who combine the THOUGHTvowel in off with voiceless th in with; some who combine the THOUGHTvowel in off with voiced th in with; and some who combine the LOT-vowel with voiced th. The most striking amount of variability, though, occurs with the vowels. We can detect vowel qualities associated with Irish English, Scottish English and American English, as well as more typical southern-hemisphere features, occurring seemingly at random, with some individual speakers using more than one variant. Using the key-words introduced by Wells (1982), we can note the phonetically quite distinct variants shown in Table 1. Even in highly stratified and complex urban societies, we would be very surprised indeed to find this degree of variability between nine speakers all from the same area. It is all the more remarkable, then, that we find this degree of variation in a single small town amongst people all of approximately the same age and social standing.

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Table 1. Phonetically distinct variants

ΚΓΓ: DRESS: TRAP: STRUT: LOT: FLEECE: FACE: PRICE: GOOSE: GOAT: MOUTH: NEAR: SQUARE: NURSE: BATH:

5.

Μ [ε]

[*] [9] [D] Μ [e·] [ai] [u:] [o] [3*]

[I]

[e] [ε]

[«]

[e-r]

[a] [9i] [e·1] [ai] [3]

[3U]

[31]

[a:]

[a:]

[IT]

[i]

[?] [ei] [a·1]

[«] [ου] [ευ] [ij9]

[«]

Μ [aeim saem J)etta bref sia aeöa heyra Q. G. ok sina. Ver vilium at {>er vitir at ver hofum gefuet herra Jone Rauö halfs annars eyris bol j Dufla. aefwenlegha honum ok hans aerfwingium. Firirbiodom ver huerium manne fyrsagda eign hindra eda talma firir honum aeöa ]>au lunnaendi saem till haennar liggia. naema sa er £>at gerer vili sliku firir suara saem logh vatta. J>etta bref var gort j Aslo kros messudagh vm haustit a niunda are rikis vars. herra Snare Aslaks son jnsiglade Ballte klaerkr ritade. [Häkon, by the grace of God King of Norway, son of King Magnus, sends to all who see or hear this charter God's greetings and His own. We wish to inform you that We have granted some property equivalent to one and a half ounces of silver in Doglo to Sir John Red for as long as he and his heirs shall live. We forbid any man from dispossessing him of or interfering with the aforesaid property or those rights belonging to it. Anybody who does so will answer as the law specifies. This charter was made in Oslo at Cross Mass in the autumn of the ninth year of Our reign. Sir Snorre Aslaksson sealed it. Balte the Clerk wrote it.]

(2)

D N vol. 1 no. 204: Ollum monnum J>aeim saem ^ettae bref sise eöaer hoeyra. saenda Jon af Lybyke. Jon skceringaer ok Alfuaer Jwars son Q. G. ok sina. Ver gaerom yöaer kunnight. at a midwikudaghen neestae firir Bartholomei messo aa ellifta arae rikis vars vyröylaeghs herra Magnusar meö guds miskun Noreghs. Swya. ok Gota konongs. varom ver hia j konongs garde j Biorgwin ok hoeyrdum aa. er Oghmundaer langaer selldi herra Erlingi Vidkunnar syni. drozsaeta vars herra konongsaens fyrnasfndz. tiu manaörmata bol j joröaeni Hoeynynium. aer liggaer

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Endre M0rck a Systrond j Soghne. firir feorethighi marka forngilldra. meö ollum J)aeim lunnyndom sasm J)ar eighu till at liggia fra forno ok nyu. vttan garösz ok jnnan. till aewaelaeghrar eighnar. ok frials forraeöaes. Ok till sanz vitnisburöar J>essa kaups. ok vaarar hiawero. setti firirnaemfdr Oghmundr langaer. sit jnsighli meö varom jinsighlum firir £>etta bref er gort var j fyrnaemfndum staö. deghi ok arse. [To all who see or hear this charter John from Lübeck, John Sk0ring and Alf Ivarsson send God's greetings and their own. We hereby inform you that on the last Wednesday before the Mass of St. Bartholomew in the eleventh year of the reign of our honourable Lord Magnus, by the grace of God King of Norway, of the Swedes and of the Gotlanders, we were present in the king's court in Bergen and listened when Ogmund the Tall sold to Sir Erling Vidkunsson, steward of our aforesaid Lord and King, some property equivalent to one man's ten-month food supply in Henjum at Systrond in Sogn for forty marks of old currency, along with all those rights which accompany the property from times past and present in the outlying and home fields, to own and freely manage forever. And as true witness to this purchase and our presence, the aforesaid Ogmund the Tall placed his seal beside ours on this charter, which was made in the aforesaid place, day and year.]

In the Old Norwegian period until the mid-14th century these charters comprise only a minor part of the plentiful literature written in Old Norse (Indreb0 1951: 100-103; Seip 1955: 84-97). However, the charters of the Middle Norwegian period, beginning in the mid-14th century, are virtually the only remnants of the language (Indreb0 1951: 154—157; Seip 1954a: 14—15). The language of the charters is rather stereotyped since they consist largely of fixed formulae (Agerholt 1929, 1932; Hamre 1972). For this reason, the charters are sometimes dismissed as inferior sources, at least for certain types of linguistic studies (Indreb0 1951: 257). This may be true in many respects, but there is nonetheless a fair deal of variation within the limits set by the genre (Knudsen 1928 [1967]). If we disregard the stereotyped form of the charters, they have another property which makes them important for studies of Old and Middle Norwegian, whether they occupy a peripheral or central place in the literature of the period. This particular property is the fact that the charters normally contain information about their provenance: when and where they were written, and the names of the signatory or signatories. At the end of (1) the time and place of the charter's compilation is explicitly stated in a formula which is repeated in (3a). At the end of (2), on the other hand, this information is only inferred by a reference - rendered in (3b) - to the time and place of the event as stated earlier in the charter, repeated in (3c).

Sociolinguistic

(3)

studies ort the basis of medieval Norwegian charters

a. Petta bref var gort j Aslo kros messudagh this charter was made in Oslo Cross Mass a niunda are rikis vars. at ninth year reign's Our.

265

vm haustit in autumn-the

'This charter was made in Oslo at Cross Mass in the autumn of the ninth year of Our reign.' b. ... Petta bref er gort var j jyrncemfndum ... this charter that made was in aforesaid stad. deghi ok arce. place, day and year. ' . . . this charter, which was made in the aforesaid place, day and year.' c. ...a midwikudaghen neestce firir Bartholomei messo . . . on Wednesday-the last before St. Bartholomew's Mass aa ellifta arce rikis vars vyrdylceghs herra Magnusar in eleventh year reign's our honourable Lord Magnus's ... varom ver hia j konongs garde j Biorgwin ... . . . were we present in king's court in Bergen . . . .. on the last Wednesday before the Mass of St. Bartholomew in the eleventh year of the reign of our honourable Lord Magnus . . . we were present in the king's court in Bergen . . . ' The names of the signatory in (1) (Hakon ... Noregs konongr . . . - 'Hakon . . . King of Norway . . . ' ) and the signatories in (2) (Jon af Lybyke. Jon skceringcer ok Alfucer Jwars son - 'John from Lübeck, John Sk0ring and Alf Ivarsson') are given in the introduction in both cases, either before or after the addressee. For the purpose of illustration, examples (1) and (2) have been chosen with care. It must be pointed out that in other charters, information about the provenance of the text may sometimes be incomplete or altogether lacking. Nevertheless, the usual situation is that the charters contain such information, and this makes them very valuable sources, since they may be used not only as the basis for diachronic and dialectal studies, but also - as I shall argue here - as the basis for sociolinguistic studies of Old and Middle Norwegian. The provenance of medieval texts can often be detected, with greater or lesser certainty, on the basis of linguistic features (see, for instance, HolmOlsen 1952: 20-21, 24-38 and Rindal 1987: 138-143). However, in order

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to avoid a circular argument, texts whose provenance can only be detected in this way must be overlooked as sources for diachronic, dialectal and sociolinguistic studies. For these latter purposes we must focus on texts that can be ascribed to a particular historical period, geographical area or social milieu on extra-linguistic grounds. An association of this kind can sometimes be made - an obvious example is the land register of Archbishop Aslak Bolt (Munch 1852) - but this is unusual for texts other than the charters (Holm-Olsen 1990: 91). Therefore we are usually much better off with the type of charter where information about the charter's provenance is normally stated in the text itself. Such information is the very reason why these texts play an essential role in the study of linguistic variation in Old and Middle Norwegian. The importance of the charters for the study of diachronic development during the Old and Middle Norwegian periods is evident both from the general accounts of the history of the language by Indreb0 (1951) and Seip (1955), and from a number of M.A. theses (e.g., Vasstveit 1968; Rosenvold 1972; St0rkersen 1973; Svevad 1974; Reisegg 1977; Gr0nvik 1978; Kievmark 1983; Schimmelpfennig 1985; Farstad 1991), as well as from studies with a more limited scope (e.g., Larsen 1897 [1993]; Indreb0 1924 [1993]; Gj0stein 1934; Seip 1934; Tyiden 1956; Simensen 1989; M0rck 1993a). However, it is quite rare to find linguistic phenomena portrayed from an almost purely diachronic point of view, since diachronic findings are often spin-offs from a primary interest in dialectal or sociolinguistic variation. There has been a lot of investigation into Old and Middle Norwegian dialects using the medieval charters as a linguistic basis. The survey of Old Norwegian dialects has recently been completed in an article on the charters from North Norway by Rindal (1989), who sums up the earlier literature on the dialects of that period as follows (with slight adjustment of the references to fit the context): Norsk skriftspräk i den gammalnorske perioden, opp til 1350/1370, er etter mäten godt kartlagt. Vestlandske tekstar er granska saerleg av Marius Haegstad (1906, 1907, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1935, 1942), Joronn Housken (1954) og Mikjel S0rlie (1969). Austlandske tekstar er behandla saerleg av Per Nyquist Gr0tvedt (1938, 1939, 1949, 1954, 1969, 1970, 1974), og av Einar Lundeby (1947), Trygve Knudsen (1967) og Magnus Rindal (1981, 1982, 1987). Tr0ndske tekstar er studerte av Marius Haegstad (1899, 1922) og Jan Ragnar Hagland (1978). (Rindal 1989: 129) [The written language in the Old Norwegian period up to about 1350-70 is rather well explored. West Norwegian texts have in particular been exam-

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267

ined by. Marius Haegstad (1906,1907,1915,1916,1917,1935,1942),Joronn Housken (1954) and Mikjel S0rlie (1969). East Norwegian texts have mainly been dealt with by Per Nyquist Gr0tvedt (1938, 1939, 1949, 1954, 1969, 1970,1974), and by Einar Lundeby (1947), Trygve Knudsen (1967) and Magnus Rindal (1981, 1982, 1987). Texts from Tr0ndelag have been studied by Marius Haegstad (1899,1922) and Jan Ragnar Hagland (1978). (Rindal 1989: 129)]

However, although this quotation gives a good impression of the achievements in the field, further contributions may be mentioned (e.g., Svevad 1974; Stauri 1978; Klevmark 1983; Schimmelpfennig 1985). Some of these studies of Old Norwegian dialects also address Middle Norwegian dialects, but for this period we can supplement the list with references to Tilden (1944); Rosenvold (1972); St0rkersen (1973); Pettersen (1975, 1991); Berg (1989); Farstad (1991) and Egdalen (1994), to mention but a few of the works among the relevant bibliography. In linguistic descriptions of Old and Middle Norwegian there is also quite an established convention of sorting the charters according to the social status of the signatory or signatories. It must be pointed out that the literature on the categories of texts which result from this sorting procedure is somewhat less voluminous than the literature on the various dialects, at least if we look at the charters from the social point of view. Nevertheless, there are extensive monographs on charters issued by the royalty (Haegstad 1902; Agerholt 1929; Vägslid 1938; Hagland 1986), by bishops (Berulfsen 1933; Vägslid 1969; Fl0tra 1975) and by judges (Vägslid 1930; Gr0tvedt 1949). It should also be borne in mind that many of the studies characterized above as descriptions of chronological development or dialectal variation also take the social milieu of the charters into consideration (e.g., Tylden 1944; Knudsen 1967; St0rkersen 1973; Reisegg 1977; Stauri 1978; Farstad 1991). In some of these studies we find special sections on the language of charters that were issued by members of the nobility, the clergy, administrative and legal officials, and the peasantry (Gr0tvedt 1954, 1969, 1970; Rindal 1981). This sorting of the charters according to social background has on occasion been questioned - see Indreb0 (1951: 290) and especially Pettersen (1975), who claims that sorting is futile because the charters are not usually written by the signatory or signatories themselves: När det altsä kan pävises at utsteder av alle kategorier kan overlate til andre ä s0rge for utferding og skriving av brevene, og at den enkelte skriver nyttet

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sin egen sprakform uansett utsteder, er det klart at det har liten hensikt ä klassifisere brevene i grupper etter utstedernes yrke og stilling, sä lenge det er spraklige problem det er tale om. "Lagmannsbrev" kan vaere skrevet av lagmannen selv, eller av en skriver ved hans kontor, og da kan vi med full rett nytte den termen. Men vi har sett flere d0me pä at ogsa lagmannen kan overlate til andre, f eks saks0kerne ä utferdige domsbrev i sitt navn. Brev fra biskopene er ikke sjelden egenhendige, men like ofte er de skrevet av klerker ved kapitlet, eller av andre geistlige. Brev fra enkelte prester er vel i de fleste fall skrevet med egen hand. Det er bare det at slike brevgrupper ikke kan settes i motsetning til brev fra lekfolk - b0nder og almue, spräklig sett, fordi ogsä de er f0rt i pennen av prester. (Pettersen 1975: 66) [Consequently, since it can be shown that a signatory of any category sometimes delegated the issuing and writing of charters, and that the individual scribe used his own form of language irrespective of the signatory, the futility of classifying the charters according to the occupation and position of the signatories becomes obvious, at least where linguistic problems are involved. "Charters from a lawman" may be written by the lawman himself or by a scribe in his office, and so we may correctly use that term. We have seen in several cases, however, that even the lawman can leave it to others, for example the plaintiffs, to issue charters with a sentence in the lawman's name. Charters from the bishops are often written in their own hand, but charters are just as frequently written by clerks at the chapter or by other clergymen. It is likely that charters from some priests are most often written in their own hand. The problem is that such categories of charters show no linguistic contrast to charters from the laity - peasants and common people - because they too are written by priests. (Pettersen 1975: 66)] I have no reason to doubt that this portrayal of the situation concerning the authors of the charters is correct, yet I maintain that in many cases it is worthwhile to examine whether there is a correlation between linguistic phenomena and the social status of the charter's signatory or signatories. Below I shall try to substantiate this claim by presenting some findings of such studies. I do however admit that it is unfortunate that we have no direct access to the language of the different social groups we wish to explore, but only to texts which are in some way associated with these groups. Consequently I shall first try to clarify the grounds for making historical sociolinguistic studies on the basis of written material such as the charters. One vital question is whether the sorting of the charters according to the social status of the signatory or signatories can really give us an insight into sociolinguistic variation of the time, or whether it merely allows to study different literary genres. The relevance of this question lies in the fact that there

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269

are some types of charter which do not originate with similar frequency from all the social groups. An excellent example is a particular type of charter which gives pardon to criminals, and is issued only in the name of the king (cf. Taranger 1900: 9; Haegstad 1902: 44-47; Indreb0 1951: 190; Gr0tvedt 1954: 139). If a linguistic phenomenon is restricted to or is unusually frequent in charters with such an uneven distribution, then it is tempting to jump to the conclusion that this phenomenon is typical of the language of certain social groups, while it is actually a result of style. A simple but illustrative example is the eight complex verb phrases with two non-finite verbs in addition to the finite verb in a selection of charters I am currently studying. These verb phrases are over-represented in charters issued by kings, yet this sort of complex verb phrase cannot be considered typical of the language of the kings. The over-representation in the royal charters must rather be an effect of the style, since half of the verb phrases are found in the formula (4) in the charters mentioned. In this respect I believe that each individual phenomenon can and must be considered on its own merits in order to determine whether or not it is primarily a result of the social background or the type of text where it occurs. (4)

nema huer petta gerer vilihafwafirirgort but anybody this does will have forfeited fe ocfride property and peace ... 'But anybody who does this shall forfeit his property and peace (DN vol. I no. 474)

In order to understand what kind of connection there is between the charters and their social background, we shall also look at some other factors that may to a greater or lesser extent influence the language of a charter. To do so, we must put the matter of the signatory or signatories aside for a while and instead focus on the person who has actually written the text, and who is often not a signatory (Gr0tvedt 1949: 104; Pettersen 1975: 65-66; Rindal 1981: 12). The scribe's name is sometimes given in royal charters (Haegstad 1902: 2; Agerholt 1929: 498-504; Vägslid 1930: 21; Hamre 1972: 59) - for example at the very end of (1) (.Balte klcerkr ritade - 'Balte the Clerk wrote [it]') - but the name is normally missing or somewhat uncertain (see Vägslid 1989). Still, it should be borne in mind that the work of the scribe is of crucial importance.

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In short, the medieval scribe wrote as he had learnt to write, but often included elements from his own dialect or from a written or spoken source. Sometimes, another form of external influence would manifest itself in the scribe's written language. Every scribe must have learnt to write, and the place where a scribe learned his art is an important factor because different norms or literary traditions developed at the ecclesiastical centres, where the art of writing was conceived (Haegstad 1899: 13, 1902: 4-5, 1915: 6; Gr0tvedt 1949: 83; Indreb0 1951: 107-108; Seip 1954a: 7,1954c: 218,1955: 101-106; H0dneb0 1960: 16-17; Rindal 1981: 14, 17; Hagland 1986: 18). Since learning to write means first and foremost learning to form the letters of the alphabet and to establish a relationship between the letters and the sounds of the language, it is essential in paleographical, orthographical and phonological studies to take the influence of training into consideration. However, scribes must also have learnt how to draft standardized texts like the charters, and thus a predilection for certain syntactic constructions or lexical phrases could be the result of their training. Despite the scribe's efforts to follow a norm or tradition, forms do occur which could possibly be ascribed to his own dialect (Haegstad 1899: 25,1902: 4-5, 1907: 4, 43, 1915: 7; Indreb0 1951: 108; Seip 1954a: 7, 1954b: 216, 1954c: 218-219, 1955: 101-102; Gr0tvedt 1954: 199, 225; Housken 1954: 10). It is mainly for the sake of phonological and possibly morphological studies that such dialectal interference should be considered. Firstly, these parts of the language structure are those that are most strictly regulated in writing, and secondly here we find most dialectal variation in the spoken language (cf. Sand0y 1994: 201). Many of the extant medieval texts are transcripts, and to a great extent the language of such a text is obviously dependent on the original (Haegstad 1899: 13, 1902: 4; Kolsrud 1914: 15-16; Seip 1937 [1968], 1954b: 216, 1954c: 218-219, 1955: 102: 16; Indreb0 1951: 107- 108; Pettersen 1975: 33-34). Yet the scribes did not always painstakingly copy the original in every fine detail - in fact it seems they felt quite at liberty to deviate from it, most particularly in the orthography and phonology, but equally so in the morphology and the syntactic and lexical representation of the content (Hagland 1976; Pettersen 1975: 33-34). If we concentrate on originals, however, we can normally disregard the influence from written sources, though exception must be made for standardized charters whose original may have contained many formulae borrowed from other texts (Haegstad 1907: 4; Indreb0 1951: 190).

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A situation somewhat similar to the one just described exists when a scribe is writing from dictation. The only difference here is that the scribe's source is oral as opposed to written, and thus the scribe will be influenced by the person dictating the text (Haegstad 1902: 4; Br0ndum-Nielsen 1934; Seip 1954b: 216, 1954c: 219). Dictation may have some effect on the phonology and morphology of the text, but its greatest significance is for the choice of syntactic constructions and lexical phrases. If the dialect of the place of compilation differs from the norm or literary tradition which the scribe has learnt, and from his own dialect, and possibly from written or oral sources, then even this local dialect may leave its mark on the text (Haegstad 1899: 13, 1902: 4, 1907: 4, 1915: 7). Also noteworthy in this connection is the theory that in the Middle Ages a special reading style had already developed, and that this supradialectal variant could influence the written language (Seip 1954b: 216). Whatever the case may be, I must once again stress the importance of contemplating any kind of dialectal interference in phonological and morphological studies. Finally in the matter of the charters, we must remember that the addressee has sometimes either composed the text himself (Housken 1954: 2; H0dneb0 1971: 148; Pettersen 1975: 65; Reisegg 1977: 10; M0rck 1980: 18; Rindal 1981: 15-16; Hagland 1986: 32, 43, 188) or has been taken into account when the text was composed by someone else (Indreb0 1951: 178, 200, 202; H0dneb0 1971: 149). In the former case the language of the charter is of course totally dependent on the addressee. In the latter case it is difficult to say how the language may be affected. In the phonology, morphology, syntax and vocabulary there may be features that, for some reason or other, are preferable for a particular addressee. It is quite understandable if this review of the factors that may influence the language of the charters fails to convince those who are sceptical of the possibility of making sociolinguistic studies on the basis of the charters. There is only one factor which favours such studies, namely the influence of dictation, provided that the person dictating is the only signatory or an influential member of a group of signatories. The other factors are unfavourable, though it should be borne in mind that the effect of these factors probably depends on the topic under investigation. To me it seems that as we move from paleography and orthography, through phonology, morphology and syntax, and on to vocabulary and phraseology, we also pass from the aspects of the text that are least influenced by the signatory or signatories to the aspects that are most influenced by them.

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In order to get the best possible impression of the language of the various social groups, in spite of the problems caused by the interfering factors discussed above, I shall suggest two possible procedures. The easiest way to treat the interfering factors is simply to give them a wide berth, and in my opinion this is warranted if we have a sufficient amount of material. The considerations underlying this assertion are, firstly, that the peculiarities of individual charters play a minor role in an extensive material, and, secondly, that influence from sources other than the signatory or signatories will be fairly even among the categories into which the charters can be placed on the basis of their social background. Therefore we can assume that linguistic characteristics of the social groups may still show up. In that case the sources can be selected quite systematically. I have used a slightly modified version of this procedure in two studies on the syntax and morphology of passive clauses and on the passive and nonpassive functions of the originally reflexive verbal i-suffix in Middle Norwegian (M0rck 1980, 1993b). Here I have used all the charters, over 5500 in number, from the period 1350-1524 in Diplomatarium Norvegicum that are written in Norway in a Scandinavian language. However, it is necessary for these surveys that the charters exist in the original and not as transcripts. Another way of treating the factors that may overshadow the influence of the signatory or signatories is to make every effort to eliminate them. By closely scrutinizing every single charter (cf. H0dneb0 1971), we must on the one hand weed out charters where the effect of factors other than the signatory or signatories is most evident, and on the other hand find charters which can as far as possible be considered pure examples of the language of the various social groups. In this manner the process of selecting the sources becomes more cumbersome, but must simply be endured if we want to restrict our sources to a handful of charters. I have employed this method in a study now in progress on the word order of main clauses in Middle Norwegian. This study is based on 359 of the charters from the period 1375-1499 in Diplomatarium Norvegicum. Again I have required that the charters be written in Norway in a Scandinavian language, and that they should exist in the original and not as transcripts. I have, however, tried to exclude texts where Danish and Swedish elements predominate, and texts which consist largely of fixed formulae. In addition I have taken the content of the charters and their place of compilation into account. The main reason for this is to reduce the possibility of influence from groups with a higher position in the social hierarchy than the signatory or signatories. For

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example, one or more peasants may be the signatory or signatories of a charter, yet it has not been considered representative of the language of this social group in some cases: for example, if anybody who is not a peasant might take an interest in or benefit from the matter addressed in the text, or if the text has been written in a town, manor, rectory, church, or anywhere else the peasants could be assisted in compiling such a text (H0dneb0 1971: 148). There is also a difference between the two completed studies and the one in progress with regard to how I have dealt with charters of uncertain social background. What I have in mind is problematic cases of two kinds: firstly, when the social status of the signatory or signatories is not clear, and secondly, when there is more than one signatory and these signatories belong to different social groups. In the former studies I have to the best of my ability ascribed every signatory to a social group, and systematically sorted the charters according to the social status of the first signatory, who is usually the most high-ranking person (Gr0tvedt 1949: 9-10). For the latter study I have avoided charters whose signatory or signatories do not fit into what I consider the most natural social groups, and chosen charters with one single signatory. Whenever it has proven necessary to make exceptions from the last principle, I have disregarded charters where it is questionable whether the first signatory is the most proficient in writing. This I have done wherever the first of the signatories is a nobleman or a lawman and is accompanied by a clergyman. In both cases, however, I have found it natural to place the signatories into the following eight groups: -

-

Royals: kings, queens, and princes. Higher clerics: archbishops, bishops, abbots and abbesses. Lower clerics: all other clerics. Higher officials: regents, members of the Council of the Realm, royal treasurers, district governors, commanders of castles, chancellors, vicechancellors, and nobles without office. Lower officials: sheriffs, bailiffs, and assistant bailiffs. Lawmen. Citizens: mayors, magistrates, guild masters, and ordinary citizens. Peasants: those not belonging to any other group.

Admittedly, this division is not self-evident, and other methods are certainly conceivable (cf. Taranger 1900: 20; Haegstad 1902: 1; H0dneb0 1960: 14; St0rkersen 1973: 4; Svevad 1974: 9-10; Stauri 1978: 5-6; Schimmelpfennig 1985:19; Farstad 1991:9-10).

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Table 1. The material1 The passive/reflexive studies Charters Lines of text

The word order study Charters Main clauses

Royals Higher clerics Lower clerics Higher officials Lower officials Lawmen Citizens Peasants

122 292 970 314 109 345 99 3318

2923 6436 17739 7071 2339 6951 1886 56504

21 41 45 44 30 31 49 98

125 229 209 208 259 274 203 466

Total

5569

101849

359

1973

Among other things, it is debatable whether the lawmen should constitute a separate group. The reason is that the social status of the lawmen seems to have wavered somewhat. According to Gr0tvedt (1949: 9-10), they ranked after the nobility and before the citizenry, but sometimes the lawmen have titles of nobles or citizens (see, for example, Vagslid 1930: 13, 30), and all of them could possibly be ascribed to some other social group if we had sufficient information about their social backgrounds. I believe this should be borne in mind when we come to see that charters from the lawmen are the least stable part of the material, in some cases bearing most likeness to texts issued by the higher social classes and in other cases to texts issued by the lower classes. The division of the material which is included in my studies is shown in Table 1. Here, and in the other tables, the eight subgroups of the material resulting from social classification of the signatories are labelled by the respective social groups. The reason I maintain that it is possible to make historical sociolinguistic studies in the way outlined above is especially justified by some of the findings in my study of the passive in Middle Norwegian (M0rck 1980). Here I shall refer to three of these findings, which incidentally will illustrate sociolinguistic variation both in the syntax, morphology and vocabulary. In all, there are a little in excess of 4500 charters in my material which contain the passive verb phrase var gort 'was made' in connection with the

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customary dating at the end of the charters, as in (1) and (2) and repeated in (3a) and (3b). Beyond this formula there are almost 3500 passive verb phrases of various forms in various contexts, as in this tiny sample: (5)

a. kan pat soo at verda at pessor skuld verder peim can that so to become that this debt becomes them eighe lokit nu j haust paa skal ek ... not paid now in autumn then shall I 'If it so happens that this debt is not paid to them this very autumn, then I s h a l l . . . ' (DN vol. II no. 436) b. . . . herra Haluardz Jensson riddara seem var kallader ncepa. . . . lord Hallvard Jensson knight that was called turnip. ' . . . Lord Hallvard Jensson, who was called turnip.' (DN vol. IV no. 771)

In order to avoid any undesired consequences of the stereotypical nature of the charters, I have excluded verb phrases of the former type and included only the latter type of verb phrases in Table 2. The general conclusion that can be drawn from this table is that passive verb phrases are most frequent in texts issued by the higher classes. The fact that the frequency is highest in texts from the population group that was probably most familiar with the written language correlates nicely, I think, with the situation in Modern Norwegian. Here passive verb phrases are rather unusual in the spoken language (Hagness 1978: 176), but can be found quite often in writing (Opedal 1976: 108). (See M0rck 1980: 69-80 for further details about the frequency of the passive in Middle Norwegian.) Besides the periphrastic passive (with the auxiliaries verda 'become' or vera 'be') used in the examples above, we find the simple passive with the s-suffix: (6)

a. om saa kan skee ath if so can happen that laglighe ffinderwithne ... legal witness-to-the-find . . .

ther there tha then

ffinness ey breff eller is-found not charter or skal thet ... shall it

'If it so happens that there is no charter or legal witness to the find . . . , then it s h a l l . . . ' (DN vol. II no. 1042) b. . . . ein 0degarder som kallcess Arnerudh. . . . a desolate-farm that is-called Arnerud. ' . . . a desolate farm that is called Arnerud.' (DN vol. V no. 808)

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