VARIATION AND CHANGE

1. Preliminaries Variation in language is similarly limited and some of it is similarly conditioned. An example of a limited range of variants across languages is vowels: language widely difffer in what vowels they have. But there is a limit to variability: no language is known that does not have an (a)-that is, a low central or back vowel. Another example of constraints on the distribution of the variants is how voiced and voiceless bilabial stops occur across languages. Neither is present in all languages; but all languages that have /p/ also have /b/. Change is a temporally directed variation, with the variants keyed to subsequent points along the time axis. Just as variation, change is ubiquitous both in nature and in culture. 2. Variation and Change: some possibilities The purpose of this section is to examine the metalanguage of variation and change-that is, the various types of statements that are instrumental in describing such phenomena in language in general and outside it. The most obvious domain of linguistic variation is within a single language. The first example comes from phonology. Consider the English words seal, slip, spell, string, and sprain. The following observation can be offered: a) In English, some words start with an /s/. This statement says that /s/ -initial words are possible in English but it does not say which words start with an /s/. b) In English, all words must start with an /s/. This statement has predictive power; however, it is clearly untrue; there are many English words-pain, aim, and so on-that do not start with /s/. c) In English, all words whose first three segments are consonants must start with an /s/. This statement is correct; there are words like string and spring but no words like ftring and fpring. This statement does not specify the entire distribution of word-initial /s/ in English but it predicts some of its occurences.

d) In English, in some sentences, the auxiliaryverb precedes the subject. This statement describes a possible order pattern of English. It is of permissive kind: it says that this order may occur in the language but it does not specify the condition under which it must occur. e) In English, in all sentences the auxiliary verb must precede the subject. This statement would be useful- but it is false. In other sentences, such as The clown has poked a hole in the balloon, the auxiliary verb follows the subject rather than preceding it. f) In English, in all sentences that are WH-questions where the WH-word is not the subject, the auxiliary verb must precede the subject. (d), just like, (a), is an existential statement (e), just like (b), is an unrestricted universal, (f), just like (c) is a restricted universal. These examples illustrate statements about variation within a language. But suppose we broaden the domain and wish to capture variation across language. The logical schemata of types about variation within and across languages. Are given: S/L stands for sentences of a languages; or languages, A and B are language properties. (a) EXISTENTIAL STATEMENTS: In some S/L, there is A. (b) UNIVERSAL STATEMENTS: (i) UNRESTRICTED UNIVERSALS: In all S/L, there is A. (ii) RESTRICTED UNIVERSALS: In all S/L, if there is B, there is also A.* Existential statements pertain to the first question raised about variation at the end of section 1: what variants occur?Universal statements adress the distribution of variants. The research area that aims at formulating existential and universal statements about cross linguistic variation is called language typology. There are two subtypes of universal statements, such as unrestricted and restricted universal. The latter are also called typological implications or

typological universal; of their two terms, B is dubbed the implicans (implier) and A is the implicatum (implied). Universal statement can differ from their modality. (a) If a language has prepositions and the demonstrative must follow the noun, so must the adjective (Hawkins 1983;71;emphasis added) (b) When the descriptive adjective must precede the noun, the demonstrative and the numeral, with overwhelming more than chance freuency, do likewise (Greenberg 1963;#18; emphasis added. (a) Predicts the occurence of something with certainty and it is absolute and (b) predicts something as probable but not certain and it is called probabilistic (also called statistical). Typological implication: (a) In all languages, if the inflected verb must precede the subject in yes-no questions, so must it in WH-question as well (Greenberg

1963;111;#11a) (b) In all languages, if the inflected verb must precede the subject, the WHwords is normally initial (Greenberg 1963;111;#11b) (c) In all languages, if yes-no question are differentiated from declaratives by an intonation pattern, the position of this pattern is reckoned from the end of the sentence rather than from beginning (Greenberg 1963;111,#11b) The three generalizations differ in how their implicans and implicatum relate to each other. The are three kinds of implicational universal like paradigmatic, syntagmatic and reflexive. The diagrams below show the three subtypes of

restricted universals for cross-linguistic variation. The retangles are constructions of a language; a and b are implicans and implicatum; dots stand for other properties of constructions; arrows indicate the direction of implication. (a) Reflexive implication: If a, the b (where a and b are features of the same constituent)

.......a...... b

(b) Syntagmatig implication: If a, then b (where a and b are features of differrent consttuents cooccuring in the same construction)

....a...b.....

(c) Pragmatic implication: If a, then b (where a and b are features of different constructions of same language)

..........a........

.........b........

A typological universal with a maximal implicatum is one where the implicatum includes all structural properties of a language except for the one serving as the implicans, as in the following highly hypothetical example: In all languages, If the direct object stands before the verb, Then the language has Demonstrative before the noun Agglutinating morphology Fricatives Vowel harmony At least six synonyms for ask And so on. Linguist have long been searching for the magic implicans that would allow for the predicttion of many, if not all, other structural characteristics; but such so-called holistic typologies, or even one that is near holistic are yet to be discovered (cf. Plank 1986).

Here is the summary of the variations statement types instrumental in describing cross-linguistic variation: (1) STATEMENTS ABOUT CROSS-LINGUISTIC VARIATION DIFFER by logical type: they can be Existential or universal (2) UNIVERSAL STATEMENTS DIFFER (a) By their degree of certainty: they can be Absolute or Probabilistic (b) By the universe they pertain to:they can be Unrestricted or Restricted (3) RESTRICTED UNIVERSAL STATEMENTS DIFFER (a) By the relationship between their terms: they can be Revlexive (implicans and implicatum are properties of a single constituent); or Syntagmatic (implicans and implicatum are properties of different constituent co-occurring in a constructions); or Paradigmatic (implicans and implicatum are properties of different constructions co-occurring in the same language); or (b) By the complexity of their terms:they may have Single implicantia and/or implicata; or Multiple implicatia and/or implicata. The basic typology of statements about change parallels those about variation as given in (*). (a) EXISTENTIAL STATEMENTS: In some languages, A changes to B In some languages, B has arisen from A.

(b) UNIVERSAL STATEMENTS: (i) UNRESTRICTED UNIVERSALS: In all languages, if A changes to anything, it must change to B. In all languages, if A has arisen from something, it must have arisen from B. (ii) RESTRICTED UNIVERSAL: In all language, if there is C, then, if A changes to anything, it must change to B. In all languages, if there is C, then, if A arisen from something, it must have arisen from B. 3. SYNTATIC VARIATION 3.1 Verb agreement In some languages, verb agree with some of their arguments. German ( has subject verb agreement in person) Du You Er He sand-est sent den junger zur the boy to Salma salma salma

sant e den junger zur sent the boy

to salma

Hungarian ( shows both subject verb agreement in person and with the direct object in definiteness) Te You Te a egy fui-t boy salmahoz kuldt el to: salma sent salmahoz kuldt ed. to: salma sent sbj. def obj. sbj. Indef obj.

(you sent a boy to salma) a fruit

You the boy

Lebanese Arabic ( has subject verb agreement in gender, and verb agtreement with direct object and inderect object). Verb agrees with subject Samiir baat-0 l walad Samir sent the boy l walad Salma baat it la Salma to salma la Samir

Salma

sent

the boy

to Samir

from the examples above show that verb agreement with the subject, with direct object and with indirect object are all possible patterents in a language. Verb agreement over the eight logical possibilities is shown in: Verb subject Type agreement verb- direct.obj agreement Verb indirect obj agreement language

Type I Type II Type III Type IV Type V Type VI Type VII Type VIII

+ + + + -

+ + + +

+ + + + _

Leb. Arabic Hungarian German, English Korean None None None None

3.2 CONSTITUENT ORDER The tree major sentence contituent (subject, direct object and verb ) have six logically possible orders : SVO SOV VSO VOS OVS OSV Language typological research of the past 40 years has found that the order of major sentence constituent in language is not independent of how other constituents are ordered. Dryer found the following statistical implications to hold (1992 : 86-6 ) Most language that have OV order have postposition.

 Most language that have postposition have OV order Most language that have VO order have postposition. Most language that have postposition have VO order. 1. Postposition in OV languages: a) Turkish OV : Barbarlar i Barbarians yendiler they : defeated

( they defeated the barbarians ) Nadp : vapur Boat ile with

(with boat ) 2. Postposition in VO languages: a. Tagalog VO : Dumadalao key Rosa si Visit Rosa Maria

Maria

( Maria is visiting Maria ) AdpN : para sa bin lana For the window (for the window ) 3. GenN and OV a. Turkish GenN : Mehmed in parast

Mehmed-GEN his: money ( Mehmeds Money ) 4. Ngen and VO a. Tagalog NGen : ang ama ni juan

CASE father of john ( Johns father ) The following simple, paradigmatic, probabilistic implications : a. Most languages that have OV order have GenN order

b. Most languages that have GenN order order have OV order c. Most languages that have VO order have NGen order d. Most languages that have NGen order order have VO order John Hawkins notised that the languages in his sample that were exception to the if OV then GenN pattern, such as Persia, had the adjective after the noun, whereas the languages that bore out the trend had pre- nominal adjectives. This observation points to the following generalization that held exceptionless for Hawkins sample. (a) All languages that have both OV and AdjN order have GenN order. 3.3 ACCUSATIVE AND ERGATIVE SYSTEM English provides multiple cues for differentiating subject and direct object. First, there is word order: the subject is pre-verbal and the direct object is postverbal. Second, there is verb agreement: if the two noun phrases differ in number, number marking on the verb picks out the agent. Third, there is case marking: if one or both of the two noun phrases is a pronoun, case from signals whether the pronoun is the agent or the patient. Since there is no other noun phrase competing for subjecthood, one would not expect any marking on the subject: it does not need to be differentiated from anything else. And, if the subject of an intransitive sentence is nonetheless marked in some way, all bets are off regarding the nature of the marking: it could be marked the same way as the subject of the transitive sentence, or as the direct object of the transitive sentences, or in some third way. A(gent ) stands for transitive subject (even though not all transitive subjects have the semantic participant role of agency), P(atient) stands for direct object (even though not all direct objects are semantic patients), and S(ubject) stands for intransitive subject. (3) (a) A P S S S P (b) A (c) A P

In English, only pattern (3a) is grammatical. The pattern in (3a) is called accusative pattern; (3b) is labeled ergative pattern. It is taken from the name of the case of the noun phrase. In an accusative case marking system, this special case is that of the P, called the accusative case; the shared case of A and S is called the nominative case. In an ergative pattern, the special case is that of the A: it is called the ergative case, and the shared case of P and S is called the absolutive case (or sometimes, confusingly, the nominative). In most languages that have case markers, the markers are used to differentiate S either from A or from P but not from both. Accusative and ergative pattern may hold for other structural properties, such as verb agreement or word order. If in a language, the verb agrees with both transitive and intransitive subjects, the pattern is accusative because it shows a likeness between transitive and intransitive subjects as opposed to objects. If, on the other hand, the verb agrees with intransitive subjects and objects, the pattern is ergative because the class of controllers includes intransitive subjects and objects but not transitive subjects. Similarly, AVP and SV order is accusative-style since pre-verbal position is shared by A and S; but PVA and SV is ergative since pre-verbal position is shared by P and S. English follows the accusative pattern not only in its pronominal case marking but also in terms of verb agreement and constituent order: the verb agrees with both intransitive and transitive subjects; and both kinds of subjects precede the verb. However, verb agreement with pronoun objects is ergative: the past participle of the perfective verb agrees in number and gender with intransitive subjects and with pronominal objects. If we compare intransitive sentences wit active transitive, we find that not only pronominal case marking but also verb agreement and constituent order conform to the accusative pattern. Common characteristic of intransitive subjects and direct objects: they both constitute alternative expressions for certain prepositional phrases.

English is an accusative language only as long as we compare intransitive sentences with active transitive ones. If in turn we compare intransitive sentences with passive ones, the patterning is ergative. 4. SYNTACTIC CHANGE Change in language is observable on two levels: in the language of a community as a whole extending over countries and millennia, and in the language of individuals over the span of a single human life. The former is called historical change: we will to the latter as individual change. Language arises, changes and dies on both levels. On the individual level, language changes throughout our lives but change is most apparent at its onset as we learn our first language or when we learn a second or third language and, at the other end, when we can lose a language by lack of use or by aging or by becoming aphasic because of brain injury or disease. The birth and the death of a language as we experience them in our lives have parallels in historical change, as new languages constantly evolve such as pidgins and creoles and languages die out in great numbers for reasons of diminishing speaker populations. 4.1 THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF DEFINITE ARTICLES Two facts jump out as we consider the histories of different languages. First, the various stages are not specific to one language: the same stages recur across languages. An earlier form of English may be the present-day form of another language or it may be one lurking in future of another language. Second, it is not only that the same stages crop up in different languages, but contiguous sets of them do, too. That is, there are certain pairs of adjacent stages that recur in the histories of different languages and they recur in the same order. Historical change is generally unidirectional. Definite and indefinite articles are very frequent words in English. These grammatical elements are not universal across languages. The less-than-universal distribution of articles across languages suggests that articles can arise and fade out in the course of linguistic history. The process of demonstrative evolving into definite articles by losing some of their form and some of their meaning is comparable to agreement

markers

developing

out

of

pronouns.

The

change

is

instance

of

grammaticalization. Definite articles may arise from other sources, such as numeral classifiers and verbs, and demonstratives can turn into other grammatical elements such as conjunctions and third person pronouns. But those instances where the definite article comes from a demonstrative share a characteristic: the source is always a distal demonstrative- that, rather than this.