Linguistic Adaptation: the Trade-off between Case Marking and Fixed Word Orders in Germanic and Romance Languages
نویسندگان
چکیده
Understanding language evolution in terms of cultural transmission across generations of language users raises the possibility that some of the processes that have shaped language evolution can also be observed in historical language change. In this paper, we explore how constraints on production may affect the cultural evolution of language by analyzing the emergence of the Germanic and Romance languages from their proto-languages. Specifically, we focus on the change from flexible but OV (Object-Verb) dominant word orders with complex case marking to fixed SVO (Subject-Verb-Object) word order with little or no noun inflection in modern Romance and Germanic languages. We suggest that constraints on second language learners’ ability to produce sentences may help explain this trade-off between nominal case marking and fixed word orders. Furthermore we assume that this scenario might not only hold for the Germanic and Romance branches of the Indoeuropean languages but could perhaps be extended to a variety of language families and areas. We conclude that historical data on linguistic change can provide a useful source of information relevant to investigating the cognitive constraints that affect the cultural evolution of language.
منابع مشابه
Linguistic Adaptation at Work? the Change of Word Order and Case System from Latin to the Romance Languages
Understanding language evolution in terms of cultural transmission across generations of language users raises the possibility that some of the processes that have shaped language evolution can also be observed in historical language change. In this paper, we explore how constraints on production may affect the cultural evolution of language by analyzing the emergence of the Romance languages f...
متن کاملThe native language influence on perceptual Intrinsic pitch: Cross- linguistic data from German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish
It is generally acknowledged that Intrinsic Pitch differences are found for Germanic languages. In a previous study we could give evidence for a strong cross-linguistic difference when examining Intrinsic pitch for the Romance language Italian. To examine the possibility of a stable crosslinguistic difference, a perception experiment was designed to examine the existence of Intrinsic pitch in R...
متن کاملIs Intrinsic Pitch language-dependent? Evidences from a cross-linguistic vowel pitch experiment (with additional screening of the listeners dl for music and speech
Intrinsic Pitch differences (perceived pitch differences between high vs. low vowels) were found for Germanic languages. Our previous results gave evidence for a strong cross-linguistic difference when examining non-Germanic languages. We therefore designed a cross-linguistic vowel pitch discrimination experiment to examine the existence of intrinsic pitch in non-Germanic languages in compariso...
متن کاملPerceptual bias in speech error data collection: insights from Spanish speech errors.
This paper studies the reliability and validity of naturalistic speech errors as a tool for language production research. Possible biases when collecting naturalistic speech errors are identified and specific predictions derived. These patterns are then contrasted with published reports from Germanic languages (English, German and Dutch) and one Romance language (Spanish). Unlike findings in th...
متن کاملThe Annotation of Morphology, Syntax and Information Structure in a Multilayered Diachronic Corpus
The annotation of morphology, syntax and information structure in a multilayered diachronic corpus This paper describes the annotation scheme we use for old Germanic and Romance languages, with particular focus on syntax and information structure, and the issues of economy and disambiguation. We also discuss some of the annotation problems we have had to solve, in order to demonstrate the compl...
متن کامل