Description and contextualization of the subject

The study of language contact is of crucial importance to our understanding of the evolutionary dynamics of language. A fundamental process and result of contact-induced language change is borrowing, which has rightly been considered one of the principal sources of language change, along with sound change and analogy. The Romance languages have the potential to contribute substantially to the study of language contact, thanks to a wide geospatial distribution, a long history of contact with several typologically as diverse languages as Nahuatl and Arabic, and abundant diachronic records. This course outlines contact-induced grammatical change and provides a critical assessment of the state-of-the-art in research on borrowing as a key mechanism of contact-induced language change and variation. The course’s empirical focus is on Romance and non-Romance languages spoken in the Romance linguistic landscape. Topics include innovative and conservative effects; processes of Romancization vs De-Romancization; matter borrowing vs pattern borrowing; case studies on phonological, prosodic, morphological and syntactic borrowing; and a critical evaluation of borrowability hierarchies.

Temary

Day 1

1.1 Language change through language contact

1.2 Effects of language contact

Day 2

2.1 Borrowing

2.2 Types: Matter borrowing and pattern borrowing

Day 3

3.1 Phonological borrowing

3.2 Prosodic borrowing

Day 4

4.1 Morphological borrowing

4.2 Syntactic borrowing

Day 5

5.1 The upper limits of borrowing

5.2 Verification of borrowability scales

Bibliography

Basic bibliography

Dahl, Ö., 2004, The growth and maintenance of linguistic complexity. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

In-depth bibliography

Baerman, M, Brown, D., G. G. Corbett (eds.), 2015, Understanding and Measuring Morphological Complexity. Oxford: OUP.



Carstairs-McCarthy, A., 1999, The Origins of Complex Language: An Inquiry into the Evolutionary Beginnings of Sentences, Syllables and Truth. Oxford: OUP.



Carstairs-McCarthy, A., 2010, The Evolution of Morphology. Oxford: OUP.



Carstairs-McCarthy, A., 2012, "The evolutionary relevance of more and less complex forms of language". In M. Tallerman & K. R. Gibson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Language Evolution. Oxford: OUP, 2012, 469¿78.



E. C. Traugott, G. Trousdale, Constructionalization and Constructional Change. Oxford: OUP.



Trudgill, P., 2011, Sociolinguistic Typology. The Social Determinants of Language Change. Oxford: OUP.



Stump, G., R. Finkel, 2013, Morphological Typology: From Word to Paradigm, Cambridge: CUP.

Journals

Diachronica



Language dynamics and change



Language



Linguistic Typology



Lingua