Historical Dialectology

Regional and Social

Jacek Fisiak

• Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9783110115505
• eBook ISBN:
  9783110848137
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Historical & Comparative Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

In this volume of 29 papers, readers interested in language variation and historical linguistics will find interesting theoretical proposals as well as suggestions concerning ways of approaching previously unsolved empirical problems in the field. The papers deal with various aspects of historical regional dialectology, and some border on the issue of dialectology and linguistic change. Although many deal with English, a number discuss Romance languages in general as well as Norwegian, German, relic languages of the eastern Alpine region, Coptic, and Fox. Some are devoted to more general issues. The language specific contributions also often cover areas of a more general nature. The results indicate new vistas for further productive research in the area of historical dialectology.

Table of contents

• Preface
• List of conference participants
• The dangers of dialect parochialism: the Scottish vowel length rule
• Remarks on the question of dialects in Old Irish
• Center and periphery: adoption, diffusion, and spread
• Syntactic change in Finnish dialects
• What is in a name?
• Propositions for the study of Old French and its dialects
• Dialects wanting homes: a numerical approach to the early varieties of Coptic
• Stylistic dialects in Fox linguistic change
• The study of early Modern English variation – the Cinderella of English historical linguistics
• The unnaturalness of naturalness
• A lost Middle English dialect
• The phonological incorporation of Spanish into Mexicano (Nahuatl)
• Historical implications of a dialectological approach to convergence
• Social dialect influence in language change: the halting of a sound change in Oslo Norwegian
• The importance of dialectology for a new look at Romance linguistic history
• Bartoli’s second “norm”
• Ladin and other relic language forms in the eastern Alpine region
• The actuation problem for gender change in Wessex versus Newfoundland
• On the state and possible aims of Middle English word geography
• Dialectology in historical grammar
• The relative WHAT: two kinds of evidence
• Change in the perception of language varieties
• Formation and evolution of the feminine and masculine nominative singular nouns in Old French la maison(s) and li charbons
• On the role of dialect contact and interdialect in linguistic change
• The history of voicing of initial fricatives in Southern England: a case of conflict between regional and social dialect
• Old English glossaries and dialectology
• The phonology of South-Western English 1500–1700
• Die Vokalentwicklungen des Neiderländisch-Schlesischen in strukturgeographisch-strukturhistorischer Sicht
• Metaphors in dialectological diction. A critical note
• Index of Names