Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-wpx84 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-21T03:40:39.053Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The relative clause marker in Scots English: Diffusion, complexity, and style as dimensions of syntactic change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Suzanne Romaine
Suzanne Romaine
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A historical study of variation in the relative clause marker in Scottish English indicates that sociolinguistic methodology has some important contributions to make to historical linguistics. The use of the frequency with which NPs in certain syntactic positions are relativized as a measure of syntactic complexity reveals that the WH relativization strategy appears to have entered the language in the most complex styles and least frequently relativized syntactic positions, until it eventually spread or diffused throughout the system. The addition of the WH relativization strategy seems to have resulted in a ‘squish’ of two strategies which are opposed in stylistic meaning rather than in actual qualitative change in the relative system. The process of diffusion can be seen as completed as far as the more formal styles of the modern written language are concerned, but it has not really affected the spoken language, where the native TH strategy prevails. (Sociolinguistic methodology, historical linguistics, language change, relativization, history of tle English language)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , August 1980 , pp. 221 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Allen, C. (1977). Topics in diachronic English syntax. Ph.D. dissertation. University of Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Bailey, C. J.Variation and linguistic theory. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Bartsch, R. (1973). “Gibt es einen sinnvollen Begriff von linguistischer Komplexität?” Zeitschrift für linguistische Germanistik I(1):6–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, B. (1973). Class, codes and control Vol. II. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Bever, T. & Langendoen, D. T. (1972). “The interaction of speech perception and grammatical structure in the evolution of language.” in Stockwell, R. P. & Macaulay, R. K. S. (eds.). Linguistic change and generative theory. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 32–95.Google Scholar
Bresnan, J. (1972). Theory of complementation in English syntax. Ph.D. dissertation. MIT.Google Scholar
Caldwell, S. (1974). The relative pronoun in Early Scots. Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki. Tome XLII. Helsinki.Google Scholar
Chiang, K. Y. (1977). “Restrictive relative clauses in Bahasa Malaysia.” Studies in Linguistic Sciences. Dept. of Linguistics. University of Illinois.Google Scholar
Cofer, T. (1972). Linguistic variability in a Philadelphia speech community. Ph.D. dissertation. University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Curme, G. (1912). “A history of the English relative constructions.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 11: 10–29; 80–204; 355–380.Google Scholar
Emonds, J. (1970). Root and structure-preserving transformations. Ph.D. Dissertation, M.I.T.Google Scholar
Girvan, R. (1939). Ratis Raving and other early Scots poems on morals. Edinburgh: Scottish Text Society. Vol. III.Google Scholar
Hackenberg, R. (1972). Appalachian English: A sociolinguistic study. Ph.D. dissertation. Georgetown University.Google Scholar
Hawkins, S. & Keenan, E. (1974). “The psychological validity of the accessibility hierarchy.” Paper read at the Linguistic Society of America Summer Meeting.Google Scholar
Hill, J. (1973). “Subordinate clause density and language function.” in Corum, C. et al. (eds.). You take the high node and I'll take the low node. Papers from the Comparative Syntax Festival. Chicago: Chicago Linguistics Circle. 33–52.Google Scholar
Hunt, K. W. (1970 a). “How little sentences grow into big ones.” in Lester, M. (ed.). Readings in applied transformational grammar. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 170–187.Google Scholar
Hunt, K. W., (1970b). “Recent measures in syntactic development.” In Lester, M.(ed.). 87–200.Google Scholar
Jespersen, O. (1894). Progress in language with special reference to English. London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co.Google Scholar
Keenan, E. “Variation in universal grammar.” in Fasold, R. & Shuy, R.. (eds.). Analyzing variation in language. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. 136–149.Google Scholar
Keenan, E. & Comrie, B. (1977). “Noun phrase accessibility and universal grammar.” Linguistic inquiry 8:63–99.Google Scholar
Keenan, E. & Comrie, B..(1979) “Data on the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy”. Language 55:333–352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, W. (1966). The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Labov, W.Yaeger, M. & Steiner, R. (1972). A quantitative study of sound change in progress. 2 vols. Philadelphia: U.S. Regional Survey.Google Scholar
Lavandera, B. (1978). “Where does the sociolinguistic variable stop?” Language in Society 7: 171–183.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Legum, S. (1975) “Strategies in the acquisition of relative clauses”. SWRL Educational Research and Development.Google Scholar
MacQueen, L. (1957). The last stages of the older literary language of Scotland. Ph.D. dissertation. University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Mcintosh, A. (1948). “The relative pronounse pe and pat in Early Middle English”. English and Germanic Studies 1:73–87.Google Scholar
Meier, H. (1967). “The lag of relative who in the nominative”. Neophilologus 51:277–286.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mustanoja, T. (1960). A Middle English syntax. Helsinki: Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique 23. Part I. Parts of Speech.Google Scholar
Napoli, D. J. (1977). “Variations on relative clauses in Italian”. in Fasold, R. & Shuy, R. (eds.). Studies in language variation. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. 37–51.Google Scholar
Naro, A. & Lemle, M. (1977). “Syntactic diffusion”. Ciencia e Cultura 29(3):259–268.Google Scholar
Noizet, O., Deyts, F., & Deyts, J- P.. (1972). “Producing complex sentences by applying relative transformations: a comparative study”. Linguistics 89:49–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Neill, W. (1976). “Clause adjunction in Old English”. General Linguistics 17:199–211.Google Scholar
Quirk, R. (1957). “Relative clauses in educated spoken English”. English Studies 38:97–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartvick, J. (1972). A grammar of contemporary English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Reuter, O. (1937). “Some notes on the origin of the relative construction the which”. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 38:146–88.Google Scholar
Reuter, O. (1939). “Instances of the which in the glossed prose Psalter and their relation to the French original”. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 40:75–82.Google Scholar
Romaine, S. (forthcoming a). “The English language in Scotland” in Bailey, R. W. & Görlach, M. (eds.). English as a world language I. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag.Google Scholar
Romaine, S. (1979). “The social reality of phonetic descriptions”. Northern Ireland Speech and Language Forum Journal 5.Google Scholar
Romaine, S. (forthcoming b). “Syntactic complexity, relativization and stylistic levels in Middle Scots”.Google Scholar
Sankoff, G. “Above and beyond phonology in variable rules”. In Bailey, C -J. and Shuy, R. (eds.). New ways of analyzing variation in English. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. 44–62.Google Scholar
Sankoff, G. & Brown, P. (1976). “The origins of syntax in discourse: A case study of Tok Pisin relatives”. Language 52:631–666.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steinki, J. (1932) Die Eniwicklung der englischen Relaiivpronomina in spätmittelenglischer und frühneuenglischer Zeit. Breslau.Google Scholar
Thompson, S. A. (1971). “The deep structure of relative clauses”, in Fillmore, C. J. & Langendoen, D. T. (eds.). Studies in linguistic semantics. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. 79–97.Google Scholar
Traugott, E. (1972). The history of English syntax. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.Google Scholar
Traugott, E. (1977). “From space to time to ‘logical connective’: A study of lexico-grammatical change”. Revised version of a paper presented at the Third International Conference on Historical Linguistics.Hamburg1977Google Scholar
Van den Broeck, J. (1977). “Class differences in syntactic complexity in the Flemish town of Maaseik”. Language in Society 6:149–183.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weinreich, U., Labov, W. & Herzog, M. (1968). “Empirical foundations for a theory of language change”. In Lehmann, W. P. & Malkiel, Y. (eds.). Directions for historical linguistics. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar