Robert D. King

Functional Load and Sound Change

The idea that functional load offers a tool of potentially great explanatory power in diachronic linguistics is shared by a number of contemporary linguists, particularly those influenced at first or second hand by Prague. It is the purpose of the present paper to investigate the hypothesis that functional load plays a significant role in sound change. I will attempt to demonstrate that functional load, if it is a factor in sound change at all, is one of the least important of those we know anything about, and that it is best disregarded in discussions centering on the cause and direction of phonological change.

TWO OF WEINREICH'S FOUR RIDDLES REVISITED

Publisher Summary The linguistic influence of Lithuanian on Yiddish, in every sphere of language, has always been insubstantial in comparison with the influence of Polish. While the cultural development of Poland during the 17th century was not very advanced, that of the Duchy of Lithuania was distinctly retrograde. The relations of Jews and Gentiles in Lithuania were not as close as those in Poland. One would not expect much bilingualism, and a priori one would not expect any significant impact of the Lithuanian language upon the Yiddish with which it shared territory. What has been said about Lithuanian goes for Latvian as well, the second language sharing North Eastern Yiddish (NEY) language territory. There is little known about the cultural situation of Jews in Belorussia and of Belorussian, the third language in NEY territory. The fact that one knows so little argues for a lack of influence from Belorussian on Yiddish at this time. Thus, whether Lithuanian or Latvian or Belorussian at the time had final devoicing or not would not have made much difference—the Yiddish of the area would not have been disposed to innovate it and had no reason to do so.

Root versus suffix accent in the Germanic present indicative

The present paper is initially concerned with a rather minor problem in comparative Germanic morphology: the shape of the consonant in certain present active indicative endings. There are discrepancies among the early attested dialects in this matter, and the traditional explanation has been that one group of Germanic dialects generalized present forms with Indo-European root accent, the other group forms with Indo-European suffix accent. I show that this solution, which is widely accepted, is deficient in several respects, and I demonstrate that the problem has a correct solution with interesting consequences for historical linguistics provided we concentrate on the rules and their order of application in the grammars of the different dialects, that is, provided we attack the problem from within the framework of generative phonology.