Economy as a Third Factor
in Language Change
Elly van Gelderen
Arizona State University
http://www.public.asu.edu/~gelderen/elly.htm
Goals - outline
• Language change as an area to see `third
factors’ at work.
• Two Economy Principles
• Linguistic Cycles
• Feature Economy
• Conclusions/speculations
Third factor (FLB), e.g. Chomsky
2007
(1) genetic endowment, which sets limits on the
attainable languages, thereby making language
acquisition possible;
(2) external data, converted to the experience that
selects one or another language within a narrow
range;
(3) principles not specific to [the Faculty of
Language]. Some of the third factor principles
have the flavor of the constraints that enter into
all facets of growth and evolution, [...] Among
these are principles of efficient computation"
If there are Principles, they should
be visible in Lg Change
Two main patterns (van Gelderen 2004 etc):
a)
b)
Phrase to Head
Up the tree: both phrases and heads
Principles: acquisition and derivation
(a) Spec > Head
Full pronoun to agreement
Demonstrative that to complementizer
Demonstrative pronoun to article
Negative adverb phrase to negation marker
Adverb phrase to aspect marker
Adverb phrase to complementizer
and (b) higher in the tree
On, from P to ASP
VP Adverbials > TP/CP Adverbials
Like, from P > C (like I said)
Negative objects to negative markers
Modals: v > ASP > T
Negative verbs to auxiliaries
To: P > ASP > M > C
PP > C (for something to happen)
Spec to Head and Merge over Move
HPP
XP
Spec
na wiht
Late Merge
X'
X
not > n’t
YP
…
Lexical > Functional/Late Merge
Third factor Economy accounts
Head Preference Principle (HPP):
Be a head, rather than a phrase, i.e.
`analyze something as small as possible'
Late Merge Principle (LMP):
Merge as late as possible
Two problems w/ HPP and LMP
Minor:
Move is `just’ internal merge
Major:
Language Change proceeds in a
cycle. HPP and LMP are 2 stages but 2
more:
(a) how is the head lost,
(b) how is the specifier replaced
Head > 0 is solvable: e.g. iconicity
Null hypothesis of language acquisition
A string is a word with lexical content.
Faarlund (2008) explains that "the child
misses some of the boundary cues, and
interprets the input string as having a
weaker boundary (fewer slashes, stronger
coherence) at a certain point"
My alternative: Feature Economy
Some Micro-Cycles
Negative (neg):
neg indefinite/adverb > neg particle > (neg particle)
Definiteness
demonstrative > article > class marker
Agreement
emphatic > pronoun > agreement
Auxiliary
V/A/P > M > T > C
Clausal
pronoun > complementizer
PP/Adv > Topic > C
Negative Cycle in Old English
450-1150 CE
a.
no/ne
early Old English
b.
ne
after 900, esp S
c.
(ne) not
d.
not >
(na wiht/not)
after 1350
-not/-n’t
after 1400
The Linguistic Cycle,
e.g. the Negative Cycle
HPP
NegP
Spec
na wiht
Late Merge
Neg'
Neg
not > n’t
YP
…
Negative Cycle
Arg/Adjunct
semantic >
Specifier
[iF]
>
Head
[uF]
affix
Once, there are only uF on e.g. ne, a new
element is needed. Hence, the cycle.
DP Cycle (old way)
a.
dem
DP
b.
D'
D

NP
DP
D'
D
art

c.

DP
D'
D
-n>0
renewal
through LMP
NP
N
(=HPP)
NP
N
or through Feature Economy:
a.
DP
>
that
D'
[i-ps] D
NP
[i-loc][u-#] N
[i-phi]
Hence
(1)
(2)
b.
DP
D'
…
D
the
[u-phi]
*I saw the
I saw that/those.
NP
N
[i-phi]
Demonstratives
(1)
demonstrative/adverb > definite article > Case/nongeneric > class marker > 0
Old Norse
(2)
ok hinn siðasta vetr er
hann var í Nóregi
and the last winter that he was in Norway
(Bjarni's Voyage 41.8)
(3)
konung-ar-nir
king-P-DEF
`the kings'.
(4)
ok
var
þann vetr ...
and was that winter
`and he was during that winter ....'
(Fóstbræðra Saga 78.11)
Doubles in Old Norse
(1)
(2)
(3)
þau in
storu skip
those the big ships
`Those big ships‘.
þitt hitt milda andlit
your the mild face
`your mild face'
fé
þat allt
money
that all
`all that money'
More change (Swedish etc)
(1)
(2)
(2)
(3)
bok-en book-the
han den gamle
vaktmästeren
he the old
janitor-DEF
den där bok-en
the here bok-DEF
`that book'.
denna
bok(en)
that book-DEF
Changes
DP
Poss
D'
NP D
Dem þau
`that’
nP
n’
n
in
`the'
DEM is spec or head
skip
[3NeuP]
in can move
The History of English
Interpretable features:
(1) se wæs Wine haten & se wæs in Gallia rice
gehalgod.
he was wine called and was in Gaul consecrated
(2) hu
ða
æþelingas ellen fremedon
how those-NOM.P nobles-NOM.P courage did
'how the nobles performed heroic acts' (Beowulf
3)
loss of iF
(1) gife to … þa munecas of þe mynstre
give to … the monks of the abbey
(Peterborough Chron 1150)
(2) *the (Wood 2003: 69)
(3) Morret's brother came out of Scoteland
for th'acceptacion of the peax
(The Diary of Edward VI, 1550s)
Renewal
(1) It was just I I was just looking at there
them down there (BNC FME 662).
(2) Oh they used to be ever so funny houses
you know and in them days … They used
to have big windows, but they used to a all
be them there little tiny ones like that.
(BNC - FYD 72)
Dutch-Afrikaans
(1)
(2)
die man daar
that man there
Daardie teenstrydighede was egter nie
those contradictions were however not
St'át'imcets: all stages
(1)
ca ti=sxwápməx-a
this ART-Shuswap-REF
`This Shushap' (van Eijk 1997: 169)
(2)
DP
ca
D'
D
ti
nP
n'
n
-a
(3) l-ča
visible, proximal `here'.
NP
sxwápməx
Feature Economy: select minimum
from the lexicon
Locative
semantic >
Specifier
[iF]
>
Head
[uF] >
Head
>
[iF] / [uF]
(higher) Head
[uF]
>
uF is a Probe
0
affix
--
Agreement and … cycles
emphatic > full pronoun > head pronoun >
agreement
semantic > [i-phi] > [u-1/2] [i-3] >[u-phi]
Head to head
V>AUX
go: motion > future
have: possession>perfect
P>AUX
to: direction>mood
on: location>aspect
P>C
for: location>time>cause
after: location>time
Cycles
Cyclical changes are due to Economy
– Negative, Demonstrative, Agreement, and
Perfective Cycles, Clause marking Reason:
– HPP and LMP, or
– Semantic features are reanalyzed as
grammatical (and interpretable as
uninterpretable)
After from P > C
(1)Fand þa ðær inn æþelinga gedriht swefan æfter
symble
found then there in; noble company sleeping
after feast (Beowulf 118-9)
(2)& þær wearþ Heahmund biscep ofslægen, &
fela godra monna; & [æfter þissum gefeohte]
cuom micel sumorlida.
`after this fight, there came a large summerforce'
(Chronicle A, anno 871)
(3) [Æfter þysan] com Thomas to Cantwarebyri
`After this, Thomas came to Canterbury'.
(Chronicle A, anno 1070)
Percentages of demonstrative
objects (Dem) with after and fronting
Dem
Fronting
Beowulf
Chronicle Chronicle A
<892
>892
2/65=3%
2/65=3%
2/26= 8% 17/22= 77%
7/26= 27% 12/22= 55%
(1)After that the king hadde brent the volum
(Wyclyf 1382, taken over in Coverdale 1535 and KJV
1611, from the OED).
(2) Aftir he hadde take þe hooli Goost (c1360 Wyclif De
Dot. Eccl. 22).
(3) After thei han slayn them (1366 Mandeville174).
Four stages:
PP
PP
PP (that)
P that
C
900 (Chronicle A) – present
950 (Lindisfarne) - 1600 (OED 1587)
1220 (Lambeth) - 1600 (OED 1611)
1360 (Wycliff) - present
From P > C
PP
CP
P
after
DP
[u-phi]
[3S]
[ACC]
[uACC]
>
C
after
(u-phi)
In English, no phi, but Germanic C-agreement.
TP
Back to the SMT
Language is a perfect solution to interface
conditions.
Are both interfaces equally important??
Chomsky favors SEM/C-I: “the conflict between
computational efficiency and ease of
communication” is resolved “to satisfy the CI
interface” (2006: 9).
I want to suggest:
The challenge: the dual nature of N and
V: need for +/- interpretable f
DP:
V:
Theta > discourse
(position > morphology)
Theta and TMA
Macro Cycle goes from (a) to (b) to (a) …
a) Movement links two positions and is thereby
economical (=synthetic) = uninterpretable/EPP
b) Avoid syncretism; Iconicity is economical
(=analytic) = semantic and interpretable features
Two `forces’
• Jespersen: "the correct inference can only
be that the tendency towards ease may be
at work in some cases, though not in all,
because there are other forces which may
at times neutralize it or prove stronger
than it".
• Von der Gabelentz (1891/1901: 251/256):
"Deutlichkeit" ('clarity') and
"Bequemlichkeit" ('comfort').
And uF is `normal’
Chomsky (2002: 113) sees the semantic
component as expressing thematic as well
as discourse information. If thematic
structure was already present in protolanguage (Bickerton 1990), the
evolutionary change of Merge made them
linguistic. What was added through
grammaticalization is the morphology, the
second layer of semantic information.