Chapter 7: Caught in the web
How syntactic changes work through a language
Syntactic change typically creeps into a language via optional stylistic variants; particularly lexical
items. The change tends to become widely used via ambiguous structures. Or/some one of these
gets increasingly preferred, and after a while the dispreferred options fade away through disuse.
Mostly speakers are unaware that changes take place; they take place gradually and also spread
gradually. There is always fluctuation between the old and the new. And eventually the change
becomes the norm.
Because syntactic change’s wide variety of changes, people often think that changes creep in all at
once. Therefore it is often described as ‘an elusive process as compared to sound change’.
1. Word endings can be modified
2. The behaviour of verbs can alter
3. Negatives can change position
All syntactic change involves variation. As in the case of sound change, the old and the new co-exist.
1. Teenagers in Reading (I sees, we knows)
2. Indian English
Stylistic and social changes are typical of changes in progress. Fluctuation between the old and the
new is also a characteristic of changes in the past as well as the present.
All changes require variation, however variation can exist without change.
→ ex: ‘The octopus which/that caught’
Differences in preference is one of the mechanisms by which dialects drift further apart (see ex. on p.
103). Change occurs when the balance gets tipped towards one or the other of existing options. The
varying of options is therefore an important mechanism of syntactic change, as it is with sound
change.
New syntactic variants in a language creep in at a vulnerable point in the language, at a place where
it is possible to reinterpret the structure in a new way. (Portuguese: comem → come)
Ambiguous sentences laid the basis for the gradual development of an auxiliary verb meaning
(OE/Tok Pisin).
A syntactic change infiltrates itself at a ‘zero point in surface differentiation between the old and the
new systems and so spreads to other points along the path of least surface differentiation’
In other words: Syntactic change moves in as a variant in a single environment, it sneaks in at a
single point where there is a possibility of analysing the structure in more than one way
(ambiguously).
Changes in syntax clutch on to particular lexical items, even more noticeably than in sound change.
This is perhaps what enables them to get a strong grip on the language.
How syntactic changes work through a language
Syntactic change typically creeps into a language via optional stylistic variants; particularly lexical
items. The change tends to become widely used via ambiguous structures. Or/some one of these
gets increasingly preferred, and after a while the dispreferred options fade away through disuse.
Mostly speakers are unaware that changes take place; they take place gradually and also spread
gradually. There is always fluctuation between the old and the new. And eventually the change
becomes the norm.
Because syntactic change’s wide variety of changes, people often think that changes creep in all at
once. Therefore it is often described as ‘an elusive process as compared to sound change’.
1. Word endings can be modified
2. The behaviour of verbs can alter
3. Negatives can change position
All syntactic change involves variation. As in the case of sound change, the old and the new co-exist.
1. Teenagers in Reading (I sees, we knows)
2. Indian English
Stylistic and social changes are typical of changes in progress. Fluctuation between the old and the
new is also a characteristic of changes in the past as well as the present.
All changes require variation, however variation can exist without change.
→ ex: ‘The octopus which/that caught’
Differences in preference is one of the mechanisms by which dialects drift further apart (see ex. on p.
103). Change occurs when the balance gets tipped towards one or the other of existing options. The
varying of options is therefore an important mechanism of syntactic change, as it is with sound
change.
New syntactic variants in a language creep in at a vulnerable point in the language, at a place where
it is possible to reinterpret the structure in a new way. (Portuguese: comem → come)
Ambiguous sentences laid the basis for the gradual development of an auxiliary verb meaning
(OE/Tok Pisin).
A syntactic change infiltrates itself at a ‘zero point in surface differentiation between the old and the
new systems and so spreads to other points along the path of least surface differentiation’
In other words: Syntactic change moves in as a variant in a single environment, it sneaks in at a
single point where there is a possibility of analysing the structure in more than one way
(ambiguously).
Changes in syntax clutch on to particular lexical items, even more noticeably than in sound change.
This is perhaps what enables them to get a strong grip on the language.
