Language Change Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs 43 Editor Werner Winter Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York Language Change Contributions to the Study of Its Causes Edited by Leiv Egil Breivik and Ernst Häkon Jahr Μ out on de Gruyter Berlin · New York 1989 Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Language change : contributions to the study of its causes / edited by Leiv Egil Breivik, Ernst Häkon Jahr. p. cm. — (Trends in linguistics. Studies and mono- graphs : 43) Bibliography: p. Includes index ISBN 0-89925-564-7 (alk. paper) 1. Linguistic change. I. Breivik, Leiv Egil. II. Jahr, Ernst Häkon, 1948- . III. Series. P142.L26 1989 417'.7 —dc20 89-13147 CIP Deutsche Bibliothek Cataloging in Publication Data Language change: contributions to the study of its causes / ed. by Leiv Egil Breivik; Ernst Häkon Jahr. — Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 1989 (Trends in linguistics : Studies and monographs ; 43) ISBN 3-11-011995-1 NE: Breivik, Leiv Egil [Hrsg.]; Trends in linguistics / Studies and monographs © Printed on acid free paper © Copyright 1989 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin, Federal Republic of Germany. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form — by photoprint, microfilm, or any other means — or transmitted or translated into a machine language without written permission from Mouton de Gruyter, A Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin. Typesetting: Arthur Collignon GmbH, Berlin — Printing: Gerike GmbH, Berlin. — Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer, Berlin: — Printed in Germany. Preface Most of the papers in this volume were presented at the symposium "The causes of language change: Do we know them yet?" held at the School of Languages and Literature, University of Tromso, October 15 — 17, 1987. The symposium was made possible by generous financial support from the University of Tromso and the Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities. Tromso, December 1988 Leiv Egil Breivik Ernst Häkon Jahr Contents Preface V Introduction 1 Understanding linguistic innovations 5 Henning Andersen On the causes of syntactic change in English 29 Leiv Egil Breivik Pragmatics and syntactic change 71 Jan Terje Faarlund Language planning and language change 99 Ernst Häkon Jahr The origin and function of switch reference in Green Hmong . .. 115 Charles N. Li Invisible-hand processes and the universal laws of language change 131 Helmut Lüdtke On the causes of accelerated linguistic change in the Pacific area 137 Peter Mühlhäusler Sound change is drawn from a pool of synchronic variation . .. 173 John J. Ohala The role of children in linguistic change 199 Suzanne Romaine Contact and isolation in linguistic change 227 Peter Trudgill Some contact structures in Scandinavian, Dutch, and Raeto-Ro- mansh: inner-linguistic and/or contact causes of language change 239 P. Sture Ureland Index 277 Introduction The past two decades have witnessed an upsurge of interest in historical linguistics, with attention to all areas of language. There has been a flourishing of new journals and scholarly work — dissertations, mono- graphs, articles, and introductory texts. A great number of contributions have been prompted by the International Conferences on Historical Linguistics (ICHL), the first of which was held in Edinburgh in 1973 and the eighth and latest in Lille in 1987; by the international conferences on historical phonology (1976), historical morphology (1978), historical syn- tax (1981), historical semantics/word formation (1984), historical dialec- tology (1986), and historical linguistics and philology (1988), all of which were organized by the Institute of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznari; by special sessions of recurring meetings and congresses, e. g. those of the Chicago Linguistic Society in 1976 and the 14th International Congress of Linguists in 1987; and by special symposia, such as those held at Santa Barbara in 1974 and 1976. The present volume also reflects the current activity in the field. It is the outgrowth of a symposium, entitled "The causes of language change: Do we know them yet?", held at the University of Tromse, October 15 — 17, 1987. The title of the symposium was intended to provide an association to a much-cited statement by Leonard Bloomfield; in 1933, in his book Language (ch. 21.9), Bloomfield claimed that "the causes of sound change are unknown". Undoubtedly, there is still much that is unknown in diachronic linguistics, much that still has to be investigated. However, recent research has delved more deeply into the complex causes of not only phonological change but of language change in general; there now seems to exist a better understanding of the motivations for, and mechanisms of, language change through time. This improved under- standing has been made possible by the development and expansion of disciplines such as sociolinguistics, language contact research, commu- nication theory, child language and Creole studies — together with in- novations in the study of language-internal developments as well as in the study of language universals and linguistic typology. We feel it is safe to claim that historical linguistics has now left the stage where all the causes of language change are unknown. This volume contains eleven papers which were prepared for the Troms0 symposium (Breivik's paper was not presented, and Romaine