Linguistic system and sociolinguistic environment as competing factors in linguistic variation: A typological approach

Kaius Sinnemäki

doi:10.1515/jhsl-2019-1010

Abstract

AbstractThis paper brings together typological and sociolinguistic approaches to language variation. Its main aim is to evaluate the relative effect of language internal and external factors on the number of cases in the world’s languages. I model word order as a language internal predictor; it is well-known that, for instance, languages with verb-final word order (that is, languages in which both nominal arguments precede the main lexical verb) tend to develop complex case systems more often than languages with SVO word order do. I model population size and the proportion of second language speakers in the speech community as sociolinguistic predictors; these factors have been suggested recently to influence the distribution of the number of cases in the world’s languages. Modelling the data with generalized linear mixed effects modelling suggests an interaction between the number of cases, word order, and the proportion of second language speakers on the one hand, and between the number of cases, word order, and population size, on the other. This kind of complex interactions have not been previously reported in typological research wherefore they call for more complex explanations than previously suggested for cross-linguistic variation.

Highlights

Up until recently sociolinguistics and language typology have been largely separate sub-fields in linguistics with little cross-fertilization and only a few attempts at bridging the two fields
While language external factors have been important in typology, they have been mostly discussed in the context of sampling to control for the confounding effect of language contact
Danylenko (2018) has criticized these attempts for being overly mechanistic and for overlooking language-internal causes. This worry about overlooking language-internal causes is justified in that if we focus only on testing the possible effect of sociolinguistic factors on linguistic patterns, we are in danger of producing spurious results by not having accounted for how linguistic patterns may interact among themselves across languages

Summary

Introduction

Up until recently sociolinguistics and language typology have been largely separate sub-fields in linguistics with little cross-fertilization and only a few attempts at bridging the two fields Sociolinguistic research generally aims at understanding the societal factors that underpin linguistic variation, such as the speakers age, gender, or social class, or more macrolevel factors, such as language policies. Typological research generally aims at understanding the degree and limits of linguistic diversity on a global scale. It has focused on the internal systematicities in the languages of the world, being perhaps best known for statistical language universals, such as word order correlations (e.g. Dryer 1992). While language external factors have been important in typology, they have been mostly discussed in the context of sampling to control for the confounding effect of language contact

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Conclusion