Contact-induced Change Research Articles

Breast Cancers That Disseminate to Bone Marrow Acquire Aggressive Phenotypes through CX43-related Tumor-Stroma Tunnels.

Estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer commonly disseminates to bone marrow, where interactions with mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) shape disease trajectory. We modeled these interactions with tumor-MSC co-cultures and used an integrated transcriptome-proteome-network-analyses workflow to identify a comprehensive catalog of contact-induced changes. Conditioned media from MSCs failed to recapitulate genes and proteins, some borrowed and others tumor-intrinsic, induced in cancer cells by direct contact. Protein-protein interaction networks revealed the rich connectome between 'borrowed' and 'intrinsic' components. Bioinformatics prioritized one of the 'borrowed' components, CCDC88A /GIV, a multi-modular metastasis-related protein that has recently been implicated in driving a hallmark of cancer, growth signaling autonomy. MSCs transferred GIV protein to ER+ breast cancer cells (that lack GIV) through tunnelling nanotubes via connexin (Cx)43-facilitated intercellular transport. Reinstating GIV alone in GIV-negative breast cancer cells reproduced ∼20% of both the 'borrowed' and the 'intrinsic' gene induction patterns from contact co-cultures; conferred resistance to anti-estrogen drugs; and enhanced tumor dissemination. Findings provide a multiomic insight into MSC→tumor cell intercellular transport and validate how transport of one such candidate, GIV, from the haves (MSCs) to have-nots (ER+ breast cancer) orchestrates aggressive disease states.

Evidence of a contact-induced change

Evidence of a contact-induced change

Contact-Induced Change in the Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialects

Abstract In this article, I present an introductory overview of the Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialects, followed by a study of various aspects of contact-induced change that are exhibited by these dialects. Neo-Aramaic dialects were also spoken by Christian communities in the same region. The Jewish and Christian dialects differ from one another, even where the two communities lived in the same geographical area. I show that contact-induced change was generally more advanced in Jewish NENA dialects than in neighboring Christian dialects. I also demonstrate that a study of contact-induced changes provides evidence of the migration history of the communities. I present two case studies of differing degrees of convergence with contact languages and evidence of different migration patterns. These are (i) the Jewish and Christian NENA dialects of Urmi (northwestern Iran) and (ii) the Jewish and Christian NENA dialects of Sanandaj (western Iran).

The syntax of African American English borrowings in the Louisiana Creole tense-mood-aspect system

Abstract This paper presents the typologically unusual case of borrowed tense-mood-aspect morphemes. Data are taken from Louisiana Creole, a critically endangered French-lexifier creole. Over the course of its history, Louisiana Creole has been in contact with local varieties of both French and English, including African American English. It will be shown that points of structural congruity between Louisiana Creole and African American English have facilitated the borrowing of two aspect markers for speakers competent in both varieties. African American English stressed BIN has been borrowed and marks remote past habitual, stative, and completive. The adverb still has been borrowed and subsequently has grammaticalized as a continuative marker via spec-to-head reanalysis. These borrowings are integrated into the inflectional domain as functional heads marking aspect. Their ordering constraints are evaluated relative to a previous hierarchy proposed by Rottet. Discussion of contact-induced change in creole languages has typically been confined to examination of interactions with the lexifier, the language which contributes the majority of a creole’s vocabulary (in this case, French). Fewer studies have presented detailed accounts of how creoles behave when in contact with other languages, meaning that this particular contact context remains undertheorized.

Recent Contact-Induced Morphosyntactic Changes in the Lower Kolyma Region

Abstract The paper deals with recent contact-induced changes in the grammar of two languages of the Lower Kolyma tundra, Tundra Yukaghir (TY) and Lower Kolyma Even (LKE). The morphosyntax of these languages has undergone a rather strong influence from Sakha in the course of the 20th century. The investigation focusses on the structural copying of Sakha patterns into TY and LKE, which resulted in the emergence of several new categories, in particular, the future imperative, the necessitive based on the future participle with or without proprietive marking, evaluative morphology, and contrastive markers deriving from the converbs of the copula verb. In addition, the TY system of differential object marking has changed under the influence of Sakha. These phenomena are interpreted against their historical and sociolinguistic settings, specifically, the types of multilingual situations in the region. The ramifications of the findings for the theory of language contact are also discussed.

Linguistic Contact and Tracing Persian Construction onto Khuzestani Arabic Structures

Unlike other dialects of Arabic, Khuzestani vernacular Arabic seems to have attracted little attention within the linguistic community. In this vein, the present study aims to present some evidence to show that matter replication of Persian material is mostly found in Khuzestani vernacular Arabic and thus linguistic contact and grammatical borrowing is most often mapped from Persian onto Khuzestani Arabic. Replication of Persian material primarily occurs in the domain of lexical vocabulary, and partly in grammatical vocabulary. Also, pattern replication is notable in the emerging change of constraints on word order, the favoring of analytic constructions and emergence of a new analytic past tense, and the reduction of overt marking of definiteness. In addition, the most remarkable contact-induced change in the dialect is the identification of Khuzestani Arabic grammatical morphemes in attributive constructions – the Construct State marker and the definite article that appears between head and attribute – with the Persian attributive particle, and the consequent merger of two historically distinct attributive constructions – adjectival and nominal – into a single type, which replicates the state of affairs in Persian.

Metalinguistic awareness as a factor in contact-induced language change

Abstract This opinion paper considers the role of metalinguistic awareness as a cognitive factor in contact-induced change (CIC). Although research in neighboring fields – for example, language pedagogy and second and third language acquisition – has shown that metalinguistic awareness is a non-structural factor, but does interact with cross-linguistic influences, metalinguistic awareness and its connection to CIC have largely remained undiscussed in contact linguistics. The goal of this contribution is threefold: (i) to put metalinguistic awareness on the agenda in language contact research; (ii) to relate metalinguistic awareness and CIC; and (iii) to showcase how CIC might be linked to different language experiences. To narrow the structural scope, I examine changes in passive constructions and discuss what role metalinguistic awareness might have played in the different developments.

Phonological, lexical and grammatical borrowings and replications in Hyow, a language of the Bangladesh-Burma border area

Abstract This paper presents a discussion of contact-induced borrowings and replications in Hyow, a Southeastern South Central (SC) Tibeto-Burman language spoken in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. Hyow shows two layers of contact-induced changes: an earlier layer under the influence of Burmese, and a more recent layer under the influence of Bangla. The Hyow desiderative -sháng closely resembles the suffix shɔn ‘want to’ in the Burmese variety of Rakhine State, suggesting that Hyow speakers previously lived in Rakhine State. In its current location, Hyow speakers are in contact with Bangla, and the presence of Indo-Aryan type relative-correlative clauses in Hyow – not found in any of the SC languages in Burma – reveals the effect of this recent contact with Bangla. Apart from demonstrating the respective antiquity of Hyow contact with Burmese and Bangla, the two examples of the borrowing of the desiderative suffix -sháng and relative-correlative clauses also show borrowing and replication as two distinct types of contact-induced change (Heine and Kuteva, 2005, 2006). This paper gives the first account of phonological, lexical and grammatical borrowings and replications to understand how language contact has shaped Hyow.

Colexification of ‘Enough’, ‘Able’ and ‘Until’ in Tok Pisin and Papapana: Independent or Contact-induced Change?

Abstract Considerable research has concerned the influence of Papua New Guinea’s Oceanic languages on the development of the pidgin/creole Tok Pisin, but little research has considered linguistic influence in the opposite direction. This paper adds to both bodies of research by investigating whether the colexification of ‘enough’, ‘able’ and ‘until’ in Papapana (Oceanic) and Tok Pisin results from internal or contact-induced change. Such a colexification is unattested/rare cross-linguistically therefore I argue that language contact is responsible. The Tok Pisin verb inap ‘enough, able’ grammaticalised as the preposition/subordinator ‘until’ because of semantic extensions by Oceanic language speakers whose languages demonstrate overlapping polysemies. The Papapana verb eangoi colexifies ‘enough’ and ‘able’ (common cross-linguistically), but the colexification with the lexicalised adverb eangoiena ‘able’ and grammaticalised preposition/subordinator eangoiena ‘until’ is pattern replication modelled on Tok Pisin. Based on areal data, I propose a tentative semantic map for enough, contributing to research on cross-linguistic colexification.

Beyond Segment Inventories: Phonological Complexity Measures and Suprasegmental Variables in Contact Situations

Abstract This article has three goals. First, it provides a broad cross-linguistic survey of phonological change in contact situations focusing on the suprasegmental domain. The term suprasegmental refers here to syllable structure, stress patterns, tonal patterns, and vowel and nasal harmony systems. Secondly, it assesses phonological change to suprasegmental variables whereby external influence causes an increase in complexity in the recipient language’s structure. Thirdly, using insights from the phonological typology literature, it provides a preliminary framework to evaluate suprasegmental phenomena, which can then serve as an additional tool to disentangle inheritance from contact-induced change. Data from 45 languages suggest that the suprasegmental domain provides fertile ground for inspecting contact-influenced increases in linguistic complexity. Overall, we argue that the data reviewed here highlight the relevance of phonological structure as a variable in studies of language contact, which have been mostly preoccupied with morphosyntactic variables.

Stative vs. Eventive Participles in an Arbëresh Variety under the Influence of the Italian Language

In this paper, I explore the properties and the uses of the past participles in the Arbëresh variety of S. Nicola dell’Alto, an Albanian dialect still spoken in Southern Italy, which has been in contact with Italo-Romance varieties for more than five centuries. The data are discussed in comparison to standard Albanian and the contact language, Italian. In Albanian grammar, there is only one type of participle: the past participle. It has both verbal and adjectival properties. As a verbal form, the participle is used in compound and in periphrastic tenses, in combination with both the auxiliaries KAM ‘have’ and JAM ‘be’. It can also be used in combination with other particles to create non-finite verbal forms such as gerund or infinitive or to build up temporal expressions. Finally, it can also be used after some modal impersonal verbs. Verbal participles never show agreement. Albanian participles can also be adjectival. All the adjectives derived by a participial verb take a linking article and always agree with the noun they modify in gender, number, Case and definiteness. The formal distinction of the verbal participles from adjectival participles seems to correlate with the aspectual properties of the construction: a verbal participle appears in eventive structures, whereas an adjectival participle occurs in stative structures. But, as we shall see, this is not always the case. Arbëresh participles have maintained the same morphological and syntactical properties of Albanian. They can be used both in stative and in eventive contexts, but in Arbëresh eventive passives, which are built up as in Italian rather than as in Albanian, the adjectival participles are always inflected. Agreement is obligatory in all the contexts where it is in Italian. This is a clear contact-induced change. The data presented in this paper show that Arbëresh, on the one hand, preserves features of Albanian grammar, whereas, on the other hand, it has undergone changes under the influence of the surrounding Italo-Romance varieties.

Language Contact in Singapore Mandarin Xiangxin ‘Believe’ in Local Newspapers

This paper investigates a novel use of the word xiangxin ‘believe’ in Singapore Mandarin (SgM) in which the pre-verbal nominal refers not to the believer, but rather to the subject of the propositional complement of xiangxin ‘believe’, functionally analogous to passive believe sentences in English (e.g. NP is believed to …), although no passive marking occurs in the SgM sentences. We argue for an adverbial analysis of this novel use of xiangxin, against previous views (Lin and Khoo 2018) that it exemplifies “raising” as in English be believed to sentences. Contrastive analysis of corpus data from Mandarin newspapers in Singapore and Mainland China establishes that this use is not found in standard Mainland Mandarin (MlM), where xiangxin ‘believe’ only allows the NP in pre-verbal position to be interpreted as the believer. We discuss the emergent adverbial use of SgM xiangxin ‘believe’ as an instance of language contact-induced change and in particular, as translation-induced language change (Heine and Kuteva 2003, 2005).

Reciprocal constructions

Abstract This study analyzes the borrowing of Dutch reciprocal pronouns in a corpus of primary field data of Sranan, Sarnami, and Surinamese Javanese, three languages of Suriname. The expression of reciprocity in relevant African and Asian substrates of the languages under study is also presented and discussed. I suggest cognitive and sociolinguistic explanations for the preference of Dutch-sourced reciprocal pronouns during multilingual contact. The three languages show convergent borrowing processes favoring the dedicated Dutch reciprocal pronoun over ‘scattered’ native strategies. Further, Suriname is a hierarchical post-colonial language ecology in which borrowing proceeds mostly in one direction, either directly from Dutch, or from Dutch via Sranan. The parallel multilingual trajectory of contact-induced change in the expression of a complex notion like reciprocity showcases the attractiveness for borrowing of forms and structures with transparent relations between form and content.

Papuan-Austronesian contact and the spread of numeral systems in Melanesia

Abstract This study analyzes the numeral systems of Austronesian and Papuan languages, investigating their areal distribution and considering their most likely ancestral states. The presence or absence of different methods of numeration has often been ascribed to contact-induced change. This can certainly be seen in scholarship pertaining to Melanesia, where Austronesian languages probably first came into contact with Papuan languages around 3,500 years ago. Indeed, since Proto-Austronesian is reconstructed as having employed a decimal (base-10) numeral system (with reflexes occurring throughout the Austronesian world), the presence of quinary (base-5) numeral systems in the Austronesian languages of Melanesia has commonly been attributed to contact with Papuan languages. Relying on a typological survey of 1,825 languages, this paper argues that highly conventionalized quinary systems were probably rare in Melanesia prior to the arrival of Austronesian languages. Rather, it was more likely that Austronesian speakers spread lexicalized quinary systems to Papuan groups, not the other way around. In making this argument, the paper stresses that, while numeration may be something that is linguistically encoded in a systematic fashion, it may also be realized as a cultural feature without strongly conventionalized lexicalized expressions.

The Strange Case of the Gallo-Italic Dialects of Sicily: Preservation and Innovation in Contact-Induced Change

The Gallo-Italic dialects widespread within central–eastern Sicily represent the result of the medieval immigration of settlers from southern Piedmont and Liguria, after the Norman conquest of the island (1061–1091). As far as the language spoken by these communities is concerned, an oddity arises: most of their lexical and syntactic features developed further through contact with neighboring varieties (such as, most notably, Sicilian), whereas, at a phonetic/phonological level, they have remained very conservative, largely maintaining their original northern characteristics. In the present paper, the possible causes underlying such a split are discussed: if the transfer of syntactic structures can be triggered by the presence of bilingual speakers who become progressively dominant (that is, more proficient) in Sicilian as L2, the preservation of the main phonetic/phonological features can represent a tool employed to the ends of emphasizing the identity of these new settlers from both an ethnic and linguistic perspective.

The language contact phenomenon in Thailand: English borrowing, comprehension, and public attitudes

As the English lexicon has become more frequently borrowed and used in Thai mass media and social media, Thais are quickly adapting to such foreignness and are open to language contact-induced change. The current study explores the extent of the public’s familiarity with borrowed words in contemporary Thai public media and attitudes toward language borrowing. The study participants comprised 120 Thais who voluntarily completed a questionnaire. They were from different age groups and were relatively highly educated. The instrument for the data collection was an online three-part questionnaire probing demographic information, an individual’s comprehension of the borrowed lexicon as tested via 15 questions of lexical borrowing in context, and personal views probed in the questionnaire questions about English lexical borrowing. Follow-up interviews with six selected respondents according to age groups verified and elicited attitudes toward lexical borrowing. The findings revealed that high exposure to English resulted in a high level of comprehension, especially when words were transcribed in the Thai script with tone markers. If the borrowing was in Romanized script, it was less likely to be understood. The majority of the respondents recognized the need for English language borrowing in Thai communication, especially for terminology. They also expressed positive views toward the adoption of the practice. English was perceived as necessary for effective Thai communication, particularly among acquaintances and professionals. The ubiquity of English in Thai society today has led to general adaptability and acceptance of borrowing as part of language evolution; such practices are no longer a sign of prestige. The study suggests that language classrooms should consider using borrowed English lexicons to assist Thai EFL learners in developing English proficiency.

Emerging grammars in contemporary Yoruba phonology

AbstractThis article provides a description and an Optimality Theory (OT) analysis of contact-induced changes and variation in contemporary Yoruba syllable structure. The article claims that a major diachronic change has occurred in the syllable structure of Yoruba phonology due to its continued contact with English, resulting in the invention, preservation, and hypercorrection of clusters and codas. I characterize this change in terms of OT constraint re-ranking (Miglio and Moren 2003) and assess the resulting synchronic variation against the indexed constraint approach of Itô and Mester (1995a, b, 1999), the ranked-winners approach of Coetzee (2004), the partial-order co-phonology of Anttila (1997), and the Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) model of Goldwater and Johnson (2003). I show that none of these approaches is able to account independently for the categorical, gradient, and lexically conditioned variation that characterize the contemporary Yoruba syllable structure, but rather that a MaxEnt model augmented with lexical indexation is the most economical model that fits the Yoruba data accurately.

Says who? Language regard towards speaker groups using English loanwords in Dutch

Abstract This paper contributes to the ongoing Cognitive Linguistic turn in research on lexical borrowing: rather than searching for objective and universal linguistic criteria to demarcate different contact phenomena, we prioritize language users’ subjective perception of contact-induced change. In particular, combining insights from folk linguistics and social role theory, this paper presents the results from a survey targeting 177 Belgian Dutch respondents’ expectations on the use of English loanwords. The survey uncovers variation in these expectations, depending on the age of the projected speaker (RQ1), on the social role of the projected speaker (RQ2), and whether (unexpected) use of English by projected social role actors leads to negative evaluations (RQ3). Results reveal shared expectations regarding the use of English loans by age, with a perceived peak in late adolescence. Regarding the use of English by social role actors, we find high anticipated use of English loans for modern roles (e.g. rapper, gamer), whilst the expectation on English use for public (e.g. primary school teacher) and traditional roles (e.g. farmer) is significantly lower. Finally, our results indicate that role violation only seems to trigger negative evaluations when the role actor is a public figure with social responsibility. The discussion reflects on the implications of the results, contrasting the top-down or bottom-up emergence of shared beliefs on speaker groups and contact-induced variation.

On “historical unity” of Russian and Ukrainian: A linguistic perspective on language conflict and change

This paper focuses on Putin’s (2021) misguided claim regarding “historical [linguistic] unity” of Russian and Ukrainian. Their being two distinct languages is not in question, as opposed (for example) to Serbian and Croatian. However, it is important to substantiate the objective reality of those differences, taking a strong stand against unjustified claims about linguistic [unity] where there are no grounds for them. Implementing a Python-coded algorithm, like those described in Nerbonne & Kretzschmar 2013, we calculate Levenshtein distance between frequency-based word lists, in a manner sensitive to both organic and contact-induced change, to fully reveal Ukrainian’s complex relationship with both Russian and Polish.

Negation in the Huarpean Languages: Millcayac and Allentiac

This study describes and compares standard negation in the Huarpean languages, Millcayac and Allentiac. Furthermore, it proposes possible diachronic paths that led to the synchronic stage described herein and identifies possible contact-induced changes. This synchronic description is based on the revision and analysis of the grammars, vocabularies, and religious texts written by Luis de Valdivia. The features considered are (1) type of negative marker, (2) order of negative marker and verb, (3) structure of the negative construction, and (4) type of prohibitive constructions. The analysis shows that standard negation in Allentiac is expressed by a preverbal particle and has a symmetric structure. In Millcayac, standard negation is expressed by suffixation and has an asymmetric structure. In terms of diachrony, it is proposed that Allentiac is more conservative, and Millcayac’s divergence could have been accelerated by contact with Mapudungun. This study is a contribution to the description of these under-studied languages.