H/ Insertion as a ‘Camouflage Archaism’
Dialect contact, colonial lag and the feature pool in South Atlantic English
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20344814 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Daniel Schreier (University of Zurich, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 37-65 |
| Publication date | 2019-04-05 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Diachronica (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0176-4225 • E-ISSN: 1569-9714 |
| Publisher | John Benjamins Publishing Company (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1075/dia.17030.sch |
| OpenAlex | W2934040596 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 46 |
This article documents the historical development and synchronic variation of so-called “/h/ insertion” (/h/ before vowel-initial words such as apple , under , etc.). It argues that the maintenance of /h/ insertion in post-colonial English varieties around the world provides an ideal opportunity for research on language change under dialect contact scenarios involving British donors and other dialects. After an assessment of regional distribution patterns in current World Englishes, I present some first findings from a large-scale quantitative analysis of Tristan da Cunha English, where /h/ insertion, firmly attested yet nearing obsolescence in British English, has survived into the 21st century. The quantitative analysis provides important insights into donor attribution and competition-selection processes that accompany dialect contact and koinéization, with special reference to theoretical concepts such as colonial lag, feature pool formation and founder effects. A holistic application of the concept of colonial lag to post-colonial English varieties needs to be refined and critically assessed. I argue that entire linguistic systems (in the form of koinés) are not conservative as such but that arrested language (and dialect) change operates on a feature-specific level instead
Archaeology · Biology · Colonialism · Hegemony · Language contact · Linguistics · Obsolescence · Political science · Politics · Vowel · Computer Science · History · Law · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Artificial Intelligence · Paleontology
An abundant harvest to the philologer’?
The Ecology of Language Evolution
Postcolonial English
New Zealand English
Accents of English
On the Reversibility of Mergers
Notes on the Sounds and Vocabulary of Gullah
Super-leveling, fraying-out, internal restructuring
Tristan da Cunha
Exploring the Roots of Appalachian English
Terra incognita in the anglophone world
Colonial Lag? The Alleged Conservative Character of American English and Other Colonial' Varieties
Natural language change or prescriptive influence
The English of Tristan da Cunha
Linguistic Variation and Change
Phonological Variation in the Jamaican Continuum
English in Language Shift
Dialects in Contact
The English of Tristan da Cunha
One Man is an Island
Obsolescence in the English Perfect? Evidence from Samana English
Language in Isolation, and Its Implications for Variation and Change
The Last Yankee in the Pacific
Burned, Dwelled, Dreamed
Isolation and Language Change
Dialect Identity in a Tri-Ethnic Context
Tristan da Cunha and the 'Roaring Forties
I Went to Tristan
Sociology of Tristan da Cunha
Creating a New Town koine
World Englishes and the multilingual history of English
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,33 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2021 (2) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |