Plenary Talk: Does Language Contact Simplify Grammars?
Sally Thomason gave a plenary talk at the annual meeting of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft. The conference was held in Bamberg from Feb. 27-29.
Abstract
Does Language Contact Simplify Grammars?
In recent years the old notion that extensive language contact
tends to lead to overall simplification of linguistic structure has
attracted a new set of adherents, among them Peter Trudgill and John
McWhorter. English is frequently cited as an example of a language
that has undergone dramatic simplification as a result of language
contact, both in the transition from Old English to Middle English
and in the emergence of a variety of Englishes all over the world.
In this paper I will argue that extensive language contact does not
lead predictably to overall grammatical simplification, and that
English does not present a historical picture of simplification,
whether due to language contact or to internally-motivated change.
My main examples will come from contact situations that primarily
involve hunter-gatherer communities whose languages have not been
standardized, although they often display considerable dialectal
variation. I have too little information to assess Trudgill’s claim
that `low-contact languages’ tend to remain complex, but I will argue
against his claim that `high-contact languages’ tend to become less
complex.