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Language Variation - European Perspectives VI: Selected papers from the Eighth International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (ICLaVE 8), Leipzig, May 2015
Edited by Isabelle Buchstaller and Beat Siebenhaar
[Studies in Language Variation 19] 2017
► pp. 47–68

Dynamics, variation and the brain

| Forschungszentrum Deutscher Sprachatlas, Universität Marburg

German dialects offer an unparalleled data situation for carrying out fine-grained research on language change. On the basis of empirical data, phonetic-cum-phonological change can be traced back over 100 years in time and space. Which factors play a role in triggering the different types of sound change can be determined on the basis of the available data. It will be demonstrated how neurolinguistic methods can be applied to study speaker-listener constellations between language varieties in contact with one another. Linguistic stability, word for word phonological change and the rapid change of phonemes as a whole are accompanied by differing physiological processes in the brain for the speaker and the listener.

Keywords: linguistic dynamics, sound change, phoneme clash, contact varieties, chain shift, neurolinguistic processes, centralisation, synchronization, Bavarian, Swabian, Mosel Franconian
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.First type: Sound change proceeds one word at a time
    • 2.1Data and explanations
    • 2.2… and the brain?
  • 3.Second type: Sound change affects phonemes as a whole
    • 3.1Data and explanations
    • 3.2… and the brain?
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 26 July 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/silv.19.03sch
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Hinskens, Frans
2020. The Expanding Universe of the Study of Sound Change. In The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, ► pp. 5 ff. DOI logo

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