Grammar Changes in Languages

[cybrxkhan]

This is something that I thought about recently as I was trying to play around with sound changes for the first time in conlanging.

So we all know about sound changes, and most of us can figure out more or less what kind of sound changes we like to have in our conlangs and so forth, but what about grammar changes? That is, changes to the grammar. In real world languages, for instance, from PIE, we got VSO (Welsh, etc.), SOV (German, etc.), and SVO (English, etc.) languages. How does stuff like this come about?

I guess these questions are a bit vague, but... Does anyone know how these kinds of grammar changes come about? And if so, what are the typical rules - if any - are they for these kinds of changes in grammar? And what role does sound change play in grammar changes (for instance I know that sound changes contributed to some of the weirder English grammar, such as "goose --> geese" as opposed to "god --> gods")?

[roninbodhisattva]

Ha, I'm going to repeat what I posted over at CBB here, but so that people can comment on it / use it for themselves:

Oh there's a bunch of literature on morphosyntactic change, for sure. I'm actually doing an independent study on it right now. For one that pops right to mind, because I just bought it, you could look at Morphosyntactic Change: Functional and Formal Perspectives by Olga Fischer. It focuses mostly on Germanic stuff (specifically English). You'll want to look at the literature on Grammaticalization too, and there is a lot of it. Also, you should look at the Handbook of Historical Linguistics, specifically parts IV and V on morphological and syntactic change.

[Basilius]

That is, changes to the grammar. In real world languages, for instance, from PIE, we got VSO (Welsh, etc.), SOV (German, etc.), and SVO (English, etc.) languages. How does stuff like this come about?

This illustrates very well one difficulty...

Normally, you don't understand stuff you don't know much about. Why do you bother how it happened if you don't actually care to know what has come out? Do you realize that German is actually V2, and V-last (*not* SOV) only in some theory-bound analyses that are arguably irrelevant for historical linguistics?

While conlanging is so nice a way to restrict oneself to linguistic stuff one does understand...

(Which is actually an attempt to offer a practical advice, not ranting, believe or not)

[johntm]

I don't know about the goose->geese example you posted, but a lot of weird grammar (and vocabulary) occurrences in English come from when the Normans ruled England and when the Danes invaded, throughout periods where Latin was the lingua franca. English took from Anglo-Norman, Old Norse, Latin, and a little from a bunch of other languages.
As for other languages, I'd think similar things would happen, maybe the language of a conqueror had an effect on it, maybe they were conquerors and took from the language(s) of those they conquered, or maybe one dialect became predominant over others and changed the way some things were said/done.

[Travis B.]

I don't know about the goose->geese example you posted, but a lot of weird grammar (and vocabulary) occurrences in English come from when the Normans ruled England and when the Danes invaded, throughout periods where Latin was the lingua franca. English took from Anglo-Norman, Old Norse, Latin, and a little from a bunch of other languages.
As for other languages, I'd think similar things would happen, maybe the language of a conqueror had an effect on it, maybe they were conquerors and took from the language(s) of those they conquered, or maybe one dialect became predominant over others and changed the way some things were said/done.

Umm, no.

Aside from a moderate number of loanwords from Old Norman, these really had little influence; even then, most of the Romance and Latinate loans in English long postdate the Norman Conquest (and then had very little structural influence upon English as a whole).

If anything, the main place where anyone invading the British Isles had any deep influence upon English was the permanent settlement by Old Norse-speakers in the eastern parts thereof earlier on, not the momentary re-reconquest of England by the Danes later.

Please, just forget anything popular histories of the English language may have told you. Really.

[johntm]

I don't know about the goose->geese example you posted, but a lot of weird grammar (and vocabulary) occurrences in English come from when the Normans ruled England and when the Danes invaded, throughout periods where Latin was the lingua franca. English took from Anglo-Norman, Old Norse, Latin, and a little from a bunch of other languages.
As for other languages, I'd think similar things would happen, maybe the language of a conqueror had an effect on it, maybe they were conquerors and took from the language(s) of those they conquered, or maybe one dialect became predominant over others and changed the way some things were said/done.

Umm, no.

Aside from a moderate number of loanwords from Old Norman, these really had little influence; even then, most of the Romance and Latinate loans in English long postdate the Norman Conquest (and then had very little structural influence upon English as a whole).

If anything, the main place where anyone invading the British Isles had any deep influence upon English was the permanent settlement by Old Norse-speakers in the eastern parts thereof earlier on, not the momentary re-reconquest of England by the Danes later.

Please, just forget anything popular histories of the English language may have told you. Really.

Meh, I don't claim to be an expert and it has been a while since I've read up on the history of English. I know we got thousands of loanwords from those languages, I assumed they had some affect on grammar.

I guess I'm off to refresh my knowledge of English then.

[cybrxkhan]

That is, changes to the grammar. In real world languages, for instance, from PIE, we got VSO (Welsh, etc.), SOV (German, etc.), and SVO (English, etc.) languages. How does stuff like this come about?

This illustrates very well one difficulty...

Normally, you don't understand stuff you don't know much about. Why do you bother how it happened if you don't actually care to know what has come out? Do you realize that German is actually V2, and V-last (*not* SOV) only in some theory-bound analyses that are arguably irrelevant for historical linguistics?

While conlanging is so nice a way to restrict oneself to linguistic stuff one does understand...

(Which is actually an attempt to offer a practical advice, not ranting, believe or not)

I am well aware of the V2 in German, but I've heard from some sources that German is nominally SOV; but it doesn't really matter, since it wouldn't have mattered if I was saying German or Latin (even though I know Latin's pretty free with word order) or some other SOV language, I'm just curious as to what possible processes could allow there to be such differences in grammar.

[Basilius]

I don't know about the goose->geese example you posted, but a lot of weird grammar (and vocabulary) occurrences in English come from when the Normans ruled England and when the Danes invaded, throughout periods where Latin was the lingua franca. English took from Anglo-Norman, Old Norse, Latin, and a little from a bunch of other languages.

*When* doesn't mean *because*. Also, you refer to two (or more) different when's.

As for other languages, I'd think similar things would happen, maybe the language of a conqueror had an effect on it, maybe they were conquerors and took from the language(s) of those they conquered, or maybe one dialect became predominant over others and changed the way some things were said/done.

This would imply that languages wouldn't change without conquests, which isn't even remotely verisimilar.

EDIT:

Please, just forget anything popular histories of the English language may have told you. Really.

Good advice. Really.

[Basilius]

I am well aware of the V2 in German, but I've heard from some sources that German is nominally SOV; but it doesn't really matter, [...]

It does. You don't know the answer to the easier question (of how the German syntax works), and you ask a much more difficult one (of how it came about to be what it is). You wouldn't hear the answer, even if there were a short one (which isn't the case).

[Xephyr]

I don't know about the goose->geese example you posted, but a lot of weird grammar (and vocabulary) occurrences in English come from when the Normans ruled England and when the Danes invaded, throughout periods where Latin was the lingua franca. English took from Anglo-Norman, Old Norse, Latin, and a little from a bunch of other languages.
As for other languages, I'd think similar things would happen, maybe the language of a conqueror had an effect on it, maybe they were conquerors and took from the language(s) of those they conquered, or maybe one dialect became predominant over others and changed the way some things were said/done.

Umm, no.

Aside from a moderate number of loanwords from Old Norman, these really had little influence; even then, most of the Romance and Latinate loans in English long postdate the Norman Conquest (and then had very little structural influence upon English as a whole).

If anything, the main place where anyone invading the British Isles had any deep influence upon English was the permanent settlement by Old Norse-speakers in the eastern parts thereof earlier on, not the momentary re-reconquest of England by the Danes later.

Please, just forget anything popular histories of the English language may have told you. Really.

Not sure what you mean by "the permanent settlement by Old Norse-speakers" and the "momentary re-reconquest" here... The Danes were in England, to varying extents, more-or-less continually for almost 2 centuries from the 9th to 11th centuries, that also being the period which pretty much everyone (including johntm, I think) says is when English succumbed to Old Norse influence. Two hundred years is hardly "momentary" and easily long enough to leave permanent linguistic imprints. If by "the permanent settlement" you mean the Saxon settlement, then well obviously they weren't Old Norse speakers. If by "momentary re-reconquest" you mean some later, post-11th century Danish shenanigans I'm not aware of, well then that's a strawman since nobody puts any import into that.

Could you clarify, por favor?

[Curlyjimsam]

I am well aware of the V2 in German, but I've heard from some sources that German is nominally SOV; but it doesn't really matter, [...]

It does. You don't know the answer to the easier question (of how the German syntax works), and you ask a much more difficult one (of how it came about to be what it is). You wouldn't hear the answer, even if there were a short one (which isn't the case).

It doesn't matter terribly much to the main question being asked, and you just seem to be taking the opportunity to level poorly justified insults at people. To describe German as "SOV" was a perfectly valid simplification for the point being made.

[Travis B.]

I don't know about the goose->geese example you posted, but a lot of weird grammar (and vocabulary) occurrences in English come from when the Normans ruled England and when the Danes invaded, throughout periods where Latin was the lingua franca. English took from Anglo-Norman, Old Norse, Latin, and a little from a bunch of other languages.
As for other languages, I'd think similar things would happen, maybe the language of a conqueror had an effect on it, maybe they were conquerors and took from the language(s) of those they conquered, or maybe one dialect became predominant over others and changed the way some things were said/done.

Umm, no.

Aside from a moderate number of loanwords from Old Norman, these really had little influence; even then, most of the Romance and Latinate loans in English long postdate the Norman Conquest (and then had very little structural influence upon English as a whole).

If anything, the main place where anyone invading the British Isles had any deep influence upon English was the permanent settlement by Old Norse-speakers in the eastern parts thereof earlier on, not the momentary re-reconquest of England by the Danes later.

Please, just forget anything popular histories of the English language may have told you. Really.

Not sure what you mean by "the permanent settlement by Old Norse-speakers" and the "momentary re-reconquest" here... The Danes were in England, to varying extents, more-or-less continually for almost 2 centuries from the 9th to 11th centuries, that also being the period which pretty much everyone (including johntm, I think) says is when English succumbed to Old Norse influence. Two hundred years is hardly "momentary" and easily long enough to leave permanent linguistic imprints. If by "the permanent settlement" you mean the Saxon settlement, then well obviously they weren't Old Norse speakers. If by "momentary re-reconquest" you mean some later, post-11th century Danish shenanigans I'm not aware of, well then that's a strawman since nobody puts any import into that.

Could you clarify, por favor?

johntm referred to the Danes invading being the key factor, and I was just stating that the later, 11th century re-reconquest of England by the king of Denmark itself had little impact, and rather that it was not mere political control by Danes that influenced English but rather mass colonization of the eastern parts of England and southern Scotland by Old Norse-speakers that ultimately heavily influenced English and Scots (in contrast to, say, parts of Ireland that came under Norse rule but where, ultimately, the Norse left very little impact aside from setting up longphorts that ultimately became major cities).

[Jipí]

I am well aware of the V2 in German, but I've heard from some sources that German is nominally SOV;

Although it may be not directly relevant to the original question, let me add my € 0.02: Personally, I've never seen German classified as SOV. It was taught to me in school as SVO, even now at university level. As a native speaker, based on personal experience, I'd also classify it as SVO with V2, as that's the usual, unmarked word order used for basic statements (object- and verb fronting happen, but that's marked). Subordinate clauses are subsequently an exception by requiring SOV. You may have read about it being easier to analyze German as being SOV by default in the LCK, but Zomp says that although his reanalysis is more or less valid, it's not how it's usually described. With the language's history in mind, I suppose.

[cybrxkhan]

Alright, thanks for telling me about the issue with German; I'll have to look into it more, then. My main point stands, regardless; I'm curious as to what kind of situations and catalysts would bring about these changes. I'm not asking specifically about the grammar changes of German, or Welsh, or English, or Latin from PIE or whatever. I'm just wondering if you guys know if there are any typical reasons why changes in grammar happens through all languages in general. Regardless, thank you all for your replies and input.

[Jipí]

Sound change plays one important part.

Like, German had V → ə / ˌ_ along the way (yes, that's where all those freaking Es in unstressed syllables come from), which wrought havoc on Old High German's case system, since case endings got mostly elided, and thematic vowels of nouns and verbs also, which collapsed all the inflection classes. As the case system imploded, articles arose to take over the function of case marking.

[zompist]

The key word being "by default"— if a language varies between SOV and SVO, one can choose either as the "base" and explain the other with a special rule. (Awareness of rule ordering comes easily to a programmer. Though these days I think the variation is diachronic, not synchronic: we have multiple constructions in our mental grammars.)

(I also decided in the print LCK that it wasn't worth being contrarian about, and described German more conventionally.)

[Basilius]

I am well aware of the V2 in German, but I've heard from some sources that German is nominally SOV; but it doesn't really matter, [...]

It does. You don't know the answer to the easier question (of how the German syntax works), and you ask a much more difficult one (of how it came about to be what it is). You wouldn't hear the answer, even if there were a short one (which isn't the case).

It doesn't matter terribly much to the main question being asked, [...]

Why do you think so? You must know something I don't, then. I'm curious, really.

Also, if you know the answer, why don't you share it instead of commenting on my response? If you think I was just trolling, you'd look more prudent not feeding this troll.

[...] and you just seem to be taking the opportunity to level poorly justified insults at people.

I am sorry if it indeed sounded like insult (to you and especially cybrxkhan). But if you'd guessed some wordings of mine were dictated by irritation, you'd be right.

The irritating part had to do with questions to which a real answer would look more like a monograph - asked without any real interest, as subsequent comments seem to have revealed.

To describe German as "SOV" was a perfectly valid simplification for the point being made.

I somehow missed "the point being made" (other than German being SOV). There were a couple questions asked, but describing German as SOV did not seem (to me, it's just my problem, see?) the type of simplification I'd expect from somebody who does care about the answer to at least one of them. When I tried to point this out (with the idea to check if there is indeed any serious interest), cybrxkhan (and you) found no better way to reply but insisting on what you'd said, which meant (for me, it's just my problem, right?) that further discussion of this particular issue would hardly be very productive.

I'm not asking specifically about the grammar changes of German, or Welsh, or English, or Latin from PIE or whatever. I'm just wondering if you guys know if there are any typical reasons why changes in grammar happens through all languages in general. Regardless, thank you all for your replies and input.

Do you expect an answer to a more general question you are kinda asking now to be shorter than an answer to some more specific questions you were kinda asking previously? I mean, it probably isn't.

[roninbodhisattva]

Grammatical change can also occur independently of sound change. In a language I work on, Montana Salish, has an irrealis prefix qł- that can attach to both nouns and verbs. The prefix developed from a particle that originally occurred in a more limited context, however. The steps are as follows:

1) There was an irrealis particle qał that occurred before complement clauses containing nominalized verbal predicates.
2) The particle was extended to other contexts in which any kind of nominal followed.
3) Phonological changes took course and reduced the particle to a prefix.
4) Later, the nominalized verbs became finite forms, which is a change more general in the language.

So while sound change played a role in turning the particle into a prefix, the fact that both nouns and verbs are found with the prefix is due to an earlier extension of the particle which was not phonologically motivated.

[Lukas Kelly]

Can German even be SOV? From what I learned, the Subject can't be separated from the verb, so we get:

SVO
VSO (If it's starts with a prepositional phrase)
OVS

[cybrxkhan]

Grammatical change can also occur independently of sound change. In a language I work on, Montana Salish, has an irrealis prefix qł- that can attach to both nouns and verbs. The prefix developed from a particle that originally occurred in a more limited context, however. The steps are as follows:

1) There was an irrealis particle qał that occurred before complement clauses containing nominalized verbal predicates.
2) The particle was extended to other contexts in which any kind of nominal followed.
3) Phonological changes took course and reduced the particle to a prefix.
4) Later, the nominalized verbs became finite forms, which is a change more general in the language.

So while sound change played a role in turning the particle into a prefix, the fact that both nouns and verbs are found with the prefix is due to an earlier extension of the particle which was not phonologically motivated.

Cool. I figured that sound changes probably had a lot to do with grammatical change, but at least this case seems to indicate that it's not always entirely like that, and weirder things can happen.

Do you expect an answer to a more general question you are kinda asking now to be shorter than an answer to some more specific questions you were kinda asking previously? I mean, it probably isn't.

I was never asking for a specific language or languages per se, although specific examples would have been fine. I was just listing the above languages as examples of how there are grammar changes and differentiations between various IE languages. And no, I wasn't expecting a short trite answer, but I don't expect anybody to have typed up a whole crapload of text, either. I am simply wondering about was whether, in general, there are grammar change rules or commonalities like that of sound changes.

[roninbodhisattva]

I think what you're really after is the mechanisms that are involved in grammatical change, right?

[cybrxkhan]

I think what you're really after is the mechanisms that are involved in grammatical change, right?

Correct, more or less.

[roninbodhisattva]

Can German even be SOV? From what I learned, the Subject can't be separated from the verb, so we get:

SVO
VSO (If it's starts with a prepositional phrase)
OVS

You also get verb final in subordinated clauses:

Ich weiss, dass er den Mann schlug.

And that's assumed to be the underlying order. You get V2 in finite clauses, but it's through movement of the verb to that other position.

[Niedokonany]

Grammatical change can also occur independently of sound change.

E.g. Bulgarian has lost most of its case system without any really drastic sound changes, compared to other Slavic languages. It seems to me that in some cases even if these occur, a language can do a lot to reconstruct its morphology, and in other cases it starts to fall apart without an obvious phonetic motivation - probably it depends on local areal tendencies or something.

[Basilius]

I am simply wondering about was whether, in general, there are grammar change rules or commonalities like that of sound changes.

OK, this sounds like something I can try to help with.

One rule of that kind that may look indeed as a rule:

Today's morphology is yesterday's syntax

(Givón, IIRC; not an exact quote; don't ask me where he said this...)

Is this the type of stuff you're interested in?