Social Networks And Historical

The author analyzes, from a historical sociolinguistic point of view, selected domains of morphosyntactic variation in a 250,000 word collection of the Middle English Paston Letters (1421-1503). In three case studies, two nominal and one verbal variable are described and discussed in detail: the replacement of Old English pronouns by borrowed pronouns, the introduction and spread of >wh-relativizers, and the spread and routinization of light verb constructions (take, make, give, have, do plus deverbal noun). While the author aims at a balanced integration of different approaches in sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, typology, and language change, the main focus is on social network theory and the role of the linguistic individual in the formation and change of linguistic structures.

Proem

v

Acknowledgements

vi

Abbreviations

viii

Chapter 1 Introduction

1. Aims and contents

1

(7)

1.1. Empirial objectives, historical embedding

1

(5)

1.2. Structure of the book

6

(2)

Chapter 2 Historical sociolinguistics

1. What is historical sociolinguistics?

8

(13)

1.1. Social sciences - history - linguistics

9

(3)

1.2. Historical sociolinguistics

12

(10)

1.2.1. The object of investigation

13

(1)

1.2.2. Research material

14

(7)

2. Summary

21

(1)

Chapter 3 Social network analysis - present and past

1. Introduction

22

(1)

2. Social network analysis

22

(38)

2.1. The development of network theory

22

(8)

2.1.1. Elements and constructs of network theory

24

(3)

2.1.2. Attitudes and behavior in networks - network roles

27

(3)

2.2. Social network analysis, language variation, and language change

30

(7)

2.3. Principles of language change

37

(6)

2.4. Historical network analysis

43

(9)

2.4.1. Background

43

(1)

2.4.2. The principle of uniformity

43

(2)

2.4.3. Data problems

45

(7)

2.5. Micro- versus macro-studies

52

(3)

2.6. Developing a network for (late) medieval England

55

(5)

3. The network(s) of the Paston family

60

(16)

3.1. Biographical sketches

60

(8)

3.2. The network(s)

68

(8)

4. The corpus

76

(7)

4.1. Scribes and authors

79

(1)

4.2. Methodology

80

(3)

Chapter 4 Personal pronouns

1. The development of personal pronouns in Middle and Early Modern English

83

(20)

1.1. Sources: dialect geography

84

(7)

1.2. Sources: internal factors

91

(12)

1.2.1. Therapeutic change in the pronoun system

93

(3)

1.2.2. Analogy

96

(2)

1.2.3. Formatives and analogical levelling

98

(3)

1.2.4. Frequency and analogy

101

(2)

2. Pronouns in the Paston letters

103

(23)

2.1. General developments

103

(1)

2.2. Distribution across time

104

(3)

2.3. Individual patterns

107

(2)

2.4. External factors

109

(4)

2.4.1. Gender of the speaker

109

(1)

2.4.2. Addressee and relationship to addressee

110

(3)

2.5. Internal factors

113

(31)

2.5.1. Syntactic function

114

(2)

2.5.2. Gender of the referent

116

(2)

2.5.3. Animacy of the referent

118

(1)

2.5.4. Stress and phonetic environment

119

(7)

3. Summary

126

(3)

4. Ye and You

129

(3)

Chapter 5 Relative clauses

1. Introduction

132

(1)

2. Relativization - some technical remarks

132

(6)

3. Relativization and the history of English

138

(6)

4. Relative clauses in the Paston letters

144

(63)

4.1. Methodology

144

(5)

4.2. Results: a community grammar

149

(30)

4.2.1. Restrictiveness

150

(1)

4.2.2. Animacy

151

(14)

4.2.3. Definiteness

165

(2)

4.2.4. Number

167

(1)

4.2.5. Syntactic function

168

(10)

4.2.6. Distance

178

(1)

4.3 Results: a social grammar

179

(9)

4.3.1. Gender of the author

180

(1)

4.3.2. Gender of the addressee

181

(2)

4.3.3. Relationship between author and addressee

183

(1)

4.3.4. Variation across time

184

(4)

4.4. Results: individual grammars

188

(19)

5. Summary

207

(3)

Chapter 6 The light verb construction

1. Introduction

210

(1)

2. The structure of the light verb construction

210

(5)

3. Historical developments

215

(2)

4. The light verb construction in the Paston letters

217

(29)

4.1. Methodological issues

217

(5)

4.2. Results: A community grammar

222

(12)

4.2.1. Number, determination, modification

227

(4)

4.2.2. Syntax

231

(3)

4.3. Results: A social grammar

234

(9)

4.3.1. Temporal factors

234

(6)

4.3.2. Gender

240

(3)

4.4. Results: individual grammars

243

(3)

Chapter 7 Conclusion: a network perspective

1. A historical whodunit

246

(8)

1.1. Personal pronouns, relativizers, and light verb constructions

246

(2)

1.2. Corroborative data

248

(6)

2. Networks and language use in the Paston family: Take One

254

(6)

2.1. Why network strength scales should not simply correlate with historical data - at least in this case

255

(5)

2.1.1. Now you see it, now you don't

255

(2)

2.1.2. The times they are achanging - ans so are the networks

257

(3)

3. Networks and language use in the Paston family: Take Two

260

(3)

4. Social networks and language use: a new perspective

263

(3)

Notes

266

(5)

References

271

(34)

Author index

305

(6)

Subject index

311

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Social Networks And Historical Sociolinguistics

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