Language Change in Related Languages: A Case Study

From subgrouping debates to understanding language change: a case-study of related languages in contact Olesya Khanina (University of Helsinki) Valentin Gusev (University of Hamburg)

Introduction + Based on a submitted paper From structural isoglosses to patterns of spread: tracing inheritance and contact in Northern Samoyedic + Related languages in historical linguistics > internal subgrouping of a family + Geographic separation as the default case in conceptualizing language change + Research on contact among related languages can be illuminating in many aspects + possibly the most common in human history, + complex interplay between inheritance and contact, + the very premises of language differentiation e.g. Aikhenvald 2002, Dench 2001, Harrison 2003, Johanson & Robbeets 2012, Epps et al. 2013, Law 2014, 2020, Kossmann 2020, Mansfield et al. 2023, Beck 2023.

Related languages in contact +speakers of diversifying languages often interact with each other after the break off from the protolanguage conflicting isoglosses: features can be shared among related languages not because of a common intermediate protolanguage, but as a consequence of contact +pattern borrowing complicate the matter: it might become even theoretically impossible to disentangle effects of inheritance vs. contact (e.g. Law 2020)

Northern Samoyedic: the basics +Samoyedic (< Uralic): 10 languages, 6 (!) subgrouping hypotheses +Northern Samoyedic: an areal grouping ( Samoyedic spoken in the north ): 5 languages

Northern Samoyedic: the basics +based on cognacy in (Swadesh) wordlists and on common sound changes: (Janhunen 1975-1976, 1998, Helimski 2022, Mikola 2004) +cases of shared features contradicting the tree have also been discussed (Helimski 2022, Urmanchieva 2008, 2023, Khanina 2022, Khanina & Gusev In Press.)

What we did +An original method of tracing similarities and differences between related languages in a holistic and consistent manner +equal level of representation for all languages and all phonological & morphological changes, not just interesting cases +Data: +previous literature (phonology), +grammatical descriptions (morphology: 2 languages), +years of fieldwork and custom-fit corpora searches (morphology: 3 languages) A list of post-Proto-Samoyedic changes in Northern Samoyedic We filtered out changes which occurred in one or in all languages. We took relative numbers of shared changes as proxies for joint evolution. We contrasted phonological and morphological changes.

Sound changes in NS: expected (1) Tundra Enets and Forest Enets changes a. * > n word-initially * mp top of the head : FN nyampa forehead ; TN nyampa; FE naba; TE naba; Ng o hu b. *m > 0 intervocally (in Enets occasionally *m > b, the distribution is lexical) *s m cap : FN x ma; TN s wa; FE s j; TE s e; Ng s mu *ti m fathom : FN tyimya,TN ty bya,FE ibi,TE t iee, Ng t iimi c. *rw > m *we rw chief : FN wye w , TN yerw , FE bemo, TE bi mo, Ng baarb d. all consonants, except j, > word finally *a : FN ny ; TN nyah; FE na -a (Der); TE e ; Ng a *se r white; ice : FN x ; TN ser; FE si ; TE si ; Ng si r + 7 more

Sound changes in NS: unexpected (2) Tundra Nenets Enets changes a. *p > b intervocally *kop animal skin, fur : FN kopa; TN xoba; FE koba; TE koba; Ng kuhu b. *t, * > intervocally, *ut hand,arm : FN ta; TN uda [ u a], [ uda]; FE uza [u a], [uza]; TE uza [u a], [uza]; Ng t c. affricativization of *s after plosives (TN or dialectally , FE t > , TE t > t ~ ) *enetse human : FN nye sy , TN nyenecy h, FE en e , TE enet e ~ ene e , Ng ana sa d. n, > word-finally *a : FN ny ; TN nya ; FE na a (Der), na (Helimski Ms.); TE e ; Ng a

Morphological changes in NS Types of innovations Quantity emergence of a new morpheme 36 Historical: involving related morphemes 57 development of similar patterns of use 15 loss of a Proto-Samoyedic morpheme 6 Typological: similarities without direct relatedness similar grammatical phenomena 11 11 Total 68

Morphological changes in NS: expected (3) Forest Nenets and Tundra Nenets isoglosses 8: 6 historical, 2 typological a. "Emphatic optative" *-r m ~ *-r : FN - ama ~ - a, TN -r wa ~ -ra emergence of a new morpheme b. Habitual *-s' t : FN -sy t , TN -sy t emergence of a new morpheme c. "Suppositional past": *-m j -r k : FN -m -r xa, TN -wi -r ka emergence of a new morpheme d. Some markers from the Reflexive conjugation used for the Subjective conjugation 1Du.s *-ni : FN -j, TN - nyi ; 2Du.s *-ti : FN -ty, TN -tyi ; 2Pl.s *-ta : FN -ta , TN -da similar patterns of use of related morphemes e. 2 and 3 person pronouns based on *pi t 'body; self': FN pit -, TN pid - similar patterns of use of related morphemes f. Verbalization of *-r k as Approximative: FN -r xa, TN -r ka: its use without participle markers before similar patterns of use of related morphemes g. Finite use of participles in evidential functions (with verbal cross-reference) similar grammatical phenomena h. Idiosyncratic markers for reflexive jussive similar grammatical phenomena

Morphological changes in NS: unexpected (4) Enets and Nganasan isoglosses 7: 6 historical, 1 typological a. Probabilitive *-btV: FE, TE -ta, Ng -bta emergence of a new morpheme; Enets has regular Probabilitive category, Nganasan has a clitic: they are similar in meaning, but vowel correspondence are unclear b. Habitual *-mumpV: FE -obi, TE - bi, Ng -mu ha emergence of a new morpheme c. Anterior converb *kaj(a)-Inf: FE, TE -xaja-Inf, Ng -kaj-Inf emergence of a new morpheme (though in TE andNg the converb has very low frequencies) d. 3Sg.R *-t n: FE, TE -zo ~-z , Ng - emergence of a new morpheme e. Simultaneous converb *pu -: FE, TE -bu , Ng -h emergence of a new morpheme f. Auditive is formally identical to plural possessive forms of noun (e.g. for 3Sg: FE, TE -munu-za, Ng -munu- jt ) - similar patterns of use of related morphemes g. Soft/Future imperative *-kua: FE -ku-ri, TE -kua, Ng -ku ~ -ku similar grammatical phenomena

Morphological changes in NS Phonological domain 25 (68%) Morphological domain 36 (53%) Number of changes spread along the genealogical tree (N, E, or NE) Number of changes challenging the tree, but explainable from the geography (E-Ng, TE-Ng, N- FE, TN-E, or TN-FE) Number of the other changes (TN-FE-Ng, FE-Ng, N- TE) Total 10 (27%) 29 (43%) 2 (5%) 3 (4%) 37 (100%) 68 (100%)

Contact-induced changes in morphology +In situation of contact between unrelated languages, morphological borrowing is a rare case, placed at the furthest edge of the borrowability hierarchy (Thomason 2001). +In contrast, scholars studying language contact among related languages have suggested that restrictions on morphological borrowing in this case are much less visible, be it the form or the pattern (Epps et al. 2013, Mithun 2013, Law 2013, 2014, 2020, Al- Jallad 2013, Beck 2023). +Unlike in some of the languages, NS do not show a single case of a wholesale borrowing of a morpheme, with its sound shape belonging to the source language.

Why areas of dissemination may differ for phonological and morphological changes? +Contrastive timing and stages of interactions between language communities: + E.g. an increase in physical or social distance > separate phonetic changes, though yet too scarce to impede mutual understanding, + later a decrease in physical distance but persistence of social distance > copying in morphology are more probable then in phonology +Dissemination of a pattern expressed by a cognate matter (Pat-El 2013, Law 2020). +Dissemination of frequency of a pattern, cf. a minor use pattern to a major use pattern by Heine & Kuteva (2005) + Both are most possible in the morphological domain: unlike related phonemes, related morphemes have functions which can be copied.

An updated tree Lexical data support the tree: multi-directional borrowings within NS (Kaheinen 2023, Urmanchieva 2023)

An updated tree +The tree not as a model of change, but as a graphical representation of relatedness (e.g. Garett 1999, 2006, Chappell 2001, Harrison 2003, McMahon & McMahon 2005, Heggarty et al. 2010, Drinka 2013, Good 2023, Smith 2023). +Northern Samoyedic languages were hardly ideologically reified as separate languages, but formed dialect continua along which innovations could spread in any directions. +Nomadic people with changing routes > constant change of neighbours

Socio-cultural grounding +Sociolinguistic evidence available for the last 200 years (Khanina 2021). +Convergence: + wide-spread multilingualism and numerous multidirectional shifts within NS, + a particular type of language ideologies: + unstable connection of local social categories/groups to languages, + authenticity of the speech communities based on linguistic repertoires, not on command of individual languages, + identities: relational linguistic indexing which depended on neighbourhood-based social networks more than on ancestry. +Divergence: + breaks in interactions and disappearance of intermediate lects (natural diasters, climate fluctuations, epidemics, etc.) + language shifts > substrate influence; language shifts > new identities

Conclusion +In Northern Samoyedic, phases of divergence alternated with wave-like spread of patterns. +Sharing of some innovations in related languages is a signal of initial joint development (> the same branch) only if there were no later contacts. +If there were contacts, only a full coverage of the linguistic systems is informative: phonological, morphological, and lexical isoglosses need to be studied together to elucidate stages of joint and separate development. +Continuous diversification under intermittent contact could have been ordinary in the pre-neolithic past, so language families whose speakers were nomadic within the time frame attainable for historical comparative method are worth of particular attention.

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