Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt)
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!udel!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!peernews.demon.co.uk!storcomp.demon.co.uk!philip
Subject: Re: PBS is at it again---so are the Linguists
References: <794098172snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk> <D4tvGs.Ew8@midway.uchicago.edu>
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Date: Sat, 4 Mar 1995 22:08:44 +0000
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In article <D4tvGs.Ew8@midway.uchicago.edu>
           need@bloomfield.uchicago.edu "Barbara Need" writes:
> > > There is good evidence that Old English was strongly  
> > > Germanic to the end of the period (and you should read Thomason and  
> > > Kaufamn (Language Contact, creolization and genetic lingustics) re the  
> > > influence of Norse on English--mostly negligible).
> > 
> > It was strong enough that some function-words in modern English come
> > from Norse (eg "they").
> 
> I'll grant you that, but this need not be creolization. It may merely be a  
> case of borrowing, which is not the same.

I never said it was evidence of creolization. I was refuting the
remark that the influence of Norse on English was "mostly negligible".
 
> > English can be regarded as a creole based on OE and Norman French.
> 
> Well, no. There is no evidence that English after the conquest went  
> through either pidginization or creolization (at least not as I understand  
> these terms). These are distinct processes and the language situation in  
> England was not one of these. I admit there may have been a kind of  
> diglossia, with the conquerers speaking French and the locals English, and  
> there may have been a kind of pidgen English spoken by the French, but  
> that is not the source of Modern English, which was well on its way to  
> losing case endings (often cited as a result of creolization). Look at  
> some English from just before and just after the
> conquest. There are no major changes, just continuing development of  
> already existing tendancies. (A good source is the Peterborough Chronicle  
> which goes until Stephen's death.)

You might well be right here. But IMO the way that particles like "can",
"must" etc are used in English, when the equivalents in OE and Norman
French are AFAIK normal infinitive verbs, suggests to me that creolization,
or something similar, has occured.

-- 
Phil Hunt...philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk
Majority rule for Britain!
