Hyperforeignization as a cause of language change
Previous research (Nagy 1996) has shown that Faetar, a Francoprovençal dialect
spoken in southern Italy, has geminates of two types: lexically marked geminates
in word-medial position and phonologically triggered geminates in word-initial
position (Kattenbusch 1982:169, Ciociola 1972:56, Orlando 1972:36). There are
four possible sources of geminates in Faetar: Italian, Apulian,
Francoprovençal, and spontaneous change. However, none of these, independently,
can account for the presence of all the geminates in Faetar. While contact with
Italian is the ultimate source, I propose that geminates must have become
established in Faetar through the process of hyperforeignization: an
"exaggeration" of a perceived pattern in the source language which is
borrowed into the recipient language. The existence of geminates in Faetar is
unexpected, as Gallic Francoprovençal did not have any geminates by the
fourteenth century, when the first settlers of Faeto came to southern Italy.
According to Bourciez (1930:305), phonemic geminates, with the exception of [rr]
had been simplified throughout Gaul by the ninth century. According to Pope
(1952:147), Latin geminates, including [rr] had degeminated in Old French by the
seventh or eighth century. Presumably this also occurred in Francoprovençal. By
both accounts, there would be no phonemic geminates in the language that became
Faetar (with the possible exception of [rr]).
Although cognate sources can be found for all of the words with geminates in
them, two problems are apparent. Cognate sources of geminates for the words
which don't have geminates in them in Faetar are just as common. Also, there are
other Faetar words with geminates for which no source of the geminate has been
found. Thus the origin of the geminates in such words remains a mystery, if one
stays within the confines of regular sound change.
However, I present one possible account of the history of such words. While
standard and dialectal Italian borrowings can account for the presence of some
geminates in Faetar, a more complex social explanation must be sought to account
for the presence of geminates in words where there is no historical reason for
them to appear. My explanation is based on the concept of hyperforeignization,
with an extension into the domain of native words. Janda, Joseph, & Jacobs
(1994:71) introduce the concept of hyperforeignization, whereby,
in attempting to approximate a perceived L2 pattern, a speaker nevertheless
overextends the latter in such a way as to yield a form which is not natively
found in either L2 or L1.
This phenomenon, combined with the evidence that learning a second language
may affect one's first language phonology (Flege 1987), are the necessary
factors to account for the appearance of geminates in Faetar. I describe some
examples of hyperforeignization affecting borrowings into one's first language,
then give examples of it affecting native words. Finally, I show the role
hyperforeignization played in the development of Faetar geminates.
References
Bourciez, Edouard. 1930. Éléments de linguistique romane. Paris:
Klincksieck.
Ciociola, Raffaela. 1972. Unpublished master's thesis. Università
degli studi di Bari.
Flege, James E. 1987. The production of new and similar phones in a
foreign language: evidence for the effect of equivalence classification. Journal
of Phonetics. 15:47-65
Janda, Rich, Brian Joseph, & Neil Jacobs. 1994. Systematic
hyperforeignisms as maximally external evidence for linguistic rules. In Susan
Lima, Roberta Corrigan and Gregory Iverson (eds.) The Reality of linguistic
rules. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins.
Kattenbusch, Dieter. 1982. Das Frankoprovenzalische in Süditalien.
Studien zur synchronischen und diachronischen Dialektologie. Tübingen: Gunter
Narr Verlag.
Nagy, Naomi. 1996. Language Contact and
Language Change in the Faetar Speech Community. University of Pennsylvania
dissertation. Philadelphia: IRCS.
Orlando. 1972. Bari: Università degli studi di Bari Master's thesis.
Pope, M.K. 1952. From Latin to Modern French. Manchester: Manchester
University Press.
Paper presented at:
The 1997 Meeting of the Modern Language Association
Author: Naomi Nagy
Affiliation: University of New Hampshire
Return to list of Naomi's research
interests.
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