Written by the world-renowned pioneer in the field of modern sociolinguistics, this volume examines the cognitive and cultural factors responsible for linguistic change, tracing the life history of these developments, from triggering events to driving forces and endpoints.

List of Figures. List of Tables. Foreword. Preface. Abbreviations. 1 Introduction to Cognitive and Cultural Factors in Linguistic Change. 1.1 Cognitive Factors. 1.2 Cultural Factors in Linguistic Change. 1.3 Convergence and Divergence. 1.4 The Darwinian Paradox Revisited. 1.5 Divergence and the Central Dogma. 1.6 The Community Orientation of Language Learning. 1.7 The Argument of this Volume. 1.8 The English Vowel System and the Major Chain Shifts of North American English. Part A Cross-Dialectal Comprehension. 2 Natural Misunderstandings. 2.1 The Collection of Natural Misunderstandings. 2.2 Modes of Correction. 2.3 How Common Are Misunderstandings? 2.4 What Is the Role of Sound Change in Misunderstanding? 2.5 The Linguistic Focus of the Misunderstandings. 2.6 The Effect of Mergers. 2.7 Chain Shifts. 2.8 Philadelphia Sound Changes. 2.9 r-less vs r-ful Dialects. 2.10 Sound Changes General to North America. 2.11 An Overview of Natural Misunderstandings. 3 A Controlled Experiment on Vowel Identification. 3.1 The Peterson–Barney Experiment. 3.2 Replicating the Peterson–Barney Experiment. 3.3 Overall Success in Identification. 3.4 Responses to the Chicago Speakers. 3.5 Responses to the Birmingham Speakers. 3.6 Responses to the Philadelphia Speakers. 3.7 Overview. 4 The Gating Experiments. 4.1 Construction of the Gating Experiments. 4.2 Overall Responses to the Gating Experiments. 4.3 Comprehension of the Northern Cities Shift in Chicago. 4.4 Recognition of Chicago Sound Changes in the Word Context. 4.5 The Effect of Lexical Equivalence. 4.6 Comprehension of Southern Sound Changes in Birmingham. 4.7 Comprehension of Philadelphia Sound Changes. 4.8 Overview of the Gating Experiments. Part B The Life History of Linguistic Change. 5 Triggering Events. 5.1 Bends in the Chain of Causality. 5.2 Causes of the Canadian Shift. 5.3 Causes of the Pittsburgh Shift. 5.4 Causes of the Low Back Merger. 5.5 The Fronting of /uw/. 5.6 The Northern Cities Shift. 5.7 An Overview of Triggering Events. 6 Governing Principles. 6.1 The Constraints Problem. 6.2 The (Ir)Reversibility of Mergers. 6.3 The Geographic Expansion of Mergers in North America. 6.4 Principles Governing Chain Shifts. 6.5 Principles Governing Chain Shifting within Subsystems. 6.6 How Well Do Governing Principles Govern? 7 Forks in the Road. 7.1 The Concept of Forks in the Road. 7.2 The Two-Stage Model of Dialect Divergence. 7.3 The Fronting and Backing of Short a. 7.4 Divergent Development of the /o/ ~ /oh/ Opposition. 8 Divergence. 8.1 Continuous and Discrete Boundaries. 8.2 The North/Midland Boundary. 8.3 Communication across the North/Midland Boundary. 8.4 The Two-Step Mechanism of Divergence. 8.5 Unidirectional Change: The Low Back Merger. 8.6 Consequences of the Low Back Merger for the English Vowel System. 8.7 Resistance to the Low Back Merger. 8.8 Further Differentiation by Chain Shifts. 8.9 A General View of Linguistic Divergence in North America. 9 Driving Forces. 9.1 The Importation of Norms. 9.2 Locality. 9.3 Social Networks and Communities of Practice. 9.4 Socioeconomic Classes. 9.5 Acts of Identity. 9.6 The Relation of Social Classes in Apparent Time. 9.7 Gender as a Social Force. 9.8 The Regional Dialect. 9.9 Accounting for the Uniform Progress of the Northern Cities Shift. 10 Yankee Cultural Imperialism and the Northern Cities Shift. 10.1 The North/Midland Boundary. 10.2 The History of the North/Midland Boundary. 10.3 The Material Basis of the North/Midland Opposition. 10.4 The Cultural Opposition of Yankees and Upland Southerners. 10.5 Coincidence with Geographic Boundaries of Political Cultures. 10.6 Red States, Blue States, and the Northern Dialect Region. 10.7 Relation of Dialects to County Voting Patterns. 10.8 The History of the Death Penalty. 10.9 Ideological Oppositions in the North. 10.10 The Geographic Transformation. 11 Social Evaluation of the Northern Cities Shift. 11.1 The North/Midland Experiment 1. 11.2 Conclusion. 12 Endpoints. 12.1 Skewness as an Index of Approach to Endpoint. 12.2 Social Characteristics of Endpoints. 12.3 The Eckert Progression as the Product of Re-Analysis by Language Learners. Part C The Unit of Linguistic Change. 13 Words Floating on the Surface of Sound Change. 13.1 The Issues Reviewed. 13.2 The Fronting of /uw/. 13.3 The Fronting of /ow/. 13.4 Homonyms. 13.5 The Raising and Fronting of /æ/ in the Inland North. 13.6 Overview. 13.7 Participation in Sound Change. 13.8 The Modular Separation of Phonological and Social Factors. 13.9 Conclusion. 14 The Binding Force in Segmental Phonology. 14.1 Is There Allophonic Chain Shifting before Nasals? 14.2 Allophonic Chain Shifting in the Southern Shift? 14.3 The Binding Force. Part D Transmission and Diffusion. 15 The Diffusion of Language from Place to Place. 15.1 Family-Tree and Wave Models of Change. 15.2 Defining Transmission and Diffusion. 15.3 Structural Diffusion. 15.4 Accounting for the Difference between Transmission and Diffusion. 15.5 Diffusion in Dialect Geography. 15.6 The Diffusion of the NYC Short-a System. 15.7 The Transmission and Diffusion of Mergers and Splits. 15.8 Diffusion of the Northern Cities Shift. 15.9 The Social Context of Transmission and Diffusion. 15.10 Prospectus. 16 The Diffusion of Language from Group to Group. 16.1 Diffusion to the AAVE Community. 16.2 Influence of Surrounding Dialects on AAVE Pronunciation. 16.3 The Diffusion of Constraints on -t, d Deletion to Children in Minority Communities. 16.4 The Diffusion of Grammatical Variables to Adult Members of the African–American Community. 16.5 Directions of Diffusion in the Latino Community. 16.6 The Nature of Diffusion across Communal Boundaries. 17 Conclusion. 17.1 Summary of the Argument. 17.2 The Relation of Linguistic Change to Animal Systems of Communication. 17.3 More on the Functions of Language. 17.4 Social Intelligence and Object-Oriented Intelligence. Notes. References. Index.

This third and final volume of the Principles of Linguistic Change set examines the cognitive and cultural causes responsible for linguistic change, and traces the history of these developments, from triggering events to driving forces and endpoints. Labov draws upon the newly completed Atlas of North American English to look more deeply into questions of linguistic change, focusing on the cognitive factors that determine the capacity of the linguistic system to transmit information, and exploring social influences in the development of large-scale cultural patterns. The third volume also deals with the diffusion of change across dialect boundaries, and across racial and ethnic groups. It establishes an essential distinction between transmission within the community, which is dependent on child language acquisition, and diffusion across communities, which is dependent on adult learning. This final installment in the Principles of Linguistic Change series builds upon the foundations established by the groundbreaking first two volumes. Volume 1 investigates the internal factors that control change, examining the regularity of sound change and reviewing the evidence for functional explanations of linguistic change. Volume 2 follows by presenting the social factors governing linguistic change and proposed models for the transmission and incrementation of change. Written by the pioneering researcher of sociolinguistic inquiry, Principles of Linguistic Change is an essential resource for researchers, scholars and students in the field.

Forward. Chapter 1. Cognitive and cultural factors in linguistic change. Part A. Cross dialectal comprehension. Chapter 2. Natural misunderstandings. Chapter 3. A controlled experiment on vowel identification. Chapter 4. The gating experiments. Part B. The life history of linguistic change. Chapter 5. Triggering events. Chapter 6. Governing principles. Chapter 7. Forks in the road. Chapter 8. Divergence. Chapter 9. Driving forces. Chapter 10. Yankee cultural imperialism and the Northern Cities Shift. Chapter 11. Social evaluation of the Northern Cities Shift. Chapter 12. Endpoints. Part C. The unit of linguistic change. Chapter 13. Words floating on the surface of sound change. Chapter 14. The binding force in linguistic change. Part D. Transmission and diffusion. Chapter 15 The diffusion of language from place to place. Chapter 16. The diffusion of language from group to group. Chapter 17. Conclusion.