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I am so grateful to the editors of Diachronica for letting me write this piece in memoriam of Bill Labov.

And so grateful that they let me write what I most wanted to - a piece about Bill's *goodness*, his love for humanity, and how those things *resulted in* what we think of as his genius

🐦

Diachronica journal @diachronica.bsky.social · Sep 8

www.jbe-platform.com/content/jour... is now out, @betsysneller.bsky.social 's beautiful tribute to Bill Labov

Falling in love with humanity | John Benjamins

Abstract William (Bill) Labov, pioneering scholar of language change, died on December 17, 2024. His MA and PhD theses in the mid 1960s revolutionized the field of language variation and change, and h...

www.jbe-platform.com

September 10, 2025 at 10:33 AM

Reposted by Diachronica journal

NILOMORPH

@nilomorph.bsky.social

New publication on Dinka by NILOMORPH member Mirella Blum - "Dialectal tone description enhances historical tonology", in @diachronica.bsky.social

www.jbe-platform.com/content/jour...

Dialectal tone description enhances historical tonology | John Benjamins

Abstract This paper illustrates that in-depth descriptive work of closely related varieties of Dinka, a Nilotic tone language with an unusually complex suprasegmental system, provides solutions to pre...

www.jbe-platform.com

September 17, 2025 at 11:12 AM

Diachronica journal

@diachronica.bsky.social

Falling in love with humanity benjamins.com/catalog/dia....

Falling in love with humanity: Remembering Bill Labov

William (Bill) Labov, pioneering scholar of language change, died on December 17, 2024. His MA and PhD theses in the mid 1960s revolutionized the field of language variation and change, and he spent t...

benjamins.com

September 8, 2025 at 1:06 PM

Diachronica journal

@diachronica.bsky.social

Multiple source explanation in language change benjamins.com/catalog/dia....

Multiple source explanation in language change: The emergence of auxiliary do

The development of the English auxiliary do is a well-studied phenomenon, but there is no agreement on its source (see Denison 1993: Chapter 10). It has been suggested in the literature that a mono-ca...

benjamins.com

September 8, 2025 at 1:06 PM

Diachronica journal

@diachronica.bsky.social

The history of the [ɨm] causatives in Mapudungun benjamins.com/catalog/dia....

The history of the [ɨm] causatives in Mapudungun: From regular phonology to lexicalisation

This paper describes and analyses a historical alternation in what contemporary Mapudungun has developed as a set of transitive roots ending in [Cɨm], where C can represent a labial stop, a retroflex ...

benjamins.com

September 8, 2025 at 1:06 PM

Diachronica journal

@diachronica.bsky.social

The history of the [ɨm] causatives in Mapudungun benjamins.com/catalog/dia....

The history of the [ɨm] causatives in Mapudungun: From regular phonology to lexicalisation

This paper describes and analyses a historical alternation in what contemporary Mapudungun has developed as a set of transitive roots ending in [Cɨm], where C can represent a labial stop, a retroflex ...

benjamins.com

September 8, 2025 at 1:05 PM

Diachronica journal

@diachronica.bsky.social

www.jbe-platform.com/content/jour... is now out, @betsysneller.bsky.social 's beautiful tribute to Bill Labov

Falling in love with humanity | John Benjamins

Abstract William (Bill) Labov, pioneering scholar of language change, died on December 17, 2024. His MA and PhD theses in the mid 1960s revolutionized the field of language variation and change, and h...

www.jbe-platform.com

September 8, 2025 at 1:03 PM

Diachronica journal

@diachronica.bsky.social

Diachronica benjamins.com/catalog/dia....

Benjamins now has a "share on bluesky" button (along with Facebook and LinkedIn)

benjamins.com

August 23, 2025 at 12:56 PM

Diachronica journal

@diachronica.bsky.social

Método comparativo para la determinación de préstamos de lenguas indígenas no habladas en el español benjamins.com/catalog/dia....

Método comparativo para la determinación de préstamos de lenguas indígenas no habladas en el español
El caso de los cognados en el muysca
ORCID logoDiana Andrea Giraldo Gallego | Universidad de Antioquia
El muysca pertenece a la familia lingüística chibcha y aunque se clasifica como una lengua no hablada, préstamos léxicos con su origen sobreviven en el español de Colombia. Aquí se muestran algunos de estos que se identificaron como tales al implementar el método comparativo. Los préstamos determinados bajo este método se tomaron de Giraldo Gallego (2015). Se concluye que (a) el método comparativo es útil para determinar préstamos de lenguas indígenas no habladas en el español, como ocurre con el muysca; (b) la comparación con lenguas no habladas favorece la propuesta de cognados de lenguas habladas, como acontece con el tunebo; (c) la propuesta de cognados permite la identificación de rasgos fonéticos-fonológicos, como en el caso de un posible segmento lateral alveolar aproximante para el muysca (Giraldo Gallego 2016a); y, además, (d) ayuda en la reconstrucción de étimos en una protolengua como se evidencia con el protochibcha.
Keywords: cognado, familia lingüística chibcha, muysca, préstamo léxico, protochibcha

August 23, 2025 at 12:55 PM

Diachronica journal

@diachronica.bsky.social

A long farewell benjamins.com/catalog/dia....

A long farewell
What the loss of V2 made briefly visible
ORCID logoCecilia Poletto | Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main | Università degli studi di Padova
ORCID logoPierre Larrivée | Université de Caen Normandie
ORCID logoFrancesco Pinzin | Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main
ORCID logoMathieu Goux | Université de Caen Normandie
The verb second word order (V2) is known to have been present in some Medieval Romance languages, and to have been lost. The loss is however a gradual process that we propose to relate to the decreasing height of the verb movement in the left periphery through the Medieval period: whereas in the initial period the verb could move to a high position (CP Topic/Focus projection), in the final period only lower peripheral positions are accessible. This means that the ongoing change will make visible constructions involving verb movement to a lower position. Such constructions are studied here in parallel texts calibrated for provenance and text type from two Romance languages for the period from the beginning of the 14th century to the 16th century. More specifically, we investigate Participle and Infinitive Fronting in French and Venetian, showing that these structures involve low movement and correlate with a V2 of the low type.
Keywords: verb second, language change, fronting, Medieval Romance, French,

August 23, 2025 at 12:54 PM

Diachronica journal

@diachronica.bsky.social

Emergence and evolution of free variation in Central Pame prefixes benjamins.com/catalog/dia....

August 23, 2025 at 12:53 PM

Diachronica journal

@diachronica.bsky.social

Towards reconstructing grammatical tone in the northwestern Bantu verb phrase benjamins.com/catalog/dia....

In this paper, I provide a first systematic analysis of grammatical tone (GT) in the verb phrase of northwestern (NW) Bantu languages. Based on a sample of twelve languages, I show that GT on preverbal subject agreement, tense, aspect, mood, and polarity markers, on the verb stem, and tonal phrase-medial/phrase-final verb distinctions are inherited features. In contrast, GT on elements immediately following the verb is an innovation in some genealogical subgroups of NW Bantu. In Proto-NW-Bantu, GT generally co-occurred with segmental morphemes. This “co-exponence” type is retained in the Proto-B clade of NW Bantu, while languages of Proto-A innovated more exponence types, namely tone-only and segment-only exponents, synchronically exhibiting all three exponence types in individual languages.

August 23, 2025 at 12:52 PM

Reposted by Diachronica journal

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they)

@ruthejbooth.bsky.social

"If your books were uploaded to LibGen/fed into the LLMs, add your name to the potential class action lawsuit by tomorrow." Details:

LibDem database: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Attorney form: www.lieffcabraser.com/anthropic-au...

(This information comes via a reliable Discord source.)

Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI

Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.

www.theatlantic.com

August 14, 2025 at 5:30 PM

Diachronica journal

@diachronica.bsky.social

We will be at ichl next week! Happy to talk about potential submissions

August 15, 2025 at 3:28 AM

Reposted by Diachronica journal

Andrew Garrett

@andrewgarrett.bsky.social

Entirely selfishly, I'm also pleased by echoes of work I've done: "Convergence in the formation of IE subgroups: Phylogeny and chronology" (2006); "Descent and diffusion in language diversification: A study of Western Numic dialectology" (with Babel, Houser & Toosarvandani, 2013).

August 2, 2025 at 12:00 AM

Diachronica journal

@diachronica.bsky.social

New article in the tone special issue
#linguistics
benjamins.com/catalog/dia....

Accent and tone
The double origin of the Paicî prosodic system
Florian Lionnet | Princeton University

Accent and tone
The double origin of the Paicî prosodic system
ORCID logoFlorian Lionnet | Princeton University
What happens when an accentual language develops a tonal contrast from laryngeal features: is the accent system kept alongside the new tone contrast? Is it lost? Do both prosodic systems merge? In this paper, I present the tone system of Paicî, which illustrates the latter outcome. Paicî seems to possess two integrated prosodic subsystems: a purely tonal H vs. L contrast, and a typologically unusual downstep with accentual properties. Building on Rivierre (1978), I show that a comparison with neighboring Xârâcùù, where accent is marked by a similar downstep, explains this apparently mixed system: the H/L tonal contrast emerged through tonogenesis in an already accentual language, where accent was marked by a downstep just like in Xârâcùù. This caused the former downstep to be reinterpreted as tonal. The Paicî case is interesting for the study of the interactions between accent and tone, both in synchrony and in diachrony.
Keywords: tone, accent, downstep, Paicî, Xârâcùù, Oceanic, New Caledonia

August 1, 2025 at 1:58 PM

Diachronica journal

@diachronica.bsky.social

New article in our tone special issue
#linguistics
benjamins.com/catalog/dia....

Tonogenesis
A diachronic typology
Lilja Maria Sæbø | Oxford University
Eitan Grossman | The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Steven Moran | University of Neuchâtel | University of Zurich

Tonogenesis
A diachronic typology
ORCID logoLilja Maria Sæbø | Oxford University
ORCID logoEitan Grossman | The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
ORCID logoSteven Moran | University of Neuchâtel | University of Zurich
This article presents the Database of Tonogenetic Events (DTE), which describes 259 tonogenetic events from 104 genealogically and geographically diverse language varieties. The DTE allows us to identify the main types of reported tonogenesis triggering contexts, the types of resultant tones, and their effects on pitch. We illustrate the usefulness of the database with case studies addressing (i) the frequency of different types of tonogenesis, (ii) the diachronic pathways linking phonological triggering context and resultant tone, and (iii) areal trends. We also discuss the shortcomings of the database with respect to the diachronic typological study of tone.
Keywords: tonogenesis, typology, tone, historical linguistics

August 1, 2025 at 1:57 PM

Reposted by Diachronica journal

Nicole Holliday

@mixedlinguist.bsky.social

Another reason humans are infinitely better than "AI": it can't keep up with language change. Urban Dictionary bests Gemini every time!

Gemini's definition of wireback:
The term "wireback" is not a recognized or established slang term. It's likely a misspelling or a misunderstanding of other terms

Urban dictionary definition of wireback: A slang term used to mock robots or AI, poking fun at their reliance on messy wires and artificial support, like a half-baked machine acting clever.
"That wireback botched it, guess the tin trash can’t keep up with the humans again!"

July 31, 2025 at 7:31 PM

Reposted by Diachronica journal

Henry Sweet Society

@henrysweetsoc.bsky.social

Are you working on topics related to the history of linguistics?🫵
Consider submitting an article to ✨Language & History✨, the journal of the Henry Sweet Society! It is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal published 3 times per year both online and in print.
www.henrysweet.org/language-and...

Language & History — Henry Sweet Society

Published in 3 issues per year both online and in print, Language & History is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal that aims to promote the study of the history of all branches of linguistic…

www.henrysweet.org

July 31, 2025 at 7:45 PM

Reposted by Diachronica journal

Julie A. Hochgesang

@jahochcam.bsky.social

So glad this is out! Still wish we had the data processed in time for @jmhenner.bsky.social to use but pleased to have his contribution in more ways than 1. See below for a brief commentary re Jon, deaf linguists & participating in SiL research and doing it in a way that disrupts or crips it all

Series of 3 images of Jon during Zoom session expressing full support for open access in ASL

Zoom window of 4 participants - top left to bottom right - Frank smiling, Jon with two-handed heart gesture, Leeann smiling and Julie holding heart over heart with 🥹 face

Twitter thread showing Jon’s belief in open access work and recognition of the work it takes. Text:

Jon Henner @jmhenner - Paying participants. Assistants. Language Coders. Web coders. Web maintenance. Web systems. Technology.
This scales. If I want a project with 10 people I need to seed it thinking ahead.
5:15 PM - Dec 15, 2021

Julie A. Hochgesang, PhD @jahochcam Dec 15, 2021
Exactly

Hoping that #MoloASL will be released this upcoming summer and part of
#05S5ASL in the spring with more as the year progresses

Jon Henner @jmhenner • Dec 15, 2021
***
I don't want to collect good data and let it die on a VHS tape on my shelf like two generations ago. It needs to be available and accessible.

July 31, 2025 at 7:44 PM

Diachronica journal

@diachronica.bsky.social

New #linguistics article!
Late Malayo-Polynesian
A new model of Austronesian linguistic relations
Alexander D. Smith | Fudan University
benjamins.com/catalog/dia....
Keywords: Malayo-Polynesian, Austronesian, subgrouping, linkages, language contact