Is There Convergence in Language Death? Evidence from Chipewyan and Stoney

Abstract

There have been explicit claims and implicit assumptions that extensive and drastic structural reductions that occur in dying languages are due to convergence and confluence. This article argues that structural decay and change in language death are not caused by external influence but by an impeded and premature process of acquisition. Critical reviews of some well‐known convergence analyses (including Chipewyan) are presented to demonstrate that changes are not due to convergence but internally motivated. The conservative features in dying dialects and innovative changes in a thriving dialect of Stoney further suggest that convergence never or rarely occurs in the final stage of language death.