Hist Ling. Ch 7

Front 1

historical linguistics

Back 1

- concerned with both description and explanation of language change
- nature and reason for change
- compare relationships, est families

Front 2

Natural cause of change

Back 2

- no 2 ppl acquire identical grammar
- differences even less than dialectical diffs
- diffs gradually lead to lang change after many generations
- ppl who speak diff'ly acting as model for child
- lang change = built into lang acquisition

Front 3

Regularity (evenly, uniformly arranged) and Systematicity of lang change

Back 3

- dev. of fixed SVO word order in modern english affected all verbs, not just few
- vowel change ɑ: did not only occur for 1 word, but rep'd regular development of Old English vowel ɑ: > ɔ: > o

Front 4

Causes of Lang Change (3)

Back 4

1) Articulatory Simplification
2) Analogy and reanalysis
3) Language contact

Front 5

Why lang change inevitable and why does it follow predictable universal patterns?

Back 5

- children must acquire grammar from available data
- children draw from same physiological and cognitive endowment - same patterns consistently and repeatedly manifested in all langs

Front 6

Articulatory Simplification

Back 6

- most sound changes have physiological basis
- typically result in artic simplif
- ease of articulation
- ex: simplification of C clusters
- by deletion of C - fɪfs - fifths
- insertion of V - æθ ə lit

Front 7

Analogy and Reanalysis

Back 7

- internal/cognitive factors as basis
- role in change of the grammar

Front 8

Analogy

Back 8

- reflects preference for regular patterns over irreg ones
- extension of regularity on basis of inference that if elements alike in some respects, should be alike in others as well
- similarities: phonological or semantic characteristics
- Ex: phonol'cal, sting/stung, swing/swung -> bring/brung in some dialects
- Ex: in acquisition - kids generalize regular -ed past tense form to produce goed, knowed
- impt role in morphological change too

Front 9

Reanalysis

Back 9

Reinterp an existing structure as new meaning
- partic common w/ morphological change (folk etymologies)
- morphol: attempt to attribute compound or root+affix structure to word formerly not broken down into component morphemes
- Ex; hamburger (meat patty from Hamburg) reanalyzed as ham+burger
- new morpheme created "burger"
- reanalysis leads to back formation

Front 10

Language Contact

Back 10

situation where speakers of 1 lang interact freq'ly w/ speakers of other lang or dialect through sustained and massive contact
- result: borrowing, esp where many bi/multilinguals
- borrowing affects lexicon most
- can affect phonetics/phonol
- new phonemes or allophones
- German velar fric x (Bax-Bach)
- if signif borrowing, segment may be new phoneme
- MidEngl London dialect dev contrast btwn f and v through contact w/ other engl dialects and french which had v in word-initial position
- sensitive to dominance rel's (US Engl vs Native indian)
- lingua franca - requires prestige
- diff varieties of Engl acq round world
- heading towards "family of Engl language"
- Massive L2 Acquisition - cause of change - swahili lost tone as phonemic contrast

Front 11

Language contact change in S Florida (even w/ monolinguals)

Back 11

- pragmatic - come/go
- phonetics - less vowel reduction (cus Spanish is syllable timed)
- less aspiration

Front 12

Creole (lang contact)

Back 12

- (disputed) initial stages based on pidgin
- at this time dev as creole or die
- Bickerton - possible to create creole in 1 generation - Nicaraguan sign lang
- more institutional background, the quicker the formation of creole

Front 13

Knowledge of lang change comes from study of ____ and _____. Change is highly systematic and regular.

Back 13

Romance langs (how developed out of latin)
English (great written evidence of Old, Mid, and Modern + Latin)

Front 14

Nature of/Types of Changes (4)

Back 14

1) Sound
2) Morphological
3) Syntactic
4) Lexical and Semantic

Front 15

Sound Change

Back 15

Processes of phonetically conditioned change - usu. bring artic simplif - over time, signif phonol change
- focus on segment change and sequential segment change

Front 16

Sound change Types (2)

Back 16

1) Articulatory - Sequential, segmental
2) Auditory

Front 17

1) Sequential Change (6)

Back 17

1. Assimilation
2. Dissimilation
3. Epenthesis
4. Metathesis
5. Weakening/ Deletion
6. Consonantal Strengthening

Front 18

1* Assimilation (def)

Back 18

- most common type of sequential change
- increases efficacy of articulation thru simplification of artic mvmts
- partial assim over time can result in total assim
- Ex: stop assim's totally to a following stop Italian octo> otto eight

Front 19

Assimilation types (3)

Back 19

1. Place
2. Voicing
3. Manner -Palatalization/Affrication and Nasalization

Front 20

1. Place

Back 20

- Ex - nasals assimilate in place of articulation to the following consonant
- Ex: Spanish - semda-> senda (path)
- Ex: Latin - inpossibilis -> im

Front 21

2. Voicing

Back 21

voicing assimilation
- Ex: Old Engl - slæpde > slæpte > slɛpt - Regressive
- Ex: stefn > stmn > stem(N) - Progressive

Front 22

3. Place/Manner - Palatalization/Affrication

Back 22

effect that front Vs or j have on velar, alv, and dental stops, making articulation more palatal
- 1st step in changing palatalized stops to affricates
- ex: Romance langs:
- latin-italian- [k]centum>[tʃ]cento 100
- medius>mezzo[dz] half
- VL or VC depends on voicing of orig stop

Front 23

4. Manner - Nasalization

Back 23

nasalizing effect that nasal C can have on adjacent V
- change occurred in French and Portuguese w/ subsequent loss of nasal C
- Latin-Port: bon- > bom [bõ]
- un- > um [ũ]

Front 24

2* Dissimilation

Back 24

process whereby segment is made less like another segment in its envir
- musch less freq than assim
- typically occurs when diff to artic or perceive two sim sounds n close proximity
- Latin anma> alma avoiding 2 consec nasal sounds
- can affect non-adjacent seg's
- Latin arbor> Spanish arbol, Italian albero
- avoiding 2 instances of r in adjacent syllables

Front 25

3* Epenthesis

Back 25

insertion of C or V into particular envir
- some cases, caused by anticipation of upcoming sound
- ex: earlier Old Eng vs later Old Eng: ganra>gandra gander
- epenthetic stop [d] has place of artic of preceding nasal but agrees w/ following seg invoice and place
- transitional bridge
- break up sequence of sounds either difficult to pronounce or not permitted in language
- Ex: Spanish avoidance of word-initial [sk]
- latin [sk]schola> [esk]escuela
- [sk]scribere > [esk]escribir

Front 26

4* Metathesis

Back 26

change in relative positioning of segments
- can affect adjacent or nonadjacent segments
- Ex: Old Eng earlier v later form: wæps>wæsp wasp
- Ex: latin miraculum> Spanish milagro
- l and r switched places

Front 27

5* Weakening and Deletion

Back 27

happens to C and V
-frequency of use contributes to shortening: ev'ry vs summery
- vowel deletion preceded diachronically by vowel reduction
- typically affects short Vs in unstressed sylls and may affect all or subset of full Vs
- Ex: Old, Middle, Modern: stanas[a] > stones[ə] > stones ∅
- Ex: MidEng, Modern, initial [kn] lost, [k] deleted
- consonants particularly subject to weakening in intervocalic envirs

Front 28

Pathway of C weakening

Back 28

VL stop>VL fric or VC stop> VC fric > Nasals > Liq > Glides
- geminate C's stronger
tt> t> θ or d > ð > ∅
- Ex: Romance: Latin-Spanish: mittere>meter (to put)
Latin-Old Spanish maturus>maduro
Old Spanish-Spanish
maduro>maðuro
Old French>French
[maðyr]>mûr

Front 29

6* Consonantal Strengthening

Back 29

glide strengthening to affricate is particularly common, esp in word-initial position
- Ex: Latin-Italian: [j]iuvenis> [dʒ]giovane (young)

Front 30

1)cont. Segmental Change (not necess. caused by envir)

Back 30

complex segments (affricates) commonly subject to simplification (deaffrication to fricative)
- Deaffrication in French means early borrowing into Engl maintain affricates, later borrowing shows fricative
- Old French: [tʃ]chaiere> chair [tʃ]
- Mod French: [ʃ]chandelier> [ʃ]chandelier

Front 31

2) Auditorily Based Change

Back 31

substitution - type of auditorily based change involving replacement of segment with another similar-sounding segment
- f replacing x or θ
- mid english-english: laugh[x]>laugh[f]
-english-Cockney:thin[θ]>[fin]

Front 32

All sound changes lead either to phonetic or phonological change

Back 32

phonetic = new allophone
leads to phonol= splits, mergers, shifts

Front 33

Phonol Split

Back 33

allophones come to contrast due to loss of conditioning environ.
- creation on ŋ phoneme
- /sɪng/ = [sɪŋg] >
- deletion of [g] > [sɪŋ] > /sɪŋ/

Front 34

Phonol merger

Back 34

2 or more phonemes collapse into a single one
-auditorily based substitution ex of Cockney
- /θ/ and /f/ -> /f/ thin and fin=/fɪn/
- /ð/ and /v/ -> /v/ smooth=/smuv/

Front 35

Phonol shift

Back 35

change in which series of phonemes systematically modified so organization w/ respect to one another altered
-Great English Vowel shift (mid to Modern) - modification to long vowels
- high Vs -> DTs (xclude ɪ/ʊ)
- others moved up (e:&ɛ:>i:)

Front 36

Causes of phonol shifts?

Back 36

possibly explained by TENDENCY for langs to maximize use of space in oral cavity
- langs w/ 7+ Vs often undergo diphthongization - reaction to overcrowding of phonol space - doesnt infringe on simple V space

Front 37

Morphological Change (Affix)

Back 37

1) Affix addition (borrowing)
-French -ment into MidEng as whole units, eventually used w bases not French in origin (acknowledgment, merriment)
2) Affix loss
- loss of OldEng case + gender affixes thru sound change (C & V deletion) - 5 markers to 1 ('s)
- [m] deleted from dative plural
- V's reduced>deleted in unstressed affixes
- AS RESULT, case+gender distinctions obliterated

Front 38

Morphological Change in general

Back 38

analytic - few inflec affixes
synthetic - many inflec affixes
- sound change and affix add/loss ensures endless morphological transitions
- English: once synthetic->more analytic

Front 39

Morphology (Analogy)

Back 39

-sound change effect on morphology often alleviated by analogy
- hands is result of earlier analogy with MidEngl hund (hound) which formed plural with -s (-as OldEng)
- if only sound change, would be handa>handə>hand
- continuing analogy - youse; some dialects
- temporary extension by kids - sheeps, gooses, mouses
-

Front 40

Morphology (Reanalysis)

Back 40

- can result in new morphological structure for a word for both native and borrowed words
- woodchuck - Algonquian borrowing unrelated to wood or chuck
- affixes - OldEng complex suffix -lic + e reanalyzed as as adverbial suffix
- then used by analogy to derive adverbs from adjective in forms it was not used before - ModEngl deeply
- can result in new productive patterns (as for (-)burger)

Front 41

Syntactic Change

Back 41

- can involve modifications to phrase structure and transformations

Front 42

Word Order

Back 42

- all langs make S/DO distinction
- case marking or Word Order
- As OldEnglish lost case marking, word order became less variable, more set
- during MidEngl period, fixed SVO order became way to mark grammatical relations
- in terms of most basic structure, engl changed from SOV in Early Germanic to SVO in ModEng
- OldENg represents transitional syntactic type
- evidence: OV compound man+strike = manslaughter

Front 43

Inversion

Back 43

- in Old and MidEng yes-no question inversion rule applied to all verbs not just auxiliaries
- Speak they* > Can they speak?

Front 44

Lexical Change

Back 44

- modification to lexicon (focus on entire words)
- addition, loss

Front 45

Addition of Lexical Items

Back 45

through word formation processes or borrowing
- innovation and cultural contact can lead to lexical gaps
- Word formation processes: compounding and derivation (N:verb+er) (Adj: N+ful)
- always been available to English speakers
- still, conversion, not avail to OldEng

Front 46

Addition of Lexical Items (Borrowing)

Back 46

depending on cultural relationship, langs can have 3 types of influence:
1. substratum - infl of politically or culturally nondominant lang
-borrowing usu restricted to place names or unfamiliar items
-Celtic substratum- Thames, London
2. superstratum - effect of dominant lang
-Norman French infl on English related to Norman conquest in 1066
-word rel'd to political, cultural, judicial notions borrowed (tax, art, judge)
- desire to speak like social superiors
3. adstratum - neither one pol. or cult. dom
- starting in 800, Scandinavians settled part of England
-borrowing of common, everyday words (cake,egg,husband)

* tendency: highly frequent words are relatively resistant to loss or substitution through borrowing

Front 47

Loss of Lexical Items

Back 47

Often lost through cultural change, as notions/objects become obsolete, words fall into disuse
-OldEng - flytme - a blood-letting instrument

Front 48

Semantic change

Back 48

-typically, changes are step-by-step
1) Broadening - meaning of word becomes more general or inclusive
-bird - "small fowl">"any winged creature"
2) Narrowing - meaning becomes less general or inclusive
-hound - "any dog">"hunting breed"
3) Amelioration/Pejoration - meaning becomes more positive/negative
-Amel- pretty- "tricky, sly">"attractive
-Pej- wench- "girl">wanton woman, prostitute
4) Weakening/strengthening - change in intensity/force
-weakening more common bc we're more prone to exaggeration v understatement
-Weak- quell-kill,murder>pacify
-Strength- appalled- feeble,pale>deeply dismayed
5) Shift- word loses former meaning and takes on new, often related meaning
- immoral-not customary>unethical
-sometimes series of shifts result in meaning completely unrelated to original meaning
-gay: happy>homosexual>bad
6) Metaphor - word w/ concrete meaning takes on new abstract meaning though orig meaning not lost
-grasp>understand

Front 49

Spread of Change (2 types)

Back 49

how do linguistic innovations spread?
1. Diffusion thru the language
2. Spread thru population

Front 50

diffusion thru lang

Back 50

1)lexical diffusion - change manifest self in few words then gradually spreads thru vocabulary
- Ex: ongoing change in stress pattern in words which can be used as verbs or nouns - stress of noun form changing to first syllable - rebel, outlaw, record
v re'port v 'address/a'dress
2) Sound change - not gradual - typically affect all instances of segment
-some dialects of spanish- consonantal weakening of s to h in syl-final position - feli[h]mente
- change is entirely regular, applies w/o exception

Front 51

spread thru population

Back 51

- particular innovation must be accepted by ling community as whole
- often appear in speech of small group of ppl and is spread or limited by social pressures pushing for imitation of prestigious variety
- loss of post-vocalic r in east coast +south originated in certain parts of England
-Penn + midland states - most prestigious group Quakers retained post-valic r
- r-less pronunciation now stigmatized in some areas

Front 52

Discovery of Indo-European

Back 52

late 18th Cent
Sir William Jones, British judge discovered that Sanskrit (ancient lang of India) rel. to Latin, Greek, Germanic, Celtic in verb roots and gramm'l forms
-led to decades of historical-comparative work and major advances in 19th C
-by studying phonetic correspondence saw that most langs of:
Europe,
Persia,
northern India
belong to single family
-reconstructed grammar of protolanguage from which these langs evolved Proto-Indo-European

Front 53

Rasmus Rask

Back 53

early 19th cent
Danish linguist
-documented rel's among cognates and est'd methods, w/o access to Sanskrit

Front 54

Franz Bopp

Back 54

German scholar
-1st comparative linguistic analysis of Sanskrit, Greek, Persian, Germanic

Front 55

Jacob Grimm

Back 55

- early 19th C
- German
- extended Rask's work
- 1st person to explain relationships among cognates in terms of SOUND shift

Front 56

Grimm's Law

Back 56

phonological shift (systematic change of series of phonemes)
- consonant shifts between Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Germanic
- VL stops became frics
- VD stops became VL
- asp VC stops> VD stops
English words borrowed from Latin/French later on maintained Proto-Ind-Eur Cs
- Latin ped> pedestrian instead of fedestrian

Front 57

Lang Change and naturalness

Back 57

some changes more natural than others
-suggested by sim of changes across langs and directionality of change
- IF naturalness is factor in change - manifestations should be found in lang acq and lang universals
- Universal: all langs have CV sylls and variety of sound changes reduce less nat'l syll types to more natural CV
- C deletion - [kn]V cluster>[n]V
- V epenthesis - Italian-Sicilian croce>kiruci cross
Also, CV one of first syll types to be acquired
BUT some sound changes do produce less natural sylls YET probably satisfy diff parameter of naturalness (like preference for shorter phonological forms)
- can be conflicting naturalness factors

Front 58

processes of change also seen _______ vs _______ in children

Back 58

-synchronically (@ particular moment) - children babbling CV
-diachronically (over per. of time) deletion of C, epenthesis of V toward CV