HEL UNIT 3

 

Changes

 

Languages are always changing: today:

How? and to a lesser extent, why?

The WHY is very uncertain, especially since many causes seem to have no functional value.

We cannot say that languages are always improving or degrading.

 

 

CAUSES of language change:

Many changes can be explained with reference to more than one of these

 

         

INTERNAL:

 

languages change all by themselves:

Subconscious

 

Harmony / euphony: make it sound nice

 

 

 

Ease of articulation:

least effort in articulating sounds:

All organisms natural desire to preserve energy.

Vowels become schwa.

kilometer

 

Consonants are simplified

 

Sounds are always affecting each other.

Clothes

Street

February (Wednesday?)

Drawer

Truck

 

Efficiency / transparency:

 

the seeming desire to :

·       simplify grammar

·       reduce redundancy

·       remove irregularity

this is never, ever achieved 100%

non -s plurals

irregular” verbs

 

 

Conscious changes:

 

ANALOGY:

Make things like each other, to reduce irregularities (usually)

how children learn:

Teached

(“regularize” an “irregular” verb; this has happened throughout the history of English)

 

Sometimes the other way around:

dived / dove

brang

 

Spelling pronunciation:

Pronouncing a word how it is spelled, instead of how it has been pronounced historically

derived from a misunderstanding of the relationship between writing and speaking

 

often, almond, comptroller

(Wednesday?)

 

cupboard, boatswain, forehead (rhymes with horrid?)

 

the historical spelling can be erroneous

cf. island, comptroller

 

          Hypercorrection:

In seeking to avoid a perceived error, creating a new error

 

Pronunciation:

don’t flap your -t-s”!

voter, letter, matter > cheddar

 

don’t drop your “-gs

Running, walking >kitchen-g, chicken-g

 

don’t drop your -r’s” (east coast only)

Cuba-r, tuba-r

 

 

Grammatical:

don’t say ‘me’ say ‘I’”

between you and I

even Obama says it (even Shakespeare says it)

 

Over-use of adverbs

Stick an –ly on everything

 

         

EXTERNAL Sources of Language Change:

 

Language contact

Less significant than internal causes

Confused popular view:

they’re ruining the language”:

whoever they are, they are probably having a minimal effect

 

Greatest external influence seen in vocabulary:

Consider Spanish; historically, French and Latin

 

Loan words:

quickly anglicized”: is this true?

Latin words: syllabi? octopus?

Spanish words; Italian words

prestigious” non-anglicized pronunciation

 

Loanwords have been coming in since before English was actually even a language

 

 

 

 

 

Mechanisms of Phonological Change

 

 

 

First off: how do we know what languages used to sound like?

Very difficult business, based on a couple centuries of work

It is, in fact, a very complicated science

·       How do we know about planets?

·       How do we know about the layers of the earth?

·       How do we know about atoms?

 

 

Some of the more understandable ones:

o     Rhymes

o     onomatopoeia

§   (warning: animals don’t all sound the same in all languages)

o     related languages

o     hypotheses based on modern languages

o     Great Vowel Shift

§   look at all the European languages--why is English different?

 

 

Most important linguistic punctuations:

>  becomes” /  < “derived from”

oxen > *oxes

chicken < cicen

 

Sound Changes:

Quite regular: previously talked of as LAWS

 

 

Unconditioned change:

every instance of a given sound changes, regardless of its phonological environment:

sound shift

o   First sound shift (“Grimm’s Law”)

§  /p/ > /f/, etc.

o   Great Vowel Shift

 

 

 

 

 

Conditioned changes:

depends on a given sounds phonetic environment

changes which tend to only affect individual lexical items, rather than the whole sound system:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assimilation: sounds become like neighboring sound. 

A type of Ease of articulation

Think about Hus band (unvoiced > voiced)

Con + plete >

Con + late >

In + put >

 

Regressive assimilation /anticipation:

The sound to the “left” assimilates to the sound on the “right”

 

IN- (= “not”) +

 

i[m]partial,  i[m]mature, i[m]balance              (bilabials)

i[n]dependent                                  everywhere else

i[ŋ]considerate, i[ŋ]convenient, i[ŋ]gratitude  (velars)

 

 

Progressive assimilation:

the sound on the right assimilated to the sound on the left

why some –ed’s are pronounced /t/

 

Rushed, missed, kicked: ends in voiceless sound

cf. rubbed, jammed: ends in voiced sound

 

why some “s” are pronounced /z/

/s/     kicks, jumps (unvoiced)

/z/     rubs, jams; families (voiced)

 

Dissimilation:

 

sounds become unlike neighboring sounds, for clarity:

Pilgrim ( < perergrinus)

purple (< purpur)

diphthong

 

 

 

Addition of a sound (intrusion)

 

Prince (prints)

sense (cents)

dense (dents)

mince (mints)

are these MISpronunciations?

 

warm(p)th

leng(k)th

bo(l)th

wa(r)sh

 

 

excrescent (additional sound at end)

soun > sound

vermin > varmint

across > acrosst

saw > sawl

demon > “demand”

 

 

 

 

 

additional syllable

Ath(e)lete

chim(e)ney

fil(e)m

old Norris

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Loss of a sound:

Memory

Barbara

Theresa

Veteran

 

 

castle

caulk

handsome

What would it be called if we pronounced these?

Lots of OE examples

silent letters”

know, gnaw, through

 

 

 

 

 

 

Metathesis:

Reversal of two sounds:

Wednesday

Sp tronanda > tornado

OE beorht > bright      

OE axian > ask

nuclear

chipotle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other types of changes, which may affect the phonological system in a wider sense

 

Allophones become phonemes:

As all the voiced and unvoiced fricatives in Modern English

s/z,  th/th, f/v

 

zip/sip

bath/bathe

house/hou[z]e

 

 

 

 

 

Vowels change in quality:

raising

fronting

backing

lowering

diphthongization / monophthongization

 

 

 

 

 

Vowel change in quantity:

Lengthening and shortening

 

 

 

Consonant changes in manner or place of articulation:

 

 

Palatalization :

s > shStreet”

k > ch

j > dg “jeet?”

 

for anticipation; like miss you

 

 

Rhotacism

s > r

 

 

 

 

Morphological and Syntactic Change

 

ANALOGY

Tidying up: removing irregular forms

Knives/lives/wives

 

Is this just spelling or pronunciation?

How do you pronounce:

Roofs

 

 

 

 

ANAOLOGY in affixes:

Reduction of all plurals to –s (against a wide variety in OE)

Analogical ending (-s) become regular/productive

 

Applied to new words and foreign words

but also hypercorrection for some foreign words

“*octopi”; *apparati; “*opi

 

Some old forms survive:

Oxen/children/feet/ SHEEP

 

they are never used a means for pluralizing new words in the language”

but what of fish-types, and things like deer: caribou?

 

 

 

Words of very high frequency tend to resist analogy, and remain irregular

To be

man/ men

foot/ feet

pronouns

 

 

 

False Analogy:

 

Children’s mistakes

“I was used to”

children internalize grammar without effort

—they are not parrots

brang

 

Back-formation:

but a productive method of word formation, so beware the “false”

Burgle / babysit / televise

Zipper > (verb?)

Swiffer > (verb?)

 

 

 

 

False morphological analysis

Cerise > cherry

Pease > pea

 

 

 

 

Folk-etymology

Kitty/catty corner

island

bridegroom

Spare ribs (G ribbe sper “split”)

Jerky (Quechua charqui, “dried”)

Cole slaw (D kool-sla, “cabbage salad”)

Chaise lounge (F Chaise-longue)

 

 

 

 

 

Grammaticalization

 

·       Words with lexical meaning are reduced to grammatical markers, often to compensate for the loss of grammatical inflections

 

·       A word can be grammaticalized and still retain its lexical meaning in other circumstances

 

Prep. “to” vs. inf. marker “to”

“I am” vs. “I am going”

have

used to”

 

 

 

Auxiliary verbs which have lost all lexical meaning:

will, would, shall, should, (can, could)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conservative vs. innovative changes:

 

Conservative:

No change in sum total or grammatical categories and distinctions, just form in which it’s done. 

EMod English bringeth > brings

 

No degradation at all: it’s just different

 

Innovative:

genuine loss or gain of grammatical distinctions

thou > you

          we no longer have a distinct 2nd person singular pronoun

 

OE dual pronouns cease to exist

 

 

Semantic Change:

 

Words change their meanings

always have, always will

 

Dictionaries cannot even keep up with this

Original / etymological meaning:

often imperfect, because can only go back to oldest written records

earliest attestation”

 

 

The etymological fallacy:

Insistence on the sanctity of the etymological meaning:

Earliest attestation: the oldest written occurrence of a word; very important for lexicography, but does not tell us everything.

 

 

Decimate

dilapidated

 

 

 

How about virtue?

 what does “revision” really mean

companion?

holiday?

Christmas?

 

 

 

 

 

Generalization / Specialization

 

 

G: mill; barn < bere (barley)-aern; box

 

S: deer; starve; acorn; cellar

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pejoration / Amelioration

 

P: knave (boy); churl (man); lewd (lay); boor (farmer); corpse

A: praise (appraise); Earl (eorl); steward; success

 

 

 

 

Weakening / Strengthening

 

W: awfully; awesome

 

S: molest

 

Euphemisms:

primitive attitude toward language:

Words have strength:

He-who-must-not-be-named

God names

 

As many ways to do this as all semantic shifts:

often requires renewal:

toilet

 

“GO” goes all the way to OE: gangstool

 

Some modern ones:

ethnic cleansing (genocide)

IED

Extraordinary (beyond the ordinary) rendition (legal, “handing over”)

 

OED DRAFT ADDITIONS DECEMBER 2006

extraordinary, adj., adv., and n.

Description: Description: Description: Description: * extraordinary rendition n. the seizure and transportation of a criminal (esp. terrorist) suspect, esp. for covert interrogation in a country considered to have less rigorous regulations for the humane treatment of prisoners; an instance of this.