LIN 201

1
LIN 201

• Fall 2007
• Lecture XXVI (26)
• Language change II

2
Reminders

• 1. Final Exam Thurs., 12/13, 245-445 PM,
  Stolkin Aud.
• 2. Review Sheet Available today.
• 3. Review Session Tues., 12/11, 1045 AM to1215
  PM, RTBA.

3
Announcement

• Requests to take the Final Exam at some time
  other than the scheduled time must meet the
  conditions for getting credit for a missed
  Recitation illness, serious family problems
  (death in the family, etc.), etc.

4
A note on the multintional character of Canada

• (French) Quebec lies inside (English-majority)
  Canada. There is another minority nation inside
  Quebec -- the Cree nation of Native Americans.
  The attitudes of the Quebecois toward the Cree is
  similar to the attitudes of English-speaking
  Canadians toward Quebec -- the majority (in the
  case of Quebec, the French speakers) should say
  what policies are adopted by the state.

5
Agenda

• 1. Videotape. The Mother Tongue. (concl.)
• 2. Change in mental grammars.
• 3. Interactions.
• 4. Why languages change.

6
Agenda

• 1. Tape The Mother Tongue Questions Course
  Reader, pp. 155-157.

7
Agenda

• 2. Changes in the mental grammars of speakers of
  a language.

8
Phonological change (1)

• Previous cases --
• 1. r-lessness Addition of a phonological rule
  to the mental grammars of speakers.
• 2. hoose gt house Change in the pronunciation of
  a set of lexical items.
• 3. pie gt pa

9
Phonological change (2)

• Loss of unstressed syllables. stone (FR, p.
  468)
• Old English Middle English.
• stane ston
• stana ston
• stanum ston

10
Morphological change

• Analogy (past tense forms)
• Middle Eng Modern Eng
• clumb climbed
• holp helped
• weeshe washed
• shope shaped
• shove shaved

11
Syntactic change

• Old English is an Inflectional language Modern
  English is a Word Order language.

12
Inflectional language (1)

• THE KING MEETS THE BISHOP
• se cyning meteth thone biscop.
• thone biscop meteth se cyning.
• THE BISHOP MEETS THE KING
• se biscop meteth thone cyning.
• thone cyning meteth se biscop.

13
Word order language (1)

• Example (Modern English)
• The bishop saw the king. and The king saw the
  bishop. have different meanings.

14
Agenda

• 3. Interaction among phonological, morphological,
  and syntactic change.

15
Syntactic change

• How did Old English (an Inflectional language)
  change to Modern English (a Word Order language)?

16
Case endings (FR, pp. 467-8)

• Nominative Subject of the sentence John left.
• Genitive Possessor Johns book.
• Dative Receiver Mary sent a letter to John.
• Accusative Object Harry saw John.

17
Old English -- Inflectional

• Nouns (FR, p. 468 stone)
  Case Form
• Nom se stan the stone
• Gen thaes stanes of the stone
• Dat thaem stane to the stone
• Acc thone stan the stone

18
A phonological change (1)

• Loss of unstressed syllables and endings. stone
  (FR, p. 468)
• Old English Middle English.
• thaem stane gt the ston
• thara stana gt the ston
• thaem stanum gt the ston

19
A phonological change (2)

• Loss of unstressed syllables (cont.) --
• Initial change Addition of a phonological rule
  deleting unstressed syllables.

20
Morphological results (1)

• Loss of case endings and analogy (the stone)
• Old English Middle English
• se stan gt the ston
• thaes stanes gt the stones
• thaem stane gt the ston
• thone stan gt the ston

21
Morphological change

• Loss of case endings --
• Later change (change in the mental grammars of
  later generations) Gradual loss of the
  morphological (inflectional) rules that determine
  the case endings for Nouns.

22
Syntactic results

• Since case endings were no longer present to
  indicate whether a Noun was a Subject or an
  Object or a Receiver, the only way to indicate
  this was by Word Order and/or by Prepositions.

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• 1. Phonological change occurred to eliminate
  unstressed syllables resulting in
• 2. loss of morphological distinctions among Noun
  cases which led to
• 3. syntactic change from Inflectional to Word
  Order.

24
Agenda

• 4. Why languages change.

25
FR, pp. 494-496 (1)

• 1. Child language acquisition.
• Ex clumb gt climbed.
• 2. Societal change.
• Ex television.
• 3. Ease of articulation.
• Ex Loss of unstressed syllables.

26
FR, pp. 494-496 (2)

• 4. Analogy
• Ex clumb gt climbed. (Overgeneralization)