Outline of Chapter 10: Language Change

1
Outline of Chapter 10 Language Change

• ? Phonological Change 503
• ? Morphological Change 506
• ? Syntactic Change 508
• ? Lexical Change 510
• New Words 511
• Loan Words 512
• Semantic Change 515
• Broadening 515
• Narrowing 516
• Meaning Shift 516

2
History of English

• Old English 449-1066
• 449 Saxons invade Britain
• 6th c Religious literature
• 8th c Beowulf
• 1066 Norman Conquest
• Middle English 1066-1500
• 1387 Canterbury Tales
• 1476 Caxtons printing press
• 1500 Great vowel shift
• Modern English 1500-
• 1564 Birth of Shakespeare

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
2003. An Introduction to Language, 7th ed.
Boston, MA Wadsworth, p. 500.
3
Regular Sound Correspondence

• English /f/ French /p/ Spanish /p/
• father père padre
• fish poisson pescado
• (patrimony)
• (piscine)

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
2003. An Introduction to Language, 7th ed.
Boston, MA Wadsworth, p. 502.
4
Regular Sound Correspondence

• Indo-European /p/
• Latin /p/ Proto-Germanic /f/
• French /p/ Spanish /p/ English /f/ German /f/
• poisson pescado fish F

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
2003. An Introduction to Language, 7th ed.
Boston, MA Wadsworth, p. 502.
5
Historical Phonological ChangeOld/Modern English

• ADD New Sounds
• leisure ?
• azure ?
• over (ofer) v
• LOSE Old Sounds
• night n?xt
• drought druxt
• CHANGE Old Sounds
• elk (eolh) ??lx ?lk
• hollow (holh) h?lx h?lo
• house u a?
• feet e i

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
2003. An Introduction to Language, 7th ed.
Boston, MA Wadsworth, p. 503.
6
Modern English Morphological Endings

• INFLECTIONS (Only eight left)
• Vs Ns Aer
• Ving Ns Aest
• Ved (Ns)
• Ven
• NO GENDER

7
Modern English Morphological Endings

• CASE ENDINGS Disappeared
• EXCEPT Genitive s
• EXCEPT Pronouns
• I you he she it we they
• me you him her it us them
• my your his her its our their
• mine yours his hers its ours theirs

8
Irregular Native English Words

• (brother)
• child
• foot
• goose
• louse
• man
• mouse
• ox
• tooth
• woman

9
OLD ENGLISH NOUN DECLENSIONS

• hound child foot ox
• Singular
• Nom. hund cild f8t oxa
• Acc. hund cild f8 oxan
• Gen. hundes cildes f8tes oxan
• Dat. hunde cilde f4t oxan
• Plural
• N.-Ac. hundas cildru f4t oxan
• Gen. hunda cildra f8ta oxena
• Dat. hundum cildrum f8tum oxum

The Origins and Development of the English
Language, fourth edition. Thomas Pyles and John
Algeo. Fort Worth Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
College Publishers, 1993.
10
OLD ENGLISH VERB FORMS-1

• INF PRET PAST PARTIC
• keep c4pan c4pte gec4ped
• buy bycgan bohte geboht
• carry ferian ferede gefered
• end endian endode geendod
• have habban hQfde gehQfd
• say secgan sQgde gesQgd

The Origins and Development of the English
Language, fourth edition. Thomas Pyles and John
Algeo. Fort Worth Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
College Publishers, 1993.
11
OLD ENGLISH VERB FORMS-1

• 
  keep help
• 
  Present-Indicative
• I c4pe helpe
• you(sg) c4pest hilpst
• he,she,it c4peD hilpD((
• we,you(pl),they c4paD helpaD
• Present-Subjunctive
• singular c4pe helpe
• plural c4pen helpen
• Imperative
• singular c4p help
• plural c4paD helpaD

The Origins and Development of the English
Language, fourth edition. Thomas Pyles and John
Algeo. Fort Worth Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
College Publishers, 1993.
12

• Infinitive
• c4pan helpan
• t8 c4pennet8 helpenne
• Present-Participle
• c4pende helpende
• Preterit-Indicative
• I c4pte healp
• you(sg) c4ptest hulpe
• he,she,it c4pte healp
• we,you(pl),they c4pton hulpon
• Preterit-Subjunctive
• singular c4pte hulpe
• plural c4pten hulpen
• Past Participle
• gec4ped geholpen

The Origins and Development of the English
Language, fourth edition. Thomas Pyles and John
Algeo. Fort Worth Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
College Publishers, 1993.
13
Old English, Middle English, and Modern
EnglishVerb Forms

• OLD MIDDLE MODERN
• ENGLISH ENGLISH ENGLISH
• findan finden find infinitive
• fundon f8nde(n) found pret. pl.
• funden f8nde(n) found past part.

The Origins and Development of the English
Language, fourth edition. Thomas Pyles and John
Algeo. Fort Worth Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
College Publishers, 1993.
14
Modern English Verb

• keep
  help
• 
  Present-Indicative
• he, she, it keeps helps
• OTHER keep help
• Present-Subjunctive
• ALL keep help
• Imperative
• keep help
• Infinitive
• keep
  help
• To keep
  to help
• Present-Participle
• keeping
  helping
• Preterit-Indicative / Subjunctive, Past
  Part.
• kept helped

15
Etymology of Nag

• nag lt Scandinavian (as in Swedish nagga,
  obsolete Danish nagge, to nibble, gnaw, nag) lt
  Old Norse gnaga
• for Indo-European base see GNAW
• for sense development see FRET1

Websters New World College Dictionary, third
edition. Victoria Neufeldt, editor in chief.
New York Macmillan, 1997.
16
Sources of New Words

• Derivation
• Compounding
• Acronyms
• Back-formation
• Clipping / Abbreviations
• Eponyms (words from names)
• Blends

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
2003. An Introduction to Language, 7th ed.
Boston, MA Wadsworth, p. 511.
17
Lexical Change

• Borrowings
• Native
  Foreign
• English
  Source
• 20,000 most common 40 60
• 500 most common 71 29
• Tokens in running text 80
• New Words
• Chapter 3 Morphology
• Loss of Words

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
2003. An Introduction to Language, 7th ed.
Boston, MA Wadsworth, p. 512.
18
Uncommon Words in Modern English

• fain gladly
• wot know
• wherefore why
• beseem to be suitable
• mammet doll or puppet
• gyve a fetter

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
2003. An Introduction to Language, 7th ed.
Boston, MA Wadsworth, p. 515.
19
Semantic Change

• Broadening of Meaning
• dog specific breed
• holiday only religious days
• picture only painted
• Narrowing of Meaning
• meat food
• deer animal
• hound any dog
• Meaning Shifts
• knight young man
• lust pleasure
• lewd ignorant
• silly happy
• fond foolish

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
2003. An Introduction to Language, 7th ed.
Boston, MA Wadsworth, pp. 515-516.
20
Comparative Method of Reconstruction

• French Italian Spanish Portuguese
• cher caro caro caro dear
• champ campo campo campo field
• chandelle chandela candela candeia candle
• k m p

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
2003. An Introduction to Language, 7th ed.
Boston, MA Wadsworth, p. 521.
21
Four Hypothetical Languages

• Lang A Lang B Lang C Lang D
• hono hono fono vono
• hari hari fari veli
• rahima rahima rafima levima
• hor hor for vol

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
2003. An Introduction to Language, 7th ed.
Boston, MA Wadsworth, p. 521.
22
Three Chinese Dialects

• Mandarin Cantonese Taiwanese
• 1 / i / / j?t / / dzit /
• 2 / ?? / / i / / n?? /
• 3 / san / / sam / / sã /
• 4 / sz / / sei / / si /
• 5 / wu / / ? / / g? /
• 6 / l?ou / / lok / / lak /
• 7 / t??i / / t?s?t / / t?sit /
• 8 / pa / / pat / / pue? /
• 9 / t??ou / / kau / / kau /
• 10 / ?r / / s?p / / tsap /
• These are not official IPA spellings. Only a
  limited font was available. The transcriptions
  may also be inaccurate because of faulty hearing.

23
Zhuang and Chinese Words

• Cung go
• Zhongguo
• Yin min
• Ren min
• Yan man
• Yinhang
• Yinhang
• ha gak
• Wu jiao
• gok
• ha cib maen
• Wu shi yuan
• sap man

24
Chapter 11 Homework(Exercise 3, pp. 538-539)

• a. It nothing pleased his master
• Nothing pleased his master
• b. He hath said that we would lift them whom that
  him please.
• He has said that we would lift those who
  please him.
• c. I have a brother is condemned to die.
• I have a brother who is condemned to die.
• d. I bade them take away you.
• I asked them to take you away.
• e. I wish you was still more a Tartar.
• I wish you were even more of a Tartar.
• I wish even more that you were a Tartar.
• f. Christ slept and his apostles.
• Christ slept and his apostles did too.
• Christ and his apostles slept.
• g. Me was told.
• I was told.

25
Chapter 11 Homework(Exercise 5, p. 540)

• a. False thing
• / k / before / a / in Latin becomes French / ? /
• b. True tail
• Otherwise we might have expected / ? /
• c. False
• There are NO examples of / s / and /k/ in
  complementary distribution.
• d. True Latin / kertus /
• We have two examples of Latin words with
• / ke / (deer and hundred) that become
• / s? /

26

• (A)

Original Language
Todays Languages
27

• (B)

Original Languages
Todays Languages Source(s) of Todays
Languages Adapted from David Crystal. 1987. The
Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge
Cambridge University Press, p. 291.
28
In Search of the First Language

• Nova Series
• Overview / Table of Contents
• ? Introduction to Historical Linguistics
• ? Comparative Method
• ? Indo-European languages
• ? Interlude
• ? Sino-Tibetan languages
• ? African languages
• ? Native American languages
• ? Language Isolates
• ? Language Change
• ? Nostratic
• ? Evolution of Language
• ? Conclusion