Vorlesung Mechanisms of Linguistic Change PDF

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Mitschriften zur Vorlesung Mechanisms of Linguistic Change...

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Vorlesung 2: Mechanisms of Linguistic Change Language: “the instrument of communication used by a speech community, a commonly accepted system of associations between arbitrary forms and their meanings” Language change: • “involves a disturbance of the form / meaning relationship so that people affected by the change no longer signal meaning in the same way as others not affected – older people in the same community, or people of the same age and neighboring communities. The result is a loss of comprehension across dialects and ultimately, mutual unintelligibility.” • “is not in any way constant, except in the fact of its existence”, • “is sporadic in a deep sense, moving rapidly over some regions of structure until they are distorted beyond recognition in a century or two”, • “is irrational, violent, and unpredictable” 1. Causes of change > internal > psychological (unconscious): (a) ease of articulation the least effort in articulating sounds, leading to the assimilation of neighbouring sounds, to omissions, to clipped forms (b) perceptual clarity the hearer requires that sounds be maximally distinct (c) phonological symmetry phonological systems tend towards structural balance (voiced and voiceless consonants, front and back vowels, etc.); thus, a language introduces phonological elements that create balance, but omits those that cause imbalance (d) universal tendencies certain developments commonly occur in the evolution of language(s), e.g., the development of function words out of free lexical morphemes; these changes are unidirectional (e) efficiency or transparency when a grammatical system becomes too complex, complicated, redundant, and/or irregular, linguistic change makes it more accessible (e.g. regular plural -s in English (with exemptions) Causes of change > internal > psychological (conscious): (a) spelling pronunciation a speaker pronounces a word as it is written rather than as it is conventionally pronounced, e.g., → - often /ˈɒf(ə)n, ˈɒft(ə)n/, - almond /ˈɑːmənd, ˈɑːlmənd/, - falcon /ˈfɔː(l)k(ə)n, ˈfɒlk(ə)n/ (b) hypercorrection a speaker corrects a mistake that actually is none, e.g., → - between you and I (subject/object position) - octupi (not Latin, but from Greek oktōpous) (c) overgeneralisation/analogy overgeneralisation of a linguistic rule or analogical usage of a related (word) form in order to reduce irregularities: *teached, bringed, buyed; two mouses … (d) renewal emphatic forms and euphemisms are in constant need of renewal since their expressive strength ceases over time: very > totally, massively, terribly, big time … (e) reanalysis development of a new understanding of complex grammatical structures, e.g., according | to him becomes according to | him Causes of change > external > language contact: - language contact: can occur in any number of situations such as military invasions, colonisations, immigration, commercial interaction, and other social or political changes; these situations lead to mixed communities and eventually to bi-/multilingualism of a population - effects of fashion/prestige: the spread of a prestigious/innovative linguistic form from one subgroup of the speech community to the speech community as a whole

contact-induced language change: (1) Traditional model to explain the effects of language contact: (a) substratum the language of the dominated group influences that of the dominant group, e.g., Aboriginal languages of North America on North American English (b) adstratum languages spoken by groups of equal political and social power mix and influence each other; this often occurs in border areas or in confined geo-linguistic areas, such as the Balkan peninsula, Scandinavia, etc. (c) superstratum the language of the dominant group influences the language of the dominated group, e.g., influence of English in Ireland on Irish-Gaelic (also substratum…) (2) changes in the vocabulary: - loanwords/borrowings loanwords are taken from one language and assimilated quickly into another, becoming ‘nativised’ (e.g., Anglicised, Germanised, Gaelicised, etc.) both phonologically and morphologically without being translated; e.g., IrG iarn ‘iron’ > ON járn > Nor/Dan jern, Swe järn, Ice járn - loan translations: English: thoughtful(ly) vs. pensive(ly) English: download-ed > German: gedownload-et (or down ge-load-et? runtergeladen?) - borrowings may affect both vocabulary and grammatical system; the extent of borrowing from one into another language depends on the degree of the speakers’ language fluency (and bilingualism): little fluency > only non-basic vocabulary borrowed; high fluency > function words, basic and nonbasic vocabulary, and grammatical structures borrowed - extreme language mixture: development of Pidgins and Creoles (see session 14) e.g., Tri pipo go di kam. ‘Three people will be coming.’ (Cameroon Pidgin English) /mi aalmuos lik 'im/ ‘I nearly hit him’ (Jamaican Patois) - language death: most extreme result of a contact situation (e.g., many Aboriginal languages in North America, continental Celtic languages in the Roman Empire, …) 2. Mechanisms of Phonological Change phonological changes are usually prompted by the difficulty of coordinating articulatory movements (ease of articulation) or the need for perceptual clarity; sound changes tend to be highly regular and can be reduced to a set of rules; unconditioned (sound shift) and conditioned changes (conditioning environment) (a) Assimilation: is a process whereby a sound becomes similar to an adjacent sound in voicing, manner or place of articulation - partial assimilation • e.g., PDE husband: when -band is attached to hus, the final [s] is voiced to [z], to be articulatory closer to the following voiced sound [b] - complete assimilation • e.g., ME wimman: when -man is attached to wif, the [f] becomes [m] to match the following [m]; other examples are: collate, correct - regressive assimilation • one sound reaches back to affect the preceding one as the speaker - anticipates the articulation to come (see above) - progressive assimilation • one sound reaches forward to affect the following sound, e.g., the past marker -ed where [d] becomes [t] when the preceding sound is a voiceless consonant as in rushed, missed, kicked, hoped, matched - distant assimilation • process whereby a sound to which another sound assimilates is found in the neighbouring syllable, e.g., Umlaut – OE mȳs “mice“< mūs “mouse“+ i (b) Dissmilation process whereby a sound becomes dissimilar to an adjacent sound; it works in the opposite direction to the process of assimilation; very often with [l], [r], e.g., Latin purpur > ModE purple

(c) Addition of a sound (intrusion/epenthesis) – OE þunor > ModE thunder, – prince, mince with a stop [t] between a nasal [n] and a fricative [s]. – schwa epenthesis: ath(e)lete, chim(e)ney, fil(e)m, far(e)m, … (d) Metathesis (reversal of a sequence of sounds) – Spanish tronada > ModE tornado – OE beorth > ModE bright – thridda > third (e) Loss of a sound (elision) • atheresis (the loss of an initial sound), e.g., about > `bout; ModE knife • syncope (the loss of a medial sound), e.g., mem(o)ry, bus(i)ness, ev(e)ning • apocope (the loss of a final sounds), e.g., OE nama > ModE name, OE sunu > ModE son; all final consonants are prone to loss, e.g., thousand [θauzn], dumb, hymn, husband, … (f) Other types of sound change • sound changes affecting the whole phonological system rather than lexical items, e.g., palatalisation OE kirk > ME cirice > ModE church

3. Mechanisms of Morphological and Syntactic Change (a) Analogy: Process by which one form becomes like another one with which it is somehow associated; it contributes to regularisation of language; words of very high frequency tend to resist analogical changes and to be the most irregular forms of the language, e.g., to be (am, is, are, was, were) (= suppletive paradigm) (b) Back formation or false analogy speakers derive a morphologically simple word from a form which they analyse as morphologically complex, e.g., • babysitter < to babysit (by analogy to to teach > a teacher) (c) Folk etymology word, which is unfamiliar or has become unfamiliar and which is associated with a more familiar word, is given a new history, e.g., • female < French femelle (femme + the diminutive ending -elle) (d) Grammaticalisation process by which a word with full lexical meaning becomes a lexically empty grammatical marker, e.g., the conversion of a full verb into an auxiliary verb: 1. The lexical verb to go (‘to walk’) 2. Reanalysis due to ambiguity: the notion of lexical movement in space or the notion of lexical movement in time: – She is going [to the policeman] – She is going [to ask the policeman] 3. Overgeneralisation: the grammatical marker of futurity gonna: It is gonna to rain. 4. Mechanisms of Semantic Change (a) Generalisation the widening of the scope of meaning, e.g., – holiday (a holy day only) – carry (to transport in a vehicle) (b) Specialisation the narrowing of the scope of meaning, e.g., – lust (general desire) – meat (food) (c) Pejoration the acquisition of a less favourable meaning, e.g., – a villain (a common person), a clown (a rural person), an idiot (an ignorant person), poison (potion, drink), cunning (knowledgeable) (d) Amelioration is the acquisition of a more favourable meaning, e.g., – queen (a woman of good birth) … an engineer (plotter, schemer), a boy (rascal, servant), a mansion (house), success (outcome, result)

(e) Weakening using a stronger word than required by the circumstances, e.g., awfully nice (‘very nice’) (f) strengthening using a weaker word than required by the circumstances, e.g., euphemisms like ladies room, WC, comfort station (‘toilet’) (g) Figurative shifts a transfer of meaning from one referent to another Metonymy, e.g., – new blood, bread (‘food’); the pen is mightier than the sword, blood, sweat and tears (‘hard word’) Metaphor, e.g., – Latinate words like to report ‘to carry back’, to translate ‘to carry across’, to affirm ‘to make firm’, to explain ‘to make flat’, etc. – native words/expressions like to grasp a point, get the joke, catch one meaning, a deep thought, etc. (h) Pragmatic strengthening e.g., since 1. Since dinner I have been reading. 2. Since he left, I feel unhappy. – a temporal meaning: ‘After he left, I feel unhappy’ – a causal meaning: ‘Because he left, I feel unhappy’ 3. Since you are rich, why don’t you buy a new house? While? Because? …...