Lexical change
Download as PPTX, PDF10 likes10,681 views
This document discusses lexical change and how languages acquire new words over time through various processes. It outlines the main ways that the English language has gained new words, including: 1) Borrowing words from other languages it has come into contact with, such as Latin, French, and Scandinavian languages. This has significantly expanded the English vocabulary over time. 2) Internal processes of word formation within English like compounding, derivation, conversion, clipping, blending, and the formation of acronyms. 3) More recent changes driven by the internet and social media, allowing for new words and meanings to spread more quickly through informal writing. Languages are changing faster than ever before both online and offline.
Lexical change
- 2. Whydoes a languageacquire new words?
- 3. Why?
- 4. How?Adding new words to a language to use the existinginventory of lexical items.Creating new ones by meas of a regularword-formation process.Resultingtwo alternatives:The oldwordmaydisappear
- 5. Twowordsmaycoexsistexpressingroughly the same concept but differentmeaning or connotationsOld English-the Germanic Basis of English
- 7. Examples10 mostfrequentnouns in Present-day English: time, year, way, man, day, thing (6 are Germanicorigin)FrequentOld English verbsuntiltoday:go, have, think, find, come
- 8. Borrowing I: Early Influences on English
- 9. By the end of 7th century The Christianityconvertion influence Latin wordsblendwitheveryday English language.The new words: angel, altar, nun, monastery, priest, temple (religion context); and school, chest, sock, plant, fennel, fever(education, household and medicinecontext) Contact with speakers of anotherlanguagebrings about the integration of words for new concepts.
- 10. Around 9th and 10th centuryThe entrance of Scandinavian Vikings constitutevery basic vocabulary about daily life aspects
- 11. WordsborrowedfromScandinavianletters:The lexical items of the conquerer’slanguagewould have been adopted by the speakers.More prestigiouslanguagewins out in the bilingualismbringing the drop of the ancestor’slanguage.Prestige plays an important role in lexical change. the dialectspoken in Danelawspread to all part of country not for quitesome time
- 12. Borrowing II: French Influence on English Vocabulary
- 13. England’s 3 spoken language used by different people with different purpose:English for the native English
- 14. French for the new ruling elite
- 15. Latin for the religious, science and learningNew words to express the new concepts as French rule changed the society borrowing French wordsnew ways of governing the country, new laws, new food, new fashionsPrestigiousnamesneeded to do withadministarion, warfare, and arts.Latin continued to be an influentiallanguage and to be a source for new English words.The contact withwrittenlanguagebrought the borrowingwordsenteringEnglish.The words are more formal and stylisticallyelevatedthanFrench borrowings.
- 16. ExamplesNouns beauty, beef, button, complaint, fashion, government, marriage, paper, prince, punishment, toast, volume
- 17. Verbs advise, arrest, compile, furnish, marry, pay, rejoice, reply, roast, seize, stew, summon, wait
- 18. Adjectives courteous, foreign, honest, innocent, large, luxurious, natural, perfect, poor, pure, safe, tender, usualWordsmean the samethings but different connotations
- 19. Borrowing III: fromEarly Modern to Present-Day English
- 20. In 17th century: the decline of latin-enormousincrese in specialistknowledge in the science
- 21. Inadequatelanguage ‘enrichment’ of language
- 22. Turning to Latin and alsoGreek to expand English vocabulary
- 23. The expression of ‘inkhornterm’ useless and artificialadditions of the massive influx of borrowing disappearedwords: adminiculation ‘aid’, accersited ‘summoned, sent for’, deruncinate ‘to weed’
- 24. The remained and form an essential part of the English lexicontoday: Nouns: atmosphere, dexterity, disrespect, expectation Adjectives: conscipicious, habitual, malignant Verbs: assassinate, excavate, extinguish, meditateLatin and French borrowings: more elevated and formal style.Otherlanguageswereadded to the inventory of English written sources, direct contact withother cultures
- 26. Compounding combining of 2 or more existing words to form a new words.Example: diciple’leorning’ & ‘cniht’ (‘learning’ & ‘boy/ attendant’) Derivation/ Affixation creating new words by adding affixes (prefixes and suffixes) to existing words.Conversion (zero derivation) changing the word class of a lexical item without changing its form Example: to drink – to have a drink (V to N)
- 27. Shortening shortening of an existingwordby dropping part of it.
- 28. Clipping: influenza – flu
- 29. Back formation : editor – edit
- 30. Acronyms: NATO – pronounced as single wholeword; BBC – pronounced as separateletter
- 31. Blending (Portmanteaux) combining parts of existingwords to form new ones
- 32. Example: smoke + fog smog breakfast + lunch brunch
- 33. VeryrecentLecixal ChangeThe enormous expansion of the internet has revolutionized the communication patterns in number of ways.Writingdoesn’tinvolverigideditingprocess.Speech-like production of writtenlanguage.The new creations do not mean the new words but othersspread and makeitintogeneral usage.Researchthatlanguageis not onlychangingfast and in interstingways but alsocharting the changes more easilyconducted.
- 34. Driving the changing offers the basis for establishing a thorough linguistic description of what is going on. Example on page 298: the very recent borrowing.Although uber- has become a productive prefix, it is infrequent prefix.