Week 10 lin321 types of language change

LIN321 Week 10
Language Change
Types
Dr. Russell Rodrigo

Language is always changing: pronunciations evolve, new words
are borrowed or invented, the meaning of old words drifts, and
morphology develops or decays.
There are three major types of language change:
1. Lexical
2. Grammatical
3. sound level.

1. Lexical Level
Lexical level refers to changes in
the meaning of words:
1- Loss Lexical Items – same
phonemic structure but different
meaning [6].
Eg.”Bank”; or phonetic attrition
”refrigerator” -”fridge”.

Lexical level
Cont.
2- Change of meaning – semantic change due
to historical or psychological factors [6].
Types of changes (p. 553):
a. Extensions
b. Reductions
c. Elevations
d. Degradations

Types of Lexical Changes
1. Semantic Extensions – occurs when the set of appropriate contexts or referents for a word increases. Often the
result of generalization from specific case to the class of which the specific case is a member.
E.g. Old English: docga (a particular breed of dog), Modern English: dog (class of dogs as a whole)
2. Semantic Reductions – occur when the set of appropriate contexts or referents for a word decreases.
E.g. OE: hund (referred to dogs in general) ME: hound (now refers to a few particular breeds of dogs)
3. Semantic Elevations – occur when a word takes on somewhat grander or more positive connotations over time.
E.g. OE: Knight (youth or military follower), ME: Knight (elevated to refer to people of somewhat more
romantic and impressive status).
4. Semantic Degradations – the opposite of elevations; occur when a word acquires a more pejorative meaning over
time.
E.g. OE: lust ( simply meant pleasure)
ME: lust (making its current association with sinfulness, a degradation of the original meaning.

Semantic Change (p.567)
► Using the Oxford English Dictionary or some other etymological reference, find the modern and
earlier meanings of each of the following words. What kind of semantic change (extension,
reduction, elevation, or degradation) has occurred in each case?
1. Cynic
2. Hacker
3. Anecdote
4. Grotesque
5. Parakeet
6. Leer
7. Captivated
8. paisley

Answers
1. Cynic
1. Hacker
1. Anecdote
1. Grotesque
ME: A person who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for
honourable or unselfish reasons.
OE: The name of a gymnasium where Antisthenes taught, but popularly taken to mean ‘doglike,
churlish’, kuōn, kun-, ‘dog’ becoming a nickname for a Cynic.
SEMANTIC DEGRATION
ME: A person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data.
OE: a chopper, cutter," perhaps also "one who makes hacking tools," early13c. (as a surname)
SEMANTIC DEGRATION
ME: A short amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person.
OE: Late 17th century: from French, or via modern Latin from Greek anekdota ‘things unpublished’,
from an- ‘not’ + ekdotos, from ekdidōnai ‘publish’.
SEMANTIC ELEVATION
ME: Comically or repulsively ugly or distorted.
OE: Mid 16th century (as noun): from French crotesque (the earliest form in English), from Italian
grottesca, from opera or pittura grottesca ‘work or painting resembling that found in a grotto’; ‘grotto’
here probably denoted the rooms of ancient buildings in Rome which had been revealed by
excavations, and which contained murals in the grotesque style.
SEMANTIC EXTENSION

4.
Parakeet
5. Leer
6.
Captivated
7. paisley
ME: A small parrot with predominantly green plumage and a long tail.
OE: Mid 16th century: from Old French paroquet, Italian parrocchetto, and Spanish periquito;
origin uncertain, perhaps (via Italian) based on a diminutive meaning ‘little wig’, referring to head
plumage, or (via Spanish) based on a diminutive of the given name Pedro.
SEMANTIC REDUCTIONS
ME: Look or gaze in a lascivious or unpleasant way.
OE: Mid 16th century (in the general sense ‘look sideways or askance’): perhaps from obsolete
leer ‘cheek’, from Old English hlēor, as though the sense were ‘to glance over one's cheek’.
SEMANTIC DEGRADATIONS
ME: Attract and hold the interest and attention of; charm.
OE: Early 16th century: from late Latin captivat- ‘taken captive’, from the verb captivare,
from captivus (see captive).
SEMANTIC ELEVATIONS
ME: A distinctive intricate pattern of curved feather-shaped figures based on an Indian pine-cone
design. A soft woolen fabric woven with a pattern of colorful and minutely-detailed figures.
OE:1834 as a type of clothing or material, from Paisley, town in southwestScotland, where the cloth w
as originally made. As an adjective by 1900.The town name is literally "church," from Middle Irish basle
c, itself fromLatin basilica
SEMANTIC EXTENSIONS

Grammatical level
1. Morphological Change
2. Syntactic Change

Grammatical level
Grammatical level refers to the change in grammar and vocabulary. In this process,
morphs, combinations of morphs or linguistic patterns are modified [7].
1- Morphological change: languages as analogy.
Eg.
Middle English plural from ”cow” was “kine “;
Modern English: cow/cows; bull/bulls.
Old English: Climb-clomb
Modern English: Climb - climbed

Morphological Change (p. 567)
► For each of the following words, give the word or phrase from which it is
derived and indicate the morphological process by which it was changed. You
may need to use the Oxford English Dictionary or some other etymological
reference.
1. Ramshackle
2. Sitcom
3. Recap
4. Electrocute
5. frazzle

Answers
1. Ramshackle
1. Sitcom
1. Recap
1. Electrocute
1. frazzle
Adj. anything that is in a state of sever disrepair
from obsolete ransackle to ransack (to raid, rob, causing damage)
Blend of a situation
comedy
recapitulatio
n
to kill by electricity. Derived from “electro” and
“execute”.
Verb: cause to feel completely
exhausted
blend of fray and fazzle,

Tuvung, 2011
1. Ælfric´s Treatise on the
Old and New Testament
written in Old English
circa 1000.
2. The Wycliffite Version
1395. (Middle English)
3. The Tyndale Bible, 1534.
(Early Modern English)
4. The King James Bible,
(The Authorized Version
of 1611) (Early Modern
English)
5. New American Standard
Bible 1995 (Modern
English)
Language Change From Ælfric to New American
Standard Bible: A Morphological Analysis of Five
Translations of Genesis 3:1-15 and Matthew 3:1-
15

Grammatical level
►2- Syntactic change: lexical words increasingly adopt a
grammatical function.
Eg. “Will” meant “want”.
►Old English: NP: N + Det (e.g. faeder ure)
►Modern English: NP: Det + N (e.g. Our father)

Changes in Co-Occurence
Modern English Old English
Subject: Our father drinks a lot
of coffee.
Object: We love our father
Subject: faeder ure
Object: faeder urne

Modern English
Sentence: She will go.
Question: Will she go?
Negative: She will not go.
Sentence: He has gone.
Question: Has he gone?
Negative: He has not gong.
Sentence: They went.
Question: Did they go?
Negative: They did not go.
Early Modern English (Shakespeare’s Othello)
► The main verb appears before the subject of the
sentence in the question, and before not in the
negative.
a. O heaven! How got she out? O treason of the
blood! (Act 1, Scene 1)
How did she get out?
b. Fathers, from hence trust not your daughter’s
minds. By what you see them act. (Act 1, Scene
1)
Do not trust your daughter’s mind.
c. But though they jump not on a just account, --
(Act 1, Scene 3)
They do not jump.

From Shakespearean English to
Modern English
Shakespearean English Modern English
1. We admireth and loveth a valorous cook.
2. The young wench gaveth nay cleareth response.
3. Kicketh the ball straight and followeth through
4. The beauty of the view stunn'd the young knave.
5. That gent hath broken his ties with groups of f'rm'r
cater-cousins
6. Taketh a chance and winneth a china doll.
7. Floateth the soap on top of the bath wat'r
8. The smelleth of burn'd rags itches mine own nose.

From Shakespearean English to
Modern English
Shakespearean English Modern English
1. We admireth and loveth a valorous cook.
2. The young wench gaveth nay cleareth response.
3. Kicketh the ball straight and followeth through
4. The beauty of the view stunn'd the young knave.
5. That gent hath broken his ties with groups of f'rm'r
cater-cousins
6. Taketh a chance and winneth a china doll.
7. Floateth the soap on top of the bath wat'r
8. The smelleth of burn'd rags itches mine own nose.
1. We admire and love a good cook.
2. The young girl gave no clear response.
3. Kick the ball straight and follow through.
4. The beauty of the view stunned the young
boy.
5. He broke his ties with groups of former
friends.
6. Take a chance and win a china doll.
7. Float the soap on top of the bath water.
8. The smell of burned rags itches my nose.

Sound level
Sound level describes
the passage of historical
transition from a given phoneme
or group of phonemes to
another [5].
Eg. The change of Germanic /sk/
into Old English /sh/.

Sound level
Phonetic change: affects the manner of articulation [4].
-Influence of neighboring sounds. Eg. From /y/ (“mýs”) in Old
English, /mys/in Middle English to (“mice”) in Modern English.
-Apocope: omission of some vowels from the end of a word.
Eg.“Child” as “Childe”.

Types of Sound Change
1. Assimilation – One sound becomes more like another sound.
OE: wulfas Middle English: wulvas Modern English: wʊlvz
2. Dissimilation – Two similar sounds become less like one another.
E.g. OE: Fifth [fɪfθ] ME: [fɪft]
A frequent example in present-day standard English is the omission of one of two [r] sounds from words like cate(r)pillar,
3. Deletion – A sound is no longer pronounced.
E.g. nose Middle E: [nɔːzə] Modern E: [noʊz]
ME: Deleting /t/ Between Consonants
E.g. best friends --- /besfrend/
4. Insertion - The opposite of deletion and occurs when a sound is added to the pronunciation of a word.
E.g. athlete OE: [æθlit] Modern E: [æθəlit]
► [ə] is inserted only between [θ] and [l], not in between every two segments.

5. Monophthongization - refers to a change from a diphthong (a complex vowel sound consisting of two
vowel sounds) to a simple vowel sound, a monophthong.
► E.g. Middle English: [aʊ] occurred in words such as law, taught, laundry
► Modern English: became a simple vowel [ɔ] (or [ɑ];
6. Diphthongization - the opposite of monophthongization; it refers to a change from a simple vowel
sound to a complex one. Middle English period the long high front vowel [iː] became a diphthong [ɑɪ];
/aɪ/→[aː], /aʊ/→[ɑː], /eɪ/→[eː], /əʊ/→[ɜː]. The vowels /iː/ and /uː/, whose usual forms are in fact slightly
diphthongal (close to [ɪi], [ʊu]), may undergo the same change and become [iː], [uː].
7. Metathesis - refers to a change in the order of sounds. For example, the Old English words hros, frist,
thridde, and bridd became Modern English horse, first, third, and bird,
8. Raising and lowering - refer to changes in the height of the tongue in the production of vowels. Middle
English period the word noon was pronounced [noːn], with a long mid back round vowel. By the end of
the Middle English period, however, the word was pronounced [nuːn], with the tongue height raised from
mid to high. Thus the sound change [oː] > [uː] is called raising.
9. Backing and fronting - refer to alterations in the frontness or backness of the tongue in the production
of vowels. At the beginning of the Modern English period there was an unconditioned sound change
whereby the back vowel [ɑ] became the front vowel [æ], for example, in words like calf, path, glass, past,
ask.

Identify the type of sound change demonstrated in the following
words. (Assimilation, Dissimilation, Deletion, Insertion,
Monophtongization)
1. Assimilation
2. Dissimilation
3. Deletion
4. Dissimilation
5. Deletion
6. Monophtongization
7. Dissimilation
8. Deletion
9. Insertion
10. Dissimilation
11. Monophtongization
12. Dissimilation
13. Assimilation
14. Dissimilation
15. Dissimilation

Conclusion
1. Sociolinguistics is a science which studies the effects of the society on
languages.
1. Classification of the origins of the language change (economy, analogy,
contact) and related theories (Chomsky, Labov).
1. Focus on how these changes happen at different levels of language
structures over time (lexicon, grammar, sounds).

References
1. Finegan, E. 2008 Fifth Edition. Language: Its Structure and Use. Harcourt Brace.
https://linguistics.osu.edu/research/pubs/lang-files/links
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_change
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociolinguistics
4. Torres Aguilar, I. (2009). Language Change: A General Overview.
5. National Institute for Literacy (2001).
6. Thomas Pyles and Jonh Algeo (1982). The origins and development of the English language. Hacourt.
7. Language Variation and Change, 1 (1989). Cambridge University.
8. Kroch, Anthony (1989b). Reflexes of grammar in patterns of language change. Language Variation and Change 1:199-244
9. Schendl, H. (2001). Historical Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_community
11. http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/speechcommunityterm.htm
12. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prestige_(sociolinguistics)
13. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociolinguistics#Social_network
14. http://www.enotes.com/unlocking-english-language/q-and-a/what-internal-external-aspects-english-language-93529

Week 10 lin321 types of language change

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