Chapter 7     Historical linguistics

一、定义

1.历时语言学Diachronic linguistics

A term used in stead of historical linguistics to the study of language change at various points in time at various historical stage.

2.元音大交替Great Vowel Shift

A series of systematic sound change  in the history of English that involved seven long vowels and consequently led to one of the major discrepancies between English pronunciation and its spelling system.

3.词尾脱落Apocope

The deletion of a word-final vowel segment.

4.插入音Epenthesis

The insertion of a consonant or vowel sound to the middle of a word.

5.首字母缩略词Acronym

A word created by combining the initials of a number of words.

6.混合法Blending

A process  of forming a new word by combining parts of two other words.

7.缩写词Abbreviation

A shortened  form of a word or phrase which represents the complete form.

8.略写词Clipping

A kind of  abbreviation of otherwise longer words or phrases.

9.逆向构词法Back-formation

A process by which new words are formed by taking away he suffix of an existing word.

10.语义扩大化Semantic broadening

The process in which the meaning of a word becomes more general or inclusive than its historical earlier denotation.缩小less general or inclusive

11.原始语Protolanguage

The original form of a language family which has ceased to exist.

12.语系Family language

A group of historically related languages that have developed from a comon ancestral language.

13.同源词Cognate

A word in one language which is similar in form and meaning to a word in another language because both languages have descended from a common source.

14.语音同化Sound assimilation

The physiological effect of one sound on another.

15.内部借用Internal borrowing

The application of a rule from one part of the grammar to another part of the grammar by analogy to its earlier operation.

16.派生法Derivation

It refers to the process by which new words are formed by the addition of affixes to the roots, stems, or words.

17.语义转换Semantic shift

It’s a process of semantic change in which a word loses its former meaning and acquires a new, sometimes related meaning.

18.语义细化Elaboration

Rule elaboration occurs when there is a need to reduce ambiguity and increase communicative clarity or expressiveness.

19.古英语Old English

Old English dates back to the mid-fifth century when Anglo-Saxsons invaded b the British Isles from northern Europe.

20.中世纪英语Middle English    in 1066

Middle English began with the arrival of the Norman French invaders in England under William.

二、知识点

1.the historical study of language is of great importance to our understanding of human languages and human linguistic competence.

2.Language change is universal, continuous and, to a considerable degree, regular and systematic.

3.Middle English had been deeply influenced by Norman French in vocabulary and grammar.

4.in old English, nearly half of the nouns are inflected to mark nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative cases.

5.one of the most obvious change in English is the systematic and regular change in the Vowel Change.

6英语发展的三个历史时期及历史事件

  Old English(449-1100):

  Began with the invasion of the British Isles by English-speaking Anglo-

  Saxons from Europe, ended with the arrival of Norman French invaders

  historically known as the Norman Conquest.

  Middle English(1100-1500)

  It’s distinguished from the Old English period by the Norman Conquest.

  Shakespeare’s plays and Milton’s Poems 受欧洲文艺复兴运动影响最大。

  Modern English(1500 up to now)

  From the Modern English period as the result of the cultural influence

  of the European renaissance movement.

7.古英语和现代英语词的对比

  Old English           Modern English

Mann                      man

Wif                         woman

Cild                        child

Hus                        house

Mete                       food

Etan                        eat

Drincan                   drink

Feohtan                   fight

8.the most wide-spread morphological change in the historical development of English are the loss and addition of affixes.

9.As the result of Norman Conquest of 1066, vast quantities of French words were added to English vocabulary.

10.in general, linguistic change in the sound system and the vocabulary of a language is more noticeable than that in other systems of the grammar.

11.the ancient adjective agreement rule was dropped out of English mainly because the inflectional endings to show agreement in case, number and gender became distinct.

12.英语的语言变化linguistic change of English (loss, addition, change)

   声音Sound change               

   形态Morphological change

   句法Syntactic change

   语义Semantic change

   词汇Lexical change

13.Language change is essentially a matter of change in the Grammar.

14.Sound change includes changes in vowel sounds, and in the loss, gain and movement of sounds.

  Great Vowel Shift             Sound Loss               Sound Gain  

   Middle

E.  Modern

E.     Middle

E.  Modern E.     Middle

E.  Modern E.

Five  Fi:v  Faiv   Nicht/nixt  nait     Spinle  spindle

Mous  Mu:s  Maus   Goose/go:si  Gu:s     Film  Filum

口语发音

Feet  Fe:t  Fi:t   Name/na:ma  Neim     Glimse  Glimpse

Mood  Mo:d  Mu:d   Love/luv  l∧v     Timer  timber

Break  Brз:ken  Breik   Helpe尾音  Help消失         

Broke  Brc:ken  Brзuk               

15.The most widely-spread morphological changes in the historical development of English are the loss and addition of affixes.

16.Sound loss的特征或现象

⑴Voiceless velar fricative/x/ which existed in Old english words such as’’nicht’’,pronounced as /nixt/,the sound absent in the present-day form of ‘night’.

⑵ Consonant loss involves the/kn/ clusters in the word-initial position.  如goose    

⑶Systematic sound losses such as plural pronunciation rule has disappeared.

⑷Deletion of Word-final vowel segment, 如name.love

17.判断题a change that involves the insertion of a consonant or vowel sound to the middle of a word is known as Epenthesis.  (此现象属于sound addition)

例子

Spinle→spindle    emty→empty    glimse→glimpse     timer→timber

18.语音的移位

Sound change as a result of sound movement,known as metathesis.it involvesa reversal in position of two adjoining sound segments.一般是r的移位 

 

例子:       bridd→bird               hros→horse  

19. Affix loss的特征或现象

 ⑴Morphemes wound change a word from one lexical category to another

⑵The drop of the causative verb formation rule.使意动词的丢失:

  如-yan加在adj word后可变成causative verb.

 ⑶The loss of gender and case markings

20.the most dramatic morphological loss concerns the loss of gender and case markings.Old english had a gender-marking system has 3genders:

Masculine , feminine and neuter.阳性、阴性和中性词。

如：stan(stone) 阳性； gief(gift)阴性；deor(wild animal)中性

21.语音的移位大多数是因为influence of foreign languages.其中french影响最大，如-able,-ment,-ize.

22. Rule addition的特征或现象

⑴Particle movement,古英语没有此现象，现代英语有

⑵Auxiliary verbs and main verbs的区分,16世纪前没有此现象

 如： 助动词疑问词interrogative sentences的前面

23.在句法规则的增加中，old english period is known as the Particle movement rule,for modern english showes the particle of some phrasal verbs like”throw out”,”turn-off”to postpone to the right of the object.

如John thew out the ball through the door/John thew the ball out through the door.

在古代英语中，没有particle移位现象。

24.Languages vary in the order of the subject,the verb and the object.the two typical ways to represent distinction of subject and object nouns are through extensive case marking and rigid word order.

25.在古英语中，句子的顺序是SVO,VSO,SOV和OSV,The loss of case contrasts was compensated for with the adoption of the consistent SVO order.

26.The most vigorous and on-going change in the historical development of a language is the change in its Vocabulary.

27.French loan words did not always replace Old english words,but in many instances existed alongside of the native English vocabulary.sometimes, french loan words were used in conjunction with native English words to create Contrast.

28.词汇的增加 borrowing 和word formation.

 The most obvious way in which modern english differs lexically from old english is the number of Borrowed words from other languages.

29.Old english contained a number of morphological rules that are extinct.

例子：大部分是derivational affixes.

-baere , lust(“pleasure”)+baere→lustbaere(“agreeable”)-bora,   mund(“protection”)+bora→(“protector”)During the Renaisance,many latin and Greek words became part of the educated egnlish lexicon

30.New words have made their entry into english via word formation rules.

例子   Compounding: sailboat, big-mouth, cross-cultural, three-year-old

Derviation :uglification, finalize,

Acronym formation: radar(radio detecting and ranging)、CD-ROM(compat disk of read-only memory)、laser、UNESCO

Blending : smog(smoke+fog)  brunch(breafast+lunch)  motel(motor+hotel)

Abbreviation :TV(televistion)  Dr(doctor ) ft(foor or feet) N.Y(New York)

Clipping :gym(gymnasium) sci fi(science fiction) e-mail、

phys ed(physical education)、hi-fi(high fidelity高保真)    

Back-formation ：typewriter(typewriter)  edit (editor)

Coinage : Kleenex (soft cleansing tissue)  kodak 、xerox(photo copier)

※语义的变化Semantic Change 这一节非常重要

32.It’s comparative in the sense that it aims at developing and elucidating the genetic relationships that exist between and among langauges, classifying related languages into language families,and reconstructin their ancestral languages.what follows is a very brief account focusing on how historical linguists established genetic relationships of languages,and in particular,the Indo-Europeean language family.

33.至今世界上已有over five thousand langauges are spoken.

chinese :over 1.2billion native speakers

Danish : less than 5million native speakers

English: fewer than chinese,400million

The four thousand languages have developed from their historical roots.

To today,about thirty language families have been documented in historical linguistic literature.

34.To identify and classify families of related languages in a genealogical family tree,and to reconstruct the protolanguage,the original form of a language family that has ceased to exist.

35. A language family is established by the use of a method known as Comparative reconstruction.

36.Reliable linguistic signs of family relationships include systematic phonological, morphological, and semantic resemblances among the vocabulary items of different languages.

37.语义的变化类型   ※

41.With the application of the comparative method,Persia,northern part of india were able to reconstruct the grammar of a single origin known as proto-Indo-European,from which a number of subfamilies of European and Indian subcontinental languages evloved.

42.判断题syntactically,the verb of an old English sentence precedes, rather than follows,the subject ,as is indicated by the transcription.

43.Norman Conquer makrked the dawning of the Middle English period.

44.Bilingual,pidin＆creole speakers contribute to formation of新语言变体

三、问答题

1.描述变化的本质characterized the nature of language change

All living languages change with time.language change is not only universal and inevitable,but also systematic,extensive,on-going,and gradual.Language change is a rule-governed behavior,involving all components of the grammar.

2.语言变化的原因list the major causes of language change

Sound assimilation,Rule simplification and internal borrowing与语法变化有关

⑴语音同化Sound assimilation

Assimilative processes are phonological changes due to physiological mechanisms.it also involves vowel nasalization and morphological and lexical changes.

⑵规则简化Rule simplification

 It’s a type of spontaneous morphological rule change involves exceptional plural forms of nouns.the same kind of analogic change is exemplified by the regularization of some borrowed words whose plural formation rule is different from the regular english.

⑶内部借用Internal Borrowing

It’s motivated by the need to lessen the burden on memory is called internal borrowing.it represents a continual readjustment of a language’s grammatical system as it develops from one state of equilibrium to another.

⑷规则细化  Elaboration

It occurs when there is a need to reduce ambiguity and increase communicative clarity or expressiveness.

⑸社会因素Social triggers

⑹文化转移Cultural transmission

⑺儿童语法接近成人语法Children’s approximation toward the adult grammar.

A generally accepted view among language acquisition scholars is that children acquire their native language not through formal instrucation of grammatical rules, they often construct their personal information they hear.