Chapter 7 Language Change

Part One: Introduction

Conclusion: It is a fact that all language change through time.

Part Two: Sound Change

Sound changes tend to be systematic. ————>vowel shift.

Part Three: Morphological and syntactic change.

1.      Change in “Agreement”rule.

e.g. Whan that Aprille with his shoures sooth…

   When that April with his showers sweet…【In modern English, we use IT to replace HIS】

2.      Change in negation rule.

e.g. I love you NOT.    He saw you NOT.

   I do not love you.   He did not see you.

3.      Process of simplification.

Case and gender in old English are lost during the Middle English period.

e.g. Old English      Middle English       Modern English

    ure/urum—————>oure———————>our

4.      Loss of inflections

Inflection often change by a process of rule-generalization.

e.g. Old English           Modern English

   stan/ slanas            stone/ stones

   gear/ gear             year/ years

Part Four: Vocabulary Change

Vocabulary change can include:

A)     addition of new words.      B) Loss of words       C) Changes in the meaning of words

1.      Additon of new words

A)     Coinage

A new word can be coined outright to fit some purpose.

e.g. walkman  Kodak   Xerox    Ford

B)      Clipped words

Clipping refers to the abbreviation of longer words or phrases.

e.g. gym---gymnasium          expo---exposition          memo---memorandum

disco---discotheque          burger---hamburger        dozer---bulldozer

quake---earthquake          fridge---refrigerator        script---prescription

C)     Blending

A blend is a word formed by combining parts of other words.

e.g. smog---smoke+ fog         comsat---communication+ satellite     brunch---breakfast+ lunch

    motel---motor+ hotel       camcorder---camera+ recorder         videophone---video+ telephone

D)     Acronyms

Acronyms are words derived from the initials of several words.

e.g. CBS----Columbia Broadcasting System       ISBN---International Standard Book Number

   IT--------Information technology             CAD---Computer assisted design      WTO.

   APEC----Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation    AIDS---Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

   UNESCO----United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization.

   IDD---- International direct dialling    UCLA----University of California, Los Angeles

E)      Back formation

New words may be coined from already existing words by ‘‘subtracting‘‘ an affix thought to be part of the old word. Such words are thus called back-formation.

e.g. to edit,    to hawk,    to beg,     to baby-sit,      to butch

F)      Functional shift

Words may shift from one part of speech to another without the addition of affixes.

e.g. n---v    to knee, to bug, to tape, to brake,       v---n    a hole, a flyby, a reject, a retreat

   adj---v   to cool, to narrow, to dim, to slow      adj---n   a daily, a Christian, the rich, the impossible

G)     Borrowing

When different cultures come into contact, words are often borrowed from one language to another.

2.      Loss of words

It is true that words can be lost from a language.

e.g. beseem---to be suitable,    wot----to know,     gyve---a fetter      wherefore---why

Many new coinages are very short-lived. One of he most common causes for the loss of lexical items is the discontinuation of the object they name, e.g. soap flake, wash board, rumble seat are on the way out.

3.      Changes in the meaning of words

There are three processes of semantic change, namely, widening, narrowing, and shift in meaning.

A)     Widening of meaning

When the meaning of a word becomes broader, that word means everything it used to mean, and then more.

holiday	A day of religious significance	Any day on which we don’t have to work.
tail	The tail of a horse.	The tail of any animal.
companion	A person with whom you share bread.	A person who accompanies you.
quarantine	Forty day’s isolation.
bird	Young bird
sail	A boat with sails

 

B)      Narrowing of meaning

hound	The general term for dog.	A special kind of dog.
girl	Young person of either sex	Young people of female sex
deer	Any animal	A particular kind of animal
meat	food	Edible part of an animal
corn	grain	A particular grain

 

C)     Meaning shifting

inn	A small hotel or pub, usually old	A well-known nice hotel
nice	ignorant	good
lust	Pleasure with no negative or sexual overtones
immoral	Not customary
silly	Happy-----naive	foolish

Part Five: Some recent trends

1.      Moving towards greater informality

A)     conversational forms like ain’t. don’t and can’t are commonly used in articles in the press.

B)      People prefer to use informal style, such as It’s me and who did you see?

2.      The influence of American English

Foe many years American English has been assaulting the British Isles with ever-increasing weight and persistence, through movies, newspapers, magazines, radio and television.

3.      The influence of science and technology

With the development of science and technology, new words and expressions are coined in three different domains:

A)     Space travel: space suit, heat-shield, splash-down, space station, linkup, readout, lunar module etc.

B)      Computer and internet language: program, input, output, email, hacker, information highway etc.

C)     Ecology: Ecology refers to the study of the relationship between plants, animals, people, and their environment, and the balances between these relationships.

e.g. ecoactivist,   ecocide,   ecocatastrope,    visual pollution,   noise pollution,  graffiti pollution,

eco-friendly,     planet-friendly,     environment-friendly

Part Six: Causes of language change

The linguists have little idea what causes a language to change.

A)     the rapid development of science and technology has led to the creation of many new words: bullet train, fax.

B)      Social and political changes and political needs have supplied the English vocabulary with great quality of new words and expressions: shuttle diplomacy, mini-summit, jungle war, Euro, hot line.

C)     Woman movement and feminist movement make women aware of their social positions:

e.g. chairman----chairperson,    foreman---supervisor,    policeman----police officer

   fireman----fire fighter       jury foreman----jury foreperson

D) The way children acquire language provides a basic cause of change: rules are simplified and over-generalized.

E) Economy of memory results in grammar simplification: internal borrowing (foe—foes, dog---dogs), regularization (medium---media, curriculum---curricula), the loss of the morphological rule creating causative verbs from adjectives (black---blacken), theory of least effort (cheap for cheaply).

   Simplification of grammar occurs, so does elaboration or complication. To avoid confusions, strict word-order-constraints are thus placed on the grammar. While one sees a tendency toward greater simplification, one also finds a counter-tendency, the desire to be intelligible.