1 Flashcards
Language changes going on NOW (7)
- Decline of the inflected form “Whom”
- Fewer -> less
- Regularisation of irregular verb morphology (dreamt -> dreamed)
- Analytical comparatives/superlatives become more important (politer -> more polite)
- Spread of the s-genitive to non-human nouns
- Elimination of “shall” as future marker in 1st person
- Grammaticalisation of auxiliaries (gonna, wanna)
Productive neologising processes (5)
- Increasing polysemy
- Compounding (mad cow disease) and derivation (Thatcherite)
- Conversion (to google) and zero-derivation (to car-pool)
- Acronyms, blends, shortenings
- Combining forms
Pronounciation changes
- Merger poor, pour, paw
- Closer pronunciation of talk
- More open pronunciation of beg and bag
- Smoothing of diphthongs and triphongs fire -> far
- Ju: -> u: super
Germanic languages
- Dutch
- Scandinavian
- Present-day German
Foundation of the English language
- Tribes (Saxons, Anglos, Judes, …) increasing settlement
- conflicts (tribes vs. Tribes, ancestors vs. Tribes)
- Dialect levelling
- Took name “Angles” and generalised meaning for everyone who spoke similar dialects
Old English (5)
- spelling: runes = Decoration, some unusual letters
- Phonology vowels: length contrast, similar pronunciation as German
- Phonology consonants: c= k, g= g, cg= dz, sc= sch
- Vocabulary: compounding (godspel), derivation (ingang), almost no borrowings from Celtic, borrowings from Latin (prestige) and Old Norse (a lot of contact w/ Scandinavian dialects)
- Grammar: adjective as complex as nouns, different case endings, 2nd person singular more complex
What happened in the transition from OE to ME? (4)
- Collapse of the inflectional system
- Fixing of SVO order
- Elimination of impersonal constructions
- Changes in the 3rd person plural pronoun
synthetic grammar
- based on inflection
- tight fit
- Greek, Latin, German
Analytical grammar
- based on word order an free morphemes
- loose fit
- English and French
Consequences of collapse of inflectional system (4)
- Inflection collapses in the article, all forms becoming the
- Full vowels in endings weakened
- Final /n/ faded away
- S-ending adapted to almost all nouns
Plurals other than s
- Only as fossiles exception (children, oxen -> Nama-n)
- Umlaut = mouse, mice
- About signalling tense through vowel change sing -sang - sung
French loan words
- Begin - commence
- Fight - combat
- Bother - annoy
- Lonely - solitary
- Clean - pure
Major language developments in EMod period (5)
- Great Vowel Shift (GVS)
- Analytical grammar
- Latin and Greek loan words (hard words)
- Standardisation of written language = printing
- Colonial expansion
Great Vowel Shift
1) RAISING: all long vowels raised by one step, those that can’t be raised anymore are diphthongised
2) SIMPLIFICATION: phonological contrasts between closed and open abolished
- English spelling standardised during early stages of vowel shift = spelling consistent but phonetics changed (f.e. Row noun and verb, read read read)
Structural and sociolinguistic developments in Late Modern English period (3)
- massive expansion of vocabulary: complexity, acronyms and alphabetises, combining forms
- standardisation of spoken and written language develops
- English as pluricentric world language. First Lingua Franca
Standardisation questions (3)
- realise vs. Realize
- which standard does ChatGPT follow
- What is the target variety for Google translations from German
The „Borrowing scale“ by Thomason/Kaufman
- casual contact: non-basic vocabulary, content words, mostly nouns (Food)
- slightly more intense contact: also adverbial particles, phonemes in foreign word (Latin)
- more intense contact: prepositions, pronouns, derivational morphemes, foreign inflectional endings, restructuring of phonemic system
- strong cultural pressure: massive lexical and structural borrowing
- very strong cultural pressure: borrowing to the point of typological reorientation, in extreme cases resulting in language death
Borrowing
Foreign material taken over into a language which continues to be spoken. Major impact on lexicon.
Shift
Substrate-language feature retained after speakers shift. Major impact on grammar and phonology.
De Swaan: World language system
- hyper-central language: ENglish
- super-central languages: French, Hindi, Mandarin, …
- central languages: Dutch, Romanian, Danish, …
- peripheral languages: 6000+
- structure like income structure
- unipolar: only narrow top (hierarchical)
Kashru: Three Circles of English
- The Expanding Circle (EFL): Egypt, Japan, Israel
- The Outer Circle (ESL): India, Nigeria, Ghana
- THe Inner Circle (Native): USA, UK, Canada
- no place for pidgins/creoles
McArthur: Circle of World English
- misrepresents complex lateral connections
- no idea of what varieties are important
Schneider: Dynamic Model
= model about origin and spread of postcolonial Englishes
1. foundation: early settlers, foundation for linguistic features, local contact languages
2. exonormative stabilisation: norms from outside, mentality of ppl
3. nativisation: borrowings, new variety shaped
4. endonormative stabilisation: psychological catch-up (teaching in new variety)
5. differentiation: new dialects
Buschfeld/Kautzsch: Model of (non-) Postcolonial Englishes
Complicated one
Ppl work on developing Schneider‘s model to apply it to postcolonial E
Grammar changes in EMod period (5)
- elimination of second person singular pronouns thou, thee, thine, thy
- disappearance of distinction between ye and you
- creation of possessive its (replacing his)
- rapid rise of auxiliary do in main verb questions/negation
- SVO
Mair: World System of Englishes
- hyper-central variety: Standard AE
- super central varieties: 1) standard: BE, AusE, … 2) non-standard: AAVE 3) regionally unrestricted: business, …
- central varieties: 1) standard: Irish, Scottish 2) non-standard: US Southern E, … 3) regionally restricted: EuroE
- peripheral varieties: 1) Standard: Maltese E 2) non-standard: dialect, pidgins, creoles
First Wave wrap-up (3)
- Labovian variationism
- sociolinguistic variables + their variants
- documenting spontaneous vernacular use
William Labov (4)
- empirical and quantitative approach
- „Objectivity and Commitment in linguistic science“: AAVE in US, deficit approach (no access to standard = education; wrong!)
- „The social stratification of the „rhoticity“ variable in 1960s NYC“: examination of spontaneous and monitored speech of working, middle and upper class, variable: „Rhoticity“ variants (presence or absence), along formality rhoticity increases, hypercorrection lower middle class, overt and covert prestige
- „Marthas Vineyard Study“: Synchronic contrast in usage by age group are reflection of diachronic change, problem of age grading (People‘s language use changes over time)
Indicators
Means which can be measured (f.e. Vowel length)
Markers
Sociolinguistic variable that some members can manipulate consciously
Stereotypes
Popular prejudices and perceptions
John Richford
„Language and Linguistics on trial: Hearing Rachel Jeantel and other vernacular speakers in the courtroom and beyond“
- ambiguity, language and power, linguistic prejudice
Max Weinreich
- studied in Baltic regions of Europe
- Yiddish language activist
- „A language is a dialect with an army and a navy“
Sociolinguistic variationism
- statistical correlations between social variable and dependent linguistic variable
- external variables: income, ethnicity, education, sex, …
- social macro categories shape the way one speakers (region, class, gender)
- variable: specific linguistic feature that is subject to variation
AAVE
- momentary vs. Habitual distinction
She sick vs. She be sick (often)
She ain’t sick vs. She don’t be sick
= Don’t have that in standard E
= AAVE grammar more complex because vernacularised distinction - „Deficit“ dialect in fact highly developed system
Second wave „wrap-up“
= ethnographic approaches
- social networks
- exploring communities own perception of itself
Penelope Eckert
= adolescents are ideal group for ethnographic research
„Jocks and Burnouts- Detroit“
1. ethnographic categories used by people in school to refer to each other
2. Jocks: school-oriented, respect authorities, sports and school activities
3. Burn-outs: neighbourhood-oriented, anti-authority, drinking, smoking and sex
4. people develop terminology to talk about themselves
Etic (outsider) view
- researcher as observer
- researcher describes subjects language use and communicative behaviour
- researcher test working hypotheses against data
Emic (insider) view
- researcher as participants
- researcher interacts with participants
- researcher takes participants own language attitudes and ideologies seriously
- researcher modifies hypotheses
Lesley Milroy
= language and social networks
1. dense and multiplex networks:
- small and stable communities
- social cohesion
- few contact with outsiders
- conservative vernacular preserved
- loose and simplex networks
- many superficial contact with wide range of people
- mobile individuals changing and adapting language
Style
Construction of social reality through Language
Third wave wrap up
Conscious performances and media representations of dialects can be used as data
Nonstandard varieties of London English
- Cockney
- London Jamaican/Black British English
- Multicultural London English (MLE)
Crossing
Code alternation by people who are not accepted members of the group associated with the second language they employ. It is concerned with the switching into languages that are not generally thought to belong to you =strategic code-switching
IE: Baltic Slavic (7)
- Lithuanian
- Latvian
- RUssian
- Ukrainian
- Polish
- Czech
- Bulgarian
IE: Germanic (9)
- ENglish
- Dutch
- German
- Swedish
- Norwegian
- Danish
- Afrikaans
- Friesian
- Icelandic
IE: Roman (8)
- French
- Spanish
- Italian
- Catalan
- Portuguese
- Occitan
- Romanian
- Rumangh
IE: Celtic (6)
- Irish Gaelic
- Scottish Gaelic
- Manx
- Welsh
- Breton
- Cornish
IE: no category
- Armenian
- Greek
- Albanian
IE: Indic-Iranian
- Indic: Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Marathi
- Iranian: Farsi, Pashto, Kurdish, Tajiki
Additional IE languages not shown:
Hittite
Tocharian
! The major non-IE languages spoken in Europe
- Finnish
- Hungarian
- Estonian
- Basque
Germanic features
- Grammar: weak verbs
- Vocabulary: some Germanic words without equivalents in other IE languages: Boat, sheep, plough
First consonant shift
= first Germanic shift
= separates all Germanic languages from the rest of the Indo-European family
- /p/ = /f/ piscis = fish
- /t/ = /th/ tres =three
- /k/ = /h/ Cornu = horn
Second consonant shift
= separates old high German from the rest of the west-Germanic branch
- /p/ = /pf/, /f/ pound = Pfund
- /t/ = /ts/, /s/ tide = Zeit, hate =hassen
- /k/ = /kx/, /c, x/ make =machen, taken = Zeichen
