Chapter 11: Language Change - The Syllables of Time

Question 1

sound shift/ sound change*

Answer 1

Historical phonological change. Also called sound change.

Question 2

clipping*

Answer 2

The deletion of some part of a longer word to give a shorter word with the same meaning, e.g., phone from telephone. See abbreviation.

Question 3

acronyms*

Answer 3

Word composed of the initials of several words and pronounced as such, e.g., PET scan from positron-emission tomography scan. See alphabetic abbreviation.

Question 4

loan word*

Answer 4

Word in one language whose origins are in another language, e.g., in Japanese, besiboru, “baseball,” is a loan word from English. See borrowing.

Question 5

broadening*

Answer 5

A semantic change in which the meaning of a word changes over time to become more encompassing, e.g., dog once meant a particular breed of dog.

Question 6

alphabetic abbreviations*

Answer 6

A word composed of the initials of several words and pronounced letter-by-letter, e.g., MRI from magnetic resonance imaging. See acronym.

Question 7

protolanguage

Answer 7

The earliest identifiable language from which genetically related languages developed.

Question 8

narrowing

Answer 8

A semantic change in which the meaning of a word changes in time to become less encompassing, e.g., deer once meant “animal.”

Question 9

eponym

Answer 9

A word taken from a proper name, such as Hertz for “unit of frequency.”

Question 10

meaning shift

Answer 10

when a lexical item has a complete shift in meaning

ex: gay now means homosexual when it simply used to mean happy