Chapter 8 Flashcards
5 basic causes of language change
- articulatory simplification
- spelling pronunciation
- analogy
- reanalysis
- language contact
articulatory simplification
reduction in the effort of pronunciation (fifths to fifs)
spelling pronunciation
a new pronunciation arises to fit the spelling
analogy
reflects the preference of speakers for regular patterns over irregular ones. Ex: sting/stung and swing/swung. So bring to brung
reanalysis
an attempt to attribute a compound or root + affix structure to a word that formerly wasn’t broken down into component morphemes. Ex: hamburger derived name from hamburg but now it’s known as fishburger, chickenburger.
language contact
the situation where speakers of a language frequently interact with the speakers of another language or dialect. Extend borrowing can occur.
Sound changes that occur within segments
assimilation, dissimilation, epenthesis, metathesis, weakening, deletion
assimilation
simplification of articulatory movements
forms of partial assimilation: place, voicing, manner, nasalization
geminate
a stop assimilated totally to a following stop (octo to otto)
palatalization
a type of assimilation where front vowels and the palatal glide [j] make velar, alveolar, and dental stops more palatal.
epenthesis
insertion of a consonant or vowel into a particular environment
metathesis
a change in the relative positioning of segments. Old English wæps later became wæsp.
weakening
vowel: vowel reduction (a full vowel reduced to a schwa-like vowel
consonant: degemination, frication, voicing, rhotacism ([z] to [r])
deletion
vowel: apocope (word-final vowel), syncope (word-internal vowel)
Consonant: consonant deletion
sound changes that affect individual segments (phonemes)
affrication, deaffrication, palatalization, substitution
affrication
fricatives into affricates
deaffrication
affricates into fricatives
phonological changes
splits, mergers, shifts
splits
allophones of the same phoneme became different phonemes due to loss of conditioning environment. Ex: [ŋ] was an allophone of /n/ but is now /ŋ/.
mergers
two or more phonemes collapse into a single one. In Cockney English, /ð/ and /v/ combined to just be seen as /v/.
shifts
a change in which a series of phonemes is systematically modified so that their organization with respect to each other is altered. Ex: Great English Vowel Shift
cognate
words that have descended from a common source
protolanguage
the common source language
types of lexical change
borrowing, semantic extension, new word creation
borrowing
language contact comes with incorporating outside words into your own language.
3 types: substratum, adstratum, superstratum influence.
substratum
less politically/culturally dominant language affects more dominant one
superstratum
more dominant language affects less dominant
adstratum
two languages are in contact and neither is clearly politically or culturally dominant.
semantic extension
indicates a word’s range of applicability by naming the particular object it denotes
types of semantic change
broadening, narrowing, amelioration, pejoration, weakening, semantic shift, metaphor
broadening
a word becomes more general or inclusive than its historically earlier form
narrowing
the meaning of a word becomes less general and inclusive than its historically earlier meaning
amelioration
the meaning of a word becomes more positive or favorable
pejoration
the meaning of a word becomes more negative and less favorable
weakening
the meaning of a word weakens over time
semantic shift
a word loses its former meaning and takes on a new, but related, meaning
metaphor
a word with a concrete meaning takes on a more abstract meaning without losing the original meaning
