Historical Linguistics Flashcards
What is historical linguistics?
The nature of language and sound change
Periods of English
Old English (450-1100) Middle English (1100-1500) Shakespeare (1600) Modern English (1600- present)
T or F: Language change is systematic
true
T or F: Most linguistics variation leads to change
false
How does language change begin?
synchronic variation
Causes of Language Change
- Articulatory/ acoustic simplification
- Language acquisition
- Language contact
- Social factors
- Preference for major causes
T or F: Spelling is a major cause for language change
false
T or F: Laziness and speaker effort are major causes for language change
false
How do sound changes begin?
phonetic variation that differs in a particular environment
Articulatory sound change factors
- assimilation
- disasimilation
- epenthesis
- metathesis
- weakening/ deletion
Auditory sound change factors
- phonological change
- mergers
- splits
- shifts
Assimilation
Sounds become more articulatorily similar along some dimension (ex. palatalization)
Palatalization
Velar, alveolar, dental stops become more palatal before front vowels/ glides (/j/)
Dissasimilation
Similar sounds become less similar
T or F: Disasimilation is more common than assimilation
false
Epenthesis
Insertion of a sound in a particular enviornment that can serve as a bridge between adjacent sounds
Metathesis
Change in the relative positioning of segments
Weakening/ Deletion
Weakening: Making a sound less strong
Deletion: Complete weakening
Substitution
Segment replaced with a similar sounding segment
Splits
Allophones become contrastive (adding a phoneme)
Tonogenesis
Type of split thought to be how tone systems emerge. Adjacent consonant affects vowel pitch.
Mergers
2 or more phonemes collapse into one
Shifts
Several phonemes change, resulting in a new overall organization of the sound system.
Causes of Phonological Shift
Languages like to use the whole vowel quadrangle; causes changes in one vowel to push/ pull others.
Phonological Change
Sound changes that change the phonological system by adding, eliminating and rearranging phonemes
Types of phonological change
Splits, tonogenesis, mergers, and shifts
S-Shaped Curve
The trend that language change follows
T or F: Language and sound changes are regular
True
Lexical diffusion
Change spreads word to word
T or F: Language change must spread through the community
True
Genetically related languages
Two languages that descend from a common parent
What do striking similarities between words indicate?
The languages are closely/ distantly related
Comparative method
Reconstructing earlier forms of a language by comparing newer forms
Cognates
Words descended from a common source
Proto- Language
Reconstructed (original) language
Proto-Forms
Reconstructions of earlier (original) forms
Steps of the comparative method
- identify sound correspondences in the cognate list same position in the word
- reconstruct proto-form for each correspondence and hypothesize sound changes
Phonetic Plausibility
Sound changes posited should be plausible
Majority rules
Most common -> proto form
Techniques of reconstruction in order of importance
- logic
- phonetic plausibility
- majority rules
