Historical Linguistics

Question 1

Assimilation

Answer 1

• Increasing the efficiency of articulation through a simplification of articularatory movements
• Partial assimilation involving place or manner of articulation is very common, overtime can result in total assimilation

Question 2

Palatalization

Answer 2

effect that front vowels in the palatal glide typically have on velar, alveolar, and dental stops, making their place of articulation more palatal

Question 3

affrication

Answer 3

change in which palatized stops become affricates

Question 4

Nasalization

Answer 4

nasalized in effect that a nasal consonant can have on an adjacent vowel

Question 5

Umlaut

Answer 5

effect of our will or sometimes the glide in one syllable can have on the Bible of another syllable, usually proceeding one

Question 6

Dissimilation

Answer 6

One segment is made less like another segment and its environment, is much less frequent than assimilation

Question 7

Epenthesis

Answer 7

• Insertion of a consonant or vowel into a particular environment
• Results from the anticipation of an upcoming sound
• Serves as a bridge for the transition between the segments on either side

Question 8

Epenthesis

Answer 8

•Vowel epenthesis Serves to break up a sequence of sounds that would otherwise be difficult to pronounce or even inconsistent with the phonotactic patterns of the language

Question 9

Metathesis

Answer 9

•A change in the relative positioning of segments

Question 10

Apocope

Answer 10

vowel deletion commonly involves a word final vowel

Question 11

Syncope

Answer 11

deletion of a word internal vowel

Question 12

Deletion

Answer 12

• A vowel and then unstressed syllable is particularly susceptible to deletion, especially when a nearby syllable is stressed
• Proceeded diachronically by vowel reduction
• Consonant deletion is also very common
• Word initial cluster [kn] was found in old and middle English
• Loss of word final consonants has played a major role in the evolution of modern French

Question 13

Weakening

Answer 13

• Full vowel is reduced to a Schwa like vowel

* Vowel reduction and subsequent deletion occurred in middle English and early modern English

Question 14

Consonant weakening

Answer 14

• Strongest to Weakest: voiceless stops - voiceless fricatives - voiced stops – voice fricatives – nasals – liquids – glides
• Geminates weaker to non-Geminates – Degemination
• We can and can ultimately result in the deletion of the consonant
• Subject in an intervocalic environment

Question 15

Rhotacism

Answer 15

common, involves the change of [z] to [r]

Question 16

Phonetic sounds change

Answer 16

creation of a new allophone in an already existing phoneme

Question 17

Phonological split

Answer 17

allophones of the same phoneme come to contrast with each other due to the loss of the conditioning environment, with the result that one or more new phonemes are created

Question 18

Mergers

Answer 18

• Two or more phonemes collapse into a single one, thereby reducing the number of phonemes in the language
• /thetha/ + /f/ become /f/

Question 19

Shifts

Answer 19

• change in which a series of phonemes systematically modified so that their organization with respect to each other is altered
• Great vowel shift: beginning in the middle English. And continuing into the 18th century, the language underwent a series of modifications to its long vowels

Question 20

Comparative method

Answer 20

procedure of reconstructing earlier forms on the basis of a comparison of later forms

Question 21

Comparative reconstruction

Answer 21

• Systematic phonetic correspondences in the forms of two or more languages must point towards a common source in the vocabulary items of different languages
• Cognates: words that have descended from a common source
• Protolanguage: made up of proto-forms, which are written with the preceding*

Question 22

Phonetic plausibility strategy

Answer 22

any changes deposited to account for differences between the Proto-forms and later forms must be phonetically plausible

Question 23

Majority rules strategy

Answer 23

if no phonetically plausible change can account for the observed differences, then the segment found in the majority of cognates should be assumed

Question 24

Reconstructing proto-Romance

Answer 24

• Proto forms = reconstructed forms

* Protolanguage = reconstructed language