Language Change

Question 1

diachronic linguistics

Answer 1

language change through time
Greek dia- through + chronos time
L1 –> L2 –> L3

Question 2

synchronic linguistics

Answer 2

cognitive concept/I-language

Question 3

kinds of language change (5)

Answer 3

• lexical replacement
• grammatical change
• sound change
• borrowing
• changes in orthography/spelling conventions

Question 4

Temporal dimension: how do differences in language occur via transmission (replication)

Answer 4

each generation continues the same language as the previous
small changes accumulate over time

Question 5

lines of “descent” (by chains of transmission)

Answer 5

temporal

Question 6

proto-language

Answer 6

reconstructed ancestral stage
- mother language

Question 7

daughter vs sister languages

Answer 7

daughter: language descended from another language

sister: if more than one language has developed from the same proto-language

Question 8

language sub-groups/branches

Answer 8

intermediate ancestral stages

Question 9

isoglosses

Answer 9

a line on a dialect map marking the boundary between linguistic features/two different dialects

Question 10

How does diffusion of traits occur

Answer 10

innovations
- region to region/community to community/group to group
- follows social connections (not geography/topography), eg urban centre to urban centre
- primarily involves adult language users

eg., the Northern Cities Shift

Question 11

Sturtevant’s paradox

Answer 11

sound change is regular and causes irregularity; analogy is irregular and causes regularity