Week 2

Question 1

What kind of language did English used to be? And what did it change to?

Answer 1

Synthetic, analytic

Question 2

What kind of language was Old English?

Answer 2

Synthetic, which means that languages rely on inflectional morphology to convey grammatical relationships, such as;

Nouns, adjectives, articles are inflected for case (nom, acc, genitive, dative), grammatical gender and number.

Question 3

What kind of language was Latin?

Answer 3

Synthetic

Question 4

What are analytic languages?

Answer 4

Languages that rely more on syntax (word order, prepositions).

Question 5

The History of English is categorised by…

Answer 5

A typical move from synthetic to analytic.

Question 6

What are some sources of language change?

Answer 6

1. Incrementalism through transmission
2. Phonetic processes
3. Analogy (economising brain processing power)
4. Changes in the lexicon (semantic shifts, polysemy, word formation)
5. Language “external” pressures (contact, social prestige, accommodation)
6. Taboo
7. New inventions/cultural practices
8. Pragmatic: e.g. the use of literally

Question 7

Transmission and incrementation

Answer 7

1. We never produce the exact same sound twice.
2. Adult language varies a lot due to physical and processing constraints.
3. Children have to deduce rules of language.
4. Children introduce minute changes because of variation;
   • SVO pattern already very frequent in OE -> pattern incrementally reinforced.
   • Co-articulator tendencies: kirk -> church.

Question 8

What is a complication for transmission and incrementation?

Answer 8

Variation is also socially conditioned.

Question 9

How did the English language experience the minimising of articulately effects?

Answer 9

Sound changes:
1. Assimilation
2. Epenthesis
3. Metathesis
4. Haplology/deletion
5. Dissimilation

Morphological changes:
1. Analogy

Question 10

Analogy

Answer 10

Inventing a new element in conformity with some part of the language system that you already know.
• Help, holp, holpen
• dive, dove, dived
But also overgeneralisation of plurals:
• Deer, deers

Question 11

Metathesis

Answer 11

The switching around of (mostly) adjoining phonemes, rearrangement of sounds.

Example: “ask” is sometimes pronounced as /æks/.

Question 12

Assimilation

Answer 12

Sounds becoming more similar to those in their surroundings: AmE = voicing assimilation.

Example: sink /n/ to /ŋ/

Question 13

Dissimilation

Answer 13

A specific sound becomes more different to the neighbouring sounds, or there’s omission of one or two identical sounds.
• Epenthesis /filem/
• Metathesis /aks/

Question 14

Haplology/deletion

Answer 14

Reduction of a sequence of very similar syllables; a syllable is deleted, usually when it is reduplicated or very similar to the following syllable.

Example;
• ME “Englaland” to “England”.
• library pronounced as /libry/

Question 15

Syncope

Answer 15

Haplology/deletion

Question 16

Epenthesis

Answer 16

The insertion of a phoneme in order to break up consonant clusters.

Example:
• PDE film pronounced as /filem/

Question 17

How can you define a variety of a language?

Answer 17

A regionally, socially, situationally or otherwise specific subtype of language

Question 18

What is a standard language?

Answer 18

A standard language can be defined as in terms of consistency, for instance the degree of variation is low in terms of spelling and inflectional morphology.

Question 19

Which percentage of the world speaks English?

Answer 19

20%

Question 20

The growth of English

Answer 20

1. 5th c.: 400 speakers
2. 16th c.: 4 million
3. Today: 427 million mother tongues
4. Today: over 1 billion 2nd or foreign language

Question 21

What is an example of the rise of new Englishes?

Answer 21

Dunglish

Question 22

Synthetic languages

Answer 22

They rely on inflection/morphology to convey grammatical relationships. In OE, nouns and adjectives are inflected for case (nom, acc), grammatical gender and number.

Question 23

Cultural/social changes in vocabulary

Answer 23

The death of a word, shift or addition in meaning (polysemy).
* Odour vs. stench
* Veal vs. calf
* Pork vs. pig

Question 24

Four ways of semantic change

Answer 24

1. Broadening is where the meaning of a word evolves over time to represent a more general concept or thing than it did before (e.g. dog).
2. Narrowing is where the meaning of a word becomes less general or inclusive than its original meaning (e.g. hound).
3. Taboo (e.g. ass).
4. Pejoration is semantic change where a word acquires unfavourable connotations (e.g. ladies and gents, mistresses, madam).
5. Amelioration: an improvement in the meaning of a word; it acquires more positive connotations (‘knight’ is a military follower of the king).

Question 25

Reasons for a lack of dialect contact: language divergence:

Answer 25

1. Migration
2. Political boundaries
3. Social boundaries
4. Geographical boundaries

Question 26

What are the results of language contact?

Answer 26

1. Cross linguistic influence
2. Language may acquired later in life
3. Interlanguage phenomena

Particularly with large communities.

Already fragile/irregular systems break down more quickly, such as the grammatical gender in Dutch.

Question 27

What are language internal and external devices?

Answer 27

Internal: affixation, compounding, conversion, coining.

External: borrowing, cultural and social changes (death of a word, shift/addition in meaning = polysemy; odour vs. stench). But also semantic change; shift, narrowing, taboo, pejoration, amelioration.

Question 28

Pejoration (semantic change)

Answer 28

Semantic change whereby a word acquires unfavourable connotations; ladies and gents, mistresses, spinster, madam.

Question 29

Amelioration (semantic change)

Answer 29

An improvement in the meaning of a word; it acquires more positive connotations. Knight (Dutch = knecht, military follower of King).