linguistics final

direct contact

speaker coming into contact with another speaker face to face

indirect contact

language contact through books and media

borrowing

the adoption by one language of linguistic elements from another language

explain lexical borrowing in two to three sentences.

borrowing words/vocabulary from another language. can be done with simple contact and can be something special or food items from another language ex. spanish alligator

level of borrowing- core vocabularies and grammatical function words

very rarely borrowed between languages

state what core vocabularies and grammatical function words are

body parts, familial relations, basic environmental entities, pronouns and numerals, grammatical function words.

loan translation

whole phrases or idiomatic expressions are borrowed through a word-for-word transition into native morphemes

an example of loan translation

long time no see! is a direct translation from chinese

structural borrowing

needs more deeper context situations (longer)

structural borrowing: phonological borrowing

the adoption of new sounds or phonological rules ex. the introduction of new french words rouge, leisure, measure introduced a new phonetic symbol

structural borrowing: morphological borrowing and example

the adoption of morphological elements or patterns

ex. writeable and drinkable have the -able influence from french

syntactic borrowing and example

the replacement of native word order. needs stronger contact. ex. in romansch the original noun-adjective is replaced by adjective-noun due to german influence

adstratum languages

equally prestigious (no dominance for one language over another)

superstratum languages

language is more dominant in terms of economic and political power (non-linguistic elements)

substratum

substratum language

language is less dominant

explain language convergence

when two languages become more similar due to contact. this generally occurs among adstratum languages (although they are not genetically similar, they share some characteristics due to prolonged contact)

provide an example of language convergence

the balkan sprachbund (union of languages)

language shift

a shift by a group of speakers toward another language. the substratum language speakers adopt the superstratum language, once completed, the superstratum language will die.

how do we determine language death

is this language spoken by native speakers everyday? are newborn children acquiring this language every day?

living languages

yes and yes (people are speaking the language everyday and newborn babies are acquiring the language everyday)

moribund- endangered language

yes, native speakers are speaking it every day but no, newborn babies are not acquiring the language every day

dead languages

no, native speakers are not speaking it every day and no, newborn babies are not acquiring the language every day.

pidgin language

typically arises in a setting where two or more people come together for the purposes of trade

limited contact situation

pidgin language: superstratum languages

provides more vocab (not 100%), basic word order (svo and np)

pidgin language: substratum languages

provides all other linguistic elements: live pronunciation and morphology

pidgin language ex.

chinook language: native american, british, french traders in the pacific northwest

creole language

it arises in situations where the speakers in contact are in need of a common, primary means of communication.

(becomes its own language used every day, can be native speakers)

creole language ex.

the plantation settings in the carribbean and parts of the southern united states

creole language: decreolization

the creole language becomes more like a superstratum language

mixed languages

can’t tell which aspects are from superstratum languages or substratum languages

example of mixed languages:

ex. media lengua (salcedo, ecuador) spanish vocabulry with quechua grammar

what is language change?

all languages change thorough time. by comparing between languages and within a language, we can discover the history of languages and a group of languages or families. historical linguistics considers the ways in which languages change through time and some of the factors that influence those changes.

synchronic analysis:

analysis of a language at a particular point in time

diachronic analysis:

the study of language development through time. this includes how it has changed and after synchronic analysis.

historical linguistics

using diachronic analysis

proto-indo-european language

in the late eighteenth century, western european scholars began to notice some linguistic characteristics shared among ancient european and asian languages

why does a language change

loss of homogeneity due to georgraphical division, due to language contact, and language change may simply just happen.

is language change bad

language change is neither good nor bad ex. comprise

anatomical similarity

many languages use the same sounds because of the similarities among the human apparatus

coincidence

two languages will just so happen to associate the same or similar sounds with the same concept.

anatomical similarity: coincidence

two languages will happen to associate the same or similar sounds with the same concept ex. ([mati] in modern greek and [mata] in Malay)

onamatopeia

iconic connections between the form and meaning of words

family tree theory: regularity hypothesis

speech sounds change in regular and recognizable ways

family tree theory: relatedness hypothesis

similarities among languages due to genetic relationship

family tree theory: comparative method

it is necessary to reconstruct the hypothetical parent from which the relayed languages are derived

the wave theory

the gradual spread of changes throughout a dialect, languages, or group of languages is recognized.

similarities between subgroups are indicated by circles enclosing the languages the different lines, such as solid lines or dashed lines

the dialects within each language can also be indicated.

wave theory disadvantage

the genetic history of the language is not expressed

disadvantages of the family tree theory

the internal variations and the contact with other languages are not indicated. the split of languages was a rather sudden or abrupt occurrence without intermediate stages.

total correspondence

if all the languages exhibit the same sound in the same position in a cognate set, reconstruct that sound

most natural development

compare with notes

occam’s razor

given any pair of possible analyses, prefer the one which is simpler overall