Ling20 Ch.12 Language Change

Cognate

Related words (similar in form/meaning) in different languages but descent from the same ancestral language

Borrowing

The incorporation of a word/grammatical element from one language to another

Proto-language

An ancestral language that is reconstructed because it has no written records

Comparative method

A procedure by which sounds/morphemes/vocab of an earlier language can be reconstructed by using sound correspondences in daughter languages

Sound correspondence

The pairing of a sound in one cognate to a phonetically identical/related sound in the same position in another cognate

Diachronic

Comparisons at 2 or more points in time (change between 2 different times)

Synchronic

Language structures at the same point in time

Sound changes

Assimilation, palatalization, spirantization, deletion

Spirantization

Stops becomes fricatives; type of lenition (weakening)

Palatalization

Middle of the tongue is raised towards hard palate

Assimilation

One sound shares a phonetic property with another sound in its environment

Processes of grammaticalization

Abstraction, decategorialization, phonological erosion, metonymic process, syntactic reanalysis, metaphorical extension

Family tree

A schematic representation of the relationships in a language family

Wave model

a theory in historical linguistics that describes language change as a process where new features (innovations) spread outward from a center like ripples on a pond

Innovation

New linguistic features (i.e. new words, grammatical features, syntax, etc) that start at a point and spread outwards to nearby dialects

Grimm’s law

Describes systematic sound changes from Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic

Voiceless stops → fricatives

Voiced stops → voiceless

Voiced aspirated stops → voiced stops