Unit 1: Language Variation and change

History of the Language

English as a living language

A language is considered "alive" because it's continuously and systematically changing. This quality, which contrasts with "dead languages" like Classical Latin, is an attribute of languages where speakers still introduce changes to meet their expressive needs. The flexibility of English allows it to adapt to describe the ever-changing world.

Prescriptive approach (attitudes towards language change)

This approach firmly opposes language change and suggests that innovations lead to deterioration of the language. Prescriptivists often yearn for a more sophisticated, older version of the language. They view innovations as a product of a corrupt society , fearing the language may become unrecognisable or incomprehensible. They object to both foreign introductions and local innovations.

Descriptive approach (attitudes towards language change)

This approach is for language change , viewing it as a sign of flexibility and adaptability. Descriptivists see linguistic development as an enrichment and believe in language as a democratic process. They understand that languages are a product of their speakers , who subconsciously protect the expressive capabilities of their language.

Diachronic approach (the study of language change)

The diachronic approach studies language change across time. In the context of English, this means considering the evolution of the language from its early stage (Old English) to its present form (Modern English).

Synchronic approach (the study of language change)

The synchronic approach involves describing the different varieties of a language. This perspective focuses on studying linguistic variation at a particular point in time, rather than across historical periods. It offers a snapshot of the language's structure and variations as it exists at that specific moment.

Historical factors (external causes of change)

Historical factors are external causes of language change that include processes such as wars, cultural developments, crises, and industrial or technological changes. These events provide the context for the incorporation of new lexical items. For example, war changes language by introducing new words or altering the meanings of existing ones, like how "lousy" came to mean weary during World War I.

Cultural transmission (external causes of change)

Cultural transmission refers to the way new generations adapt and alter the language they inherit to suit their personal requirements and to create their particular identity. Changes often begin with teens and young adults , whose language grows to include words, phrases, and constructions that differ from those of the older generation as they interact with their peers.

Social factors (external causes of change)

Social factors such as education, social class, gender, ethnic background, occupation, and personal identity influence an individual's dialect and language variation. For instance, gender affects language choice, leading to differences in directness or emotional expression between men's and women's speech. Social class also influences the preferred use of certain pronunciation variants.

Geographical location (external causes of change)

Geographical location causes language change by leading to different accents and dialects of a language, which possess distinctive phonological, lexical, and grammatical features.

Registers (external causes of change)

Registers involve the use of the specific jargon of a profession, such as law, advertising, or science. This use has distinctive lexical and grammatical characteristics. For example, English legal lexicon is notable for its use of Latinisms (e.g., Bona fide) and archaic legal terms (e.g., peruse instead of read)

English as a world language (external causes of change)

The role of English as a world language is driven by globalisation and the blurring of international boundaries. This has brought about changes both within and beyond the UK , as well as borrowings from English into other languages. Conversely, English also borrows words from other languages, such as safari (Arabic) and wanderlust (German).

Ease of articulation (internal causes of change)

This change has a physiological basis and results in articulatory simplification. This often means the simplification of complex consonant clusters or the addition of a vowel sound. An example is the word 'thumb', which lost the /b/ sound due to omission/elision of the final consonant, simplifying its pronunciation.

Spelling Pronunciation (internal causes of change)

Spelling pronunciation occurs when the written form of a word has an impact on its pronunciation. This is common in languages like English where sounds and symbols don't always match. An example is the increasingly common pronunciation of the once-silent letters like the 't' in often or the 'd' in Wednesday, based on their spelling.

Analogy (internal causes of change)

Analogy is a cognitive factor that causes changes resulting from our preference for regular patterns over irregular ones. Due to analogy, most new verbs in English are coined as regular (e.g., googled, Instagrammed). Another example is the creation of the word 'flammable' from inflammable, based on the common pattern of in- prefixes.

Reanalysis (internal causes of change)

Reanalysis is a cognitive factor that typically results in a morphological change. It involves taking a simple word and analysing it as a compound or as a root + affix structure. A classic example is the word 'Hamburger', which was originally Hamburg + -er, but was reanalysed as ham + -burger, which then produced words like cheeseburger.

Hypercorrection (internal causes of change)

Hypercorrection occurs when a speaker overgeneralises a rule while trying to speak another dialect or language. This often brings about several changes, especially in a language contact situation. A common grammatical example is the use of I for me in a compound subject, such as "between you and I".

Morphological Change > Addition of Affixes > Borrowings

New affixes can enter a language through borrowing when words containing them are adopted from another language. Initially, the full words (e.g., French accomplishment) are borrowed. Over time, the affix (e.g., -ment) establishes itself as productive and can be used with native bases (e.g., acknowledgement).

Morphological Change > Addition of Affixes > Grammaticalisation

Grammaticalisation is a process where a lexical form (a word) develops over time into a grammatical form (an affix or auxiliary). This change often involves significant phonological reduction and a loss of the word's original semantic content. An example is the Latin word habeō ('I have, grasp') eventually becoming the Italian future tense suffix -ō.

Morphological Change > Addition of Affixes > Grammaticalisation > Fusion

Fusion is a specific type of grammaticalization where two frequently adjacent words merge over time to create a single unit consisting of a base and an affix (prefix or suffix). This process leads to the rise of new synthetic forms. For instance, the contraction coulda in Modern English dialects results from the fusion of could and have.

Morphological Change > Loss of Affixes

Affixes can be lost from a language, either by simply falling into disuse, as happened with Old English derivational affixes like -op and -estre, or more commonly, through sound change. The loss of case endings in English is a prime example, where consonant deletion and vowel reduction/deletion obliterated earlier case and gender distinctions.

Morphological Change > Analogy

Analogy is a process that can alleviate the drastic effects of sound change on a language's morphology. It involves extending an existing productive morphological pattern to words that otherwise would have become irregular. For example, the dominant plural suffix -s was extended by analogy to the word hand, creating hands and overriding the form hand expected from sound change alone.

Morphological Change > Reanalysis

Reanalysis can result in a new morphological structure for a word, affecting both native and borrowed terms, especially when the original structure is not transparent. This process is often called folk etymology when not based on historical correctness. Examples include analyzing hamburger to create the new productive pattern (-)burger or relating earwicga to ear + wiggle.

Synthetic Language

A synthetic language is one characterized by a high complexity of morphology and the presence of many inflectional affixes. Historically, English was a synthetic language, like Latin, but the loss of case endings caused it to shift towards being more analytic.

Analytic Language

An analytic language is one distinguished by a low complexity of morphology, having very few inflectional affixes. Modern English is classified as an analytic language. English developed from a synthetic to a more analytic language over time largely due to the loss of its complex system of case endings through sound change.

Syntactic Change

Syntactic change refers to modifications that occur over time in the syntax of a language, affecting components such as phrase structure and transformations. A significant example in the history of English is the word order change from a more variable type to the fixed Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) order after case markings were lost.

Lexical Change > Addition of Items > word formation processes > Compounding

Compounding is one of the most important word formation processes for adding new lexical items. It involves combining two or more existing words to create a new one. This process has always been available to English speakers, forming structures like the Noun + Noun compound sunbeam ('sun' + 'beam') and the poetic Old English hwælweg ('whale' + 'path') meaning 'sea'.

Lexical Change > Addition of Items > word formation processes > Derivation

Derivation is one of the most important word formation processes for the creation of new words. It typically involves adding affixes to a base word to change its category or meaning. For instance, Old English derivation included creating the noun bæcere ('baker') using the suffix -ere and the adjective cildisc ('childish') using the suffix -isc.

Lexical Change > Addition of Items > word formation processes > Conversion

Conversion is a word formation process that creates new words without the use of affixes. It involves changing a word's lexical category, such as the shift from the noun summer to the verb summer in Modern English. This process is generally unavailable to synthetic inflectional languages, which prefer morphological marking to indicate a word's category change.

Lexical Change > Addition of Items > word formation processes > Blend

Blend is a process by which a new word is created by combining two separate words with different meanings.

Lexical Change > Addition of Items > word formation processes > Back-formation

Back-formation creates a new word by removing what is mistakenly believed to be an affix, which can change the word's meaning or word class (e.g., "edit" from "editor"). It involves reanalysis and can alter the word's original function.

Lexical Change > Addition of Items > word formation processes > Clipping

Clipping shortens a word without changing its meaning or word class by simply cutting off parts of it (e.g., "ad" from "advertisement").

Lexical Change > Addition of Items > word formation processes > Clipping

An abbreviation formed from the initial letters of other words and pronounced as a word.

Lexical Change > Addition of Items > word formation processes > Calque

A process where phrases are borrowed and translated word-for-word from another language. Examples of these borrowed phrases include flea market (from French marché aux puces) and moment of truth (from Spanish el momento de la verdad).

Lexical Change > Addition of Items > word formation processes > Borrowings

Borrowing is a major source of new words, resulting from a language's contact with other cultures. This process usually fills lexical gaps created by innovations or developments. The influence of Norman French on English, for instance, introduced many terms related to government (tax, royal) and the judiciary (judge, jury).

Lexical Change > Loss of Items

The loss of lexical items is one of the two main types of lexical change, the other being addition. It occurs when words are lost from the lexicon, often because the object or notion they refer to has become obsolete due to cultural changes. Examples of Old English words lost from the language include dolgbōt ('compensation for wounding') and þeox ('hunting spear')

Substratum Influence

Substratum influence describes the impact of a politically or culturally non-dominant language on a dominant language in the same area. The influence is generally minor, with borrowed words restricted to place names, like Thames and London from the Celtic substratum, and unfamiliar objects or concepts.

Adstratum Influence

Adstratum influence occurs when two languages are in contact but neither one is clearly politically or culturally dominant over the other. This relationship, such as the contact between English and Scandinavian around 800 AD, typically results in the borrowing of common, everyday words. Examples in English include anger, egg, get, and take.

Superstratum Influence

Superstratum influence is the effect of a politically or culturally dominant language on another language or languages in the area. Norman French had this influence on English after the 1066 conquest. This led to heavy borrowing in areas of officialdom like government, religion, and the judiciary, with words like royal, sermon, and judge entering English.

Semantic Change > Semantic Broadening

Semantic broadening is a type of semantic change where a word's meaning becomes more general or inclusive than its historically earlier form. For instance, the word bird originally referred only to 'small fowl' but broadened to mean 'any winged creature'. Similarly, barn changed from 'place to store barley' to a 'farm building for storage and shelter'.

Semantic Change > Semantic Narrowing

Semantic narrowing is a type of semantic change where a word's meaning becomes less general or less inclusive than its historical meaning. For example, the word meat once meant 'any type of food' but narrowed to the current meaning of 'flesh of an animal'. Another example is hound, which narrowed from 'any dog' to 'a hunting breed'.

Semantic Change > Amelioration

Amelioration is a type of semantic change in which the meaning of a word evolves to become more positive or favourable. An example is the word pretty, which changed its meaning from the less favourable 'tricky, sly, cunning' to the modern sense of 'attractive'. The term knight also underwent amelioration, shifting from simply 'boy' to 'a special title or position'.

Semantic Change > Pejoration

Pejoration is a type of semantic change where a word's meaning becomes less positive or favourable over time. For instance, the word silly originally meant 'happy, prosperous' but underwent pejoration to mean 'foolish'. Similarly, wench shifted from 'girl' to 'wanton woman, prostitute'.

Semantic Change > Weakening of Meaning (Bleaching)

The weakening of meaning is a frequent semantic change, often occurring because of the human tendency to exaggerate. The process involves a word's meaning losing its intensity. For example, soon shifted from meaning 'immediately' to the milder sense of 'in the near future'. The word quell also weakened, changing its meaning from 'kill, murder' to the less drastic 'to put down, pacify'.

Semantic Change > Semantic Shift

Semantic shift is a process where a word completely loses its original meaning and adopts a new one, which is often related to the former. Over an extended period, a series of shifts can result in a meaning entirely unrelated to the word's source. For example, the word bead changed from meaning 'prayer' to 'prayer bead, bead'. The word hearse shifted from referring to a triangular harrow to its modern sense of a funeral vehicle.