Classics 47 - Linguistic Processes

assimilation

process by which individuals or groups adopt the language characteristics of another group, often leading to a decrease in their native language use

semantic narrowing

type of semantic change by which the meaning of a word becomes less general or inclusive than its earlier meaning

ablaut

systematic variation of vowels in the same root or affix that is usually paralleled by differences in meaning (sing, sang, sung, song)

amelioration

the process by which a word that previously had a negative or neutral meaning develops a more favorable or positive meaning

conjugation

morphological inflection of a verb

pejoration

process where a word that once had a positive connotation develops a negative one

onomatopoeia

the process of creating a word that resembles the sound it represents

metathesis

phenomenon where the order of sounds or syllables is rearranged, leading to changes in pronunciation

Grimm’s Law

the set of sound changes that explain the evolution of Proto-Indo-European roots

calquing

word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation

diphthongization

transformation of monophthongs into diphthongs

declension

changing the form of a word to express its syntactic function in the sentence

digraph

pair of characters/letters that represent a single phoneme

compensatory lengthening

phonological phenomenon where a vowel is lengthened to compensate for the loss of a consonant or vowel

phonotactics

constraints on the sequence or position of phonemes, permitted arrangements of sounds

cognate

a word that is etymologically related to another word

PIE

a hypothetical language that was the last common ancestor of Greek, Latin, English and many other related languages of Europe and Western Asia

prefix

morpheme that can be added at the beginning of a word

suffix

morpheme that can be added at the end of a word