ENG 4820History of the English Language

Dr. Michael Getty | Spring 2009WEEK 3: THE ABSOLUTE BASICS

ENG4820 | Week 3 2

WHAT STUCK FROM LAST WEEK?

ENG4820 | Week 3 3

WHAT SHOULD HAVE STUCKLANGUAGE VS. DIALECT• Within communities of people who all speak the same

'language,' there can be huge differences in grammar, pronunciation, and word-stock.

• We often use the word ‘dialect’ to refer to divergent segments of a larger speech community: American vs. British, Southern vs. Midwestern, Rural vs. Urban

• Except for clear-cut cases, where you draw the line between language and dialect is a political and cultural question, not a scientific one.

• Example: Walk blindfolded from Germany to the Netherlands. German and Dutch are related but separate ‘languages,’ each with its own traditions and institutions.

• But with only your ears, you wouldn’t be be able to tell when you cross the border, because the linguistic variation is continuous across the neat political divide between them.

ENG4820 | Week 3 4

WHAT SHOULD HAVE STUCKWHAT LINGUISTS DO AND DO NOT STUDY• Study what people say, not what other people

think they should say.• What people consciously know about their

language is about one one thousandth (a guess) of what they know subconsciously.

• A single language is complex enough for a lifetime of study without even touching the things people consciously think about.

• We do not teach people how to make artistic or moralistic judgments. Most people don’t need the help!

ENG4820 | Week 3 5

WHAT SHOULD HAVE STUCKDOING THINGS WITH THE MEAT IN YOUR HEAD

•Consonants– Place of articulation– Manner of articulation– Voicing

•Vowels– High ~ Mid ~ Low– Front ~ Central ~ Back– Tense ~ Lax– Rounded ~ Unrounded

ENG4820 | Week 3 6

THE ABSOLUTE BASICSFEELING THE POINTS OF

ARTICULATION

• Labial vs. labiodental:     pot     fought• Labial vs. alveolar:      pot     tot• Alveolar vs. interdental:     tot     

thought• Alveolar vs. interdental:      sought    

thought• Alveolar vs. alveopalatal:   sought     shot• Alveolar vs. velar:      tot     cot• Alveopalatal vs. velar:     shot    

caught• Front to back: • pot    thought    fought    tot    shot    caught

ENG4820 | Week 3 7

THE ABSOLUTE BASICSFEELING THE MANNERS OF

ARTICULATION

Voiced vs. Voiceless

Put your fingers on your throat.

You should feel vibration from

your vocal chords at the beginning

of the second word, not at the

beginning of the first:

pay     bay

few     view

bath     bathe

toe     doe

char     jarcoal goal Source: Millward p. 28

ENG4820 | Week 3 8

THE ABSOLUTE BASICSFEELING THE MANNERS OF

ARTICULATION

Stop vs. nasal• Put a finger right under your

nose. • You should feel warm air on

your finger at the end of the second word, but not at the end of the first.

mob    mommad    manhag    hang

Source: Millward p. 28

ENG4820 | Week 3 9

THE ABSOLUTE BASICSFEELING THE MANNERS OF

ARTICULATION

Nasal vs. lateralpan     pal

Nasal vs. retroflexnap     rap

Nasal vs. lateral vs. retroflexnap     rap     lap

Semivowels:well yell

Source: Millward p. 28

ENG4820 | Week 3 10

THE ABSOLUTE BASICSVOWELS

• The chart goes according to where the highest point of your tongue is as you pronounce each sound, facing west 

• High-Mid-Low Front: yeah

• Low Central to High Front: eye

• High Front to High Back ~ Unrounded to Rounded: you

• High Back to Mid Back to Low Central ~ Rounded to Unrounded: wuah!

Source: Millward p. 28

ENG4820 | Week 3 11

THE ABSOLUTE BASICSPHONES AND PHONEMES

Kal-El, Son of Jor-El, an Alien from the Planet Krypton

“Superman” “Clark Kent”

ENG4820 | Week 3 12

THE ABSOLUTE BASICSPHONES AND PHONEMES

• Pronounce the following words, paying close attention to what goes on inside your mouth as you hit the sound cued by the letter t:

take ~ steak ~ truck ~ twin ~ water ~ witness

ENG4820 | Week 3 13

THE ABSOLUTE BASICS

• You can always predict which ‘t’ sound is going to occur based on the sounds around it.

• Assimilation: making neighboring sounds more like each other, minimizing the work it takes to get your mouth and throat from one configuration to the next.

• Dissimilation: making meaning-bearing differences easier to hear.– The difference between voiceless /t/ and voiced /d/ is meaning-bearing in

other words, phonemic) in English. Think of ‘toe’ vs. ‘doe.’ – In front of a voiced vowel, the difference between /t/ and /d/ would be

more difficult to hear without the aspiration on /t/

ENG4820 | Week 3 14

THE ABSOLUTE BASICS

• Whether you say [t] or [th] in English depends on whether you are pronouncing it at the beginning of a word or after another sound.

• Each sound is a manifestation of some common, underlying, more abstract unit. We call this unit a phoneme, and we call its manifestations allophones.

• Think of Superman and Clark Kent as allophones of a common phoneme, the alien named Kal-El. You never seem them both in the same environment, and Superman in particular only comes out under very specific conditions. 

ENG4820 | Week 3 15

THE ABSOLUTE BASICS

Kal-El from Krypton

“Superman” “Clark Kent”

/t/ (The phoneme, an alveolar stop)

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Real-World Manifestations of Kal-El, each adapted to a particular setting

Allophones -- Physical manifestations of the phoneme /t/, each adapted to a particular setting

ENG4820 | Week 3 16

THE ABSOLUTE BASICSMORE THINGS YOU MAY HAVE HAD NO IDEA YOU WERE DOING

• Feel where the tip of your tongue is when you say [n] in tent vs. tenth• Feel the difference in where your tongue touches the top of your mouth with the [k]

sound in keep vs. coffee• Feel what your lips are doing when you say the [k] sound in coo vs. clue• Feel your vocal chords as you say potato. Is your voice buzzing during the first

syllable?• Put a finger right under your nose and say the words bad vs. ban. Feel a difference in

warmth when you hit the vowel sound? • Do you notice anything different about the vowel in bid vs. the vowel in bit?

ENG4820 | Week 3 17

THE ABSOLUTE BASICS• Speakers of other languages are

consciously aware of some differences we know only subconsciously -- precisely because in their languages, the differences are meaning-bearing.

• Take Hindi, for example

ENG4820 | Week 3 18

THE ABSOLUTE BASICS• In Hindi, whether you have the aspirated or

unaspirated sound depends on whether you're talking about a tune or a piece of cloth. The difference between them is meaning-bearing

• Each sound is a distinct building block, as different to Hindi speakers as /t/ and /d/ are to us. 

ENG4820 | Week 3 19

THE ABSOLUTE BASICS• On the flip side, English has meaning-bearing differences in

sound -- phonemes -- that other languages do not. • I once had a roommate, Evis (short for Evripides), who was a

native speaker of Greek. • One day, he came to my room and said what sounded like

“Michael, come here. I want you to see my new shits.” • I had already taken linguistics, so I had an idea of what was

going on, but it was nonetheless with some apprehension that I went into his room.

• There on his bed were some new sheets. • “Oh,” I said, “You mean new sheets." • “That’s what I said,” he replied. “Shits.”• For English speakers, sheets and shits are very different

things, and the distinction between the two words rests on a single difference in sound: tense vs lax, /i/ vs /І/. 

ENG4820 | Week 3 20

THE ABSOLUTE BASICSLOOKING AHEAD• The inventory of phonemes that characterizes English has shifted

constantly over time. • In my lifetime, Americans have begun to lose the distinction between

the vowels in don and dawn, a change that is happening almost nowhere else outside of North America.

• Historically, the vowel inventory of English was completely reorganized in a series of overlapping changes that started in the 13th century and went to different degrees of completion in different parts of the world.

• The Great Vowel Shift. We will make time for it!

• Today:

• Ca. 1300 CE:

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ENG4820 | Week 3 21

THE ABSOLUTE BASICSMORE STRUCTURE. THIS TIME WORDS.• A morph is the smallest indivisible unit of meaning in a language. A

morph can be ...– a free-standing word:

dog, Brazil, red, go, you.– a prefix, something smaller than a word that goes before

something else: unwed, prefix, procreate, ex-wife

– a suffix, something smaller than a word that goes after something else: bothersome, rental, noonish, cats

– an infix, rare in English but common in other languages, that goes inside a word: abso-f_ckin-lutely

– a more abstract piece such as the quality of a particular vowel, or perhaps the placement of emphasis:swim, swam, swum import ~ import, record ~ record, convict ~ convict, rebound ~ rebound

ENG4820 | Week 3 22

THE ABSOLUTE BASICSMORE STRUCTURE. THIS TIME WORDS.• We can associate different morphs with abstract units, just like we did

with Superman and Clark Kent. (a) (b)

riot riots

kid kids

day days

rose roses

ox oxen

child children

sheep sheep

• We know that each of the words in column (b) means the thing in column (a) along with something that means 'plural,' or 'more than one.' 

• With riot, day, and rose, we have a set of regular affixes for words that end in voiceless consonants, vowels, and the phonemes /s,z/. We can make up words and automatically know what their plural form will be.

• With ox, child, and sheep, we see irregular affixes that apply only to those words and few others (brethren, deer, fish).  

ENG4820 | Week 3 23

THE ABSOLUTE BASICSMORE STRUCTURE. THIS TIME WORDS.

• We can associate different morphs with abstract units, just like we did with Superman and Clark Kent. (a) (b)

relevant irrelevant

logical illogical

possible impossible

consistent inconsistent

temperate intemperate

articulate inarticulate

• We know that each of the words in column (b) means the thing in column (a) along with something that means ‘not.’

• The consonant sound in the prefix takes on…– the point and manner of articulation of any

following lateral or retroflex– the point of articulation of any following stop– alveolar articulation everywhere else

ENG4820 | Week 3 24

THE ABSOLUTE BASICSMORE STRUCTURE. THIS TIME WORDS.

• We can associate different morphs with abstract units, just like

we did with Superman and Clark Kent. / PLURAL / / NOT /

/-s/ /-z/ /-Iz/ /-In/ /-Ø/ …/Il-/ /Ir-/ /Im-/ /In-/ …

This is important. Sheep is just as plural as roses, but the morph is ‘covert,’ also called ‘null.’ It has no realization in speech, but it’s still there.

(The morpheme)

(The allomorphs)

ENG4820 | Week 3 25

THE ABSOLUTE BASICSTHE PRINCESS, THE FROG, AND COVERT MORPHS

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• Who's initiating this kiss? • If the princess is the active kisser:

The princess is kissing the frog.

• If the frog is the active kisser:

The frog is kissing the princess.

• So Modern English speakers use word order to indicate the active kisser.

ENG4820 | Week 3 26

THE ABSOLUTE BASICSTHE PRINCESS, THE FROG, AND COVERT MORPHS• Things are different in languages like Old English and modern German.• Here's German. Pay attention to the underlined equivalents of the below, which is what we call a ‘definite article.’ • In German and Old English, definite articles also reflect gender. The princess below is feminine while the frog is masculine.• The masculine gender of the frog is totally arbitrary. In fact, languages like German and Old English give every noun a gender.

– Active kisser = the princess: 

Die prinzessin küsst den frosch

– Active kisser = the frog

Der frosch küsst die prinzessin. 

• So you see the shape of 'the' in German depends on who the active kisser is.

ENG4820 | Week 3 27

THE ABSOLUTE BASICSTHE PRINCESS, THE FROG, AND COVERT MORPHS

• That means you can change the word order without changing the active kisser:

Sentence Active Kisser

a) Die prinzessin küsst den frosch PRINCESS

b) Den frosch küsst die prinzessin

c) Der frosch küsst die prinzessin FROG

d) Die prinzessin küsst der frosch

All the change in word order does in German is shift the emphasis. So (b) reads as ‘It’s the frog who the princess is kissing.’

ENG4820 | Week 3 28

THE ABSOLUTE BASICSTHE PRINCESS, THE FROG, AND COVERT MORPHS

• We call this 'overt case marking' • 'Case' refers to the relationship between: 

– the grammatical features of a phrase (i.e. a noun and any articles or adjectives that appear next to it) and – the role of whatever the phrase represents in whatever is going on in the sentence. 

• 'Overt' means that you can see case in the actual form of words in a phrase. • The phrase der frosch - where the frog is the active kisser - looks different from den frosch - where the frog is the one being kissed.

ENG4820 | Week 3 29

THE ABSOLUTE BASICSTHE PRINCESS, THE FROG, AND COVERT MORPHS

• English has a few pieces of overt case marking left, all in the pronouns: (* = ungrammatical, i.e. inconsistent with what native speakers of the language say and accept as well-formed)

– He loves her – *He loves she – *Him loves her – Whom/Who did you see at the party last night?– *Whom went to the party last night?

• English had a rich overt case marking system from its pre-historic beginnings to the 11th century CE.

ENG4820 | Week 3 30

THE ABSOLUTE BASICSTHE KING, THE BISHOP, AND THE DOG

• Consider these made-up examples based on three participants• cyning = ‘king’ biscop = ‘bishop’ hund = ‘dog’• geaf = ‘gave’ se / tham / thone = ‘the’

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Giver Givee Gift

King Bishop Dog

King Dog Bishop

Bishop King Dog

Dog King Bishop

Bishop Dog King

Dog Bishop King

ENG4820 | Week 3 31

THE ABSOLUTE BASICSTHE PRINCESS, THE FROG, AND COVERT MORPHS

What happened between the 8th and 11th centuries?• Phonological changes: Reduction of unstressed syllables, already underway since the

early Germanic period• Changes on the ground: Invasion by non-English-speaking hordes

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Giver Givee Gift

King Bishop Dog

King Dog Bishop

Bishop King Dog

Dog King Bishop

Bishop Dog King

Dog Bishop King

ENG4820 | Week 3 32

THE ABSOLUTE BASICSNEXT WEEK:

LANGUAGE CHANGE INSIDE AND OUT

NOT TO BE MISSED!We will simulate, in class, formation of dialects, invasions, and the interaction between social class and

speech