Introducing English LinguisticsCharles F. MeyerChapter 1: the study of languageLanguage Change

Is there a difference between synchronic and diachronic approaches to language study?

Other distinctions

• Language/dialect• Pidgin/creole

How are the number of speakers of a language determined?

Most Widely Spoken Languages

Language# of First Language Speakers

# of Second Language Speakers

Total

Chinese (Mandarin)

873 (83%) 178 (17%) 1,051

English 340 (25-40%) 500-1,000 (60-75%)

840-1,340

Hindi 370 (76%) 120 (24%) 490

Spanish 360 (86%) 60 (14%) 420

Russian 167 (60%) 110 (40%) 277

Arabic (standard)

206 (90%) 24 (10%) 230

Portuguese 203 (95%) 10 (5%) 213

Bengali 207 (98%) 4 (2%) 211

Indonesian 23 (14%) 140 (86%) 163

Japanese 126 (99%) 1 (1%) 127

German 95 (77%) 28 (23%) 123

French 65 (57%) 50 (43%) 115

The two ways to classify languages

• Genetic• Typological

The comparative method

Genetic relationships between languages

The Indo-European language family

Ways of doing linguistic reconstruction

• Cognate vocabulary• Grammatical similarities

– E.g. case in Indo-European languages

• Historical/archeological information– E.g. interesting new work on DNA analyses to track

migrations of people around the world

Words in Modern and Older Indo-European Languages Equivalent to Modern English foot

Old English fótModern English footModern German FußModern Dutch voetModern Norwegian fotModern Danish fodModern Swedish fot

Modern French piedModern Italian piedeModern Portuguese péModern Spanish pieSanskrit pātLatin pēsGreek peza

The Marking of Case, Number, and Gender in Latin and Modern English for the word girl

Latin English

Case Singular Plural Singular Plural

Nominative puella puellae girl girlsGenitive puellae puellaru

mgirl’s girls’

Dative puellae puellis girl girlsAccusative puellam puellas girl girlsAblative puella puellis girl girlsVocative puella puellae girl girls

Verb Endings in Romance Languages

Language Typology

Morphology

Isolating languages—Meaning is expressed by separate words. Chinese is a very isolating language. In the construction nuan-huo te yi-fu (‘warm clothes’), the separate word te is used to indicate that the first word (nuan-huo) modifies the second word (yi-fu).

Morphology (cont.)

Agglutinative languages—Meaning is expressed by very complex internal structure. Turkish is a very agglutinative language. The construction çayiçtik means ‘We drank the tea’ (çay = ‘tea’; iç = ‘drink’; and tik = ‘we/past’).

Morphology (cont.)

Fusional languages—Meaning is expressed by inflections dependent on such factors as the case, number, and gender of a noun. Modern German is a fusional language. In the sentence Das ist ein gutes bier (‘That is a good beer’), the inflection –es on gutes indicates that the gender of the noun Bier is neuter and that the noun is marked for the nominative case.

Morphology (cont.)

These categories are not discrete but tend to grade off into one another. For instance, Modern English would be classified on a scale somewhere between Chinese and Modern German. Why?

Syntax (from a posting on the Linguist List by Fritz Newmeyer

Dear Listers, There are 16 ways that languages can divide up according to the

following 4 criteria: 1. VO vs. OV word order2. Prepositions vs. postpositions3. N-Genitive order vs. Genitive-N order4. N-Relative clause vs. Relative clause-N order

 

Syntax (cont.)In Jack Hawkins' sample of 149 languages, 6 of the 16 possible

combinations did not occur:VO Pr NG RelNVO Pr GN RelNVO Po NG NRelVO Po NG RelNOV Po NG RelNOV Pr NG RelN

Why is Old English so different from Modern English?

Internal/External influences on language change

Is there one single source language for all languages?

Do languages change or evolve?

Is there a difference?

Language Death