Language Change

　

The nature of language change

Language change is inevitable, universal, continuous and, to a considerable degree, regular and systematic.

Language change is extensive, taking place in virtually all aspects of the grammar --- in phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon, and semantics. Language change is never an overnight occurrence, otherwise, communication would be impossible.

1 Sound change

1. 1 Vowel sound change

Great Vowel Shift , which occurred at the end of the Middle English period, approximately between 1400 and 1600 and which involved 7 long vowels, led to one of the major disagreements between the pronunciation and the spelling system of Modern English. For example:  

 

   MiddleEnglish    Modern English five fi:v  faiv 

mouse  

mu:s    maus 

feet fe:t  fi:tmood  

Mo:d mu:d break  

br:ken  breik 

broke  

Bro:ken bruk 

Name  

na:m   neim 

Old English Modern English

a: u

  stan                 stone

  ham                   home

  wrat                 wrote

1. 2 Sound loss  

Some sounds in English have simply disappeared from the general pronunciation of English. For example, the voiceless velar fricative / x /, which was present in "nicht" /nixt/ ("night") in old English, was lost in the pre sent-day form of night.

In Old and Middle English, /k/ sound in /kn - / clusters in the word - initial position was pronounced, but in modern English, this /k/ is lost in such words as "knight" and "knee."

Another sound loss is the deletion of a word-final vowel segment, a phenomenon called apocope. For example, name and love were pronounced respectively /na:m/and /luv/ in Middle English, but as

/ neim/ and /l^v/ in Modern English and the word-final sound / / was lost.

1. 3 Sound addition

Sound addition includes the gain or insertion of a sound. A change that involves the insertion of a consonant or vowel sound to the middle of a word is known as epenthesis, for example:

emty empty

glimse glimpse

1. 4 Sound movement

Metathesis refers to sound change because of a reversal in the positions of two neighbouring sounds. For example, Modern English word “bird” is the result of the the reversal of the two neibouring sounds /r/ and/i/ in the Old English word "bridd" ("bird")

2 Morphological change

2. 1 Affix loss

In Old English, the affix "-bora", which was added to a noun to indicate the performer of the action, was now lost in Modern English.

mund ("protection") + bora mundbora ("protector")

Derivational rule loss also occurred to the Old English suffix “-yan”, which was added to an adjective to produce a causative verb. In modern English, this suffix has simply disappeared.

Old English had a gender-marking system. This system divided nouns into three genders of masculine, feminine, and neuter. In Old English, over half of the nouns are inflected to indicate different cases. In modern English, the loss of gender and case marking has become the most noticeable of the morphological losses.

2. 2 Affix addition

The affix "-able" and “-ment” were added to the English morphological system because of the words such as “favourable” and “accomplishment” borrowed from the French language.

3 Syntactic change

3. 1 Rule loss

In Old English, there was a morphosyntactic rule of adjective agreement, according to which, the endings of adjectives must agree with the head noun in case, number, and gender. But this syntactic rule has been lost in modern English.

3. 2 Rule addition

The particle movement rule is a syntactic rule added to Modern English. This rule allows the particle in some phrasal verbs to be shifted to the right of the object. This particle movement is impossible in Old English. For example:

A: He switched off the light.

B: He switched the light off.

3. 3 Rule change

Major rule changes in the structure of English sentences took place in their word orders. In Middle English, “not” was added to the end of an affirmative sentence to make it negative. But in Modern English, the negation is often made with “not” inserted between the auxiliary verb and the main verb. For example:

I deny it not.

Old English had an elaborate case-marking system. The grammatical functions were well revealed with case markers. This system made the word order of Old English more variable than that of Modern English.

For example, the word orders in Old English included SVO,VSO, SOV and OSV, but Modern English has lost the majority of case markers, therefore a basic word order of SVO has to be followed.

2. 4 Lexical change

2. 4. 1 Lexical loss

Many words, which were used in Old English or Middle English have fallen out of use in Modern English. For example: demiss, ere, oft, wot, beseem, wer, aught, thee, thou, thy. Some of them can still be found in compound words or idioms, such as were-wolf.

2. 4. 2 Lexical addition

The history of English lexical expansion is one that is characterized with heavy borrowing and word formation, for example:

Loan words from French:

Government, religion, chaplain, crime, medicine, physician

Loan words from Greek:

Myth, geometry, gymnastics

Loan words from Latin:

Formula, memorandum, datum, curriculum

Loan words from Spanish:

Banana, mosquito, embargo, plaza

Loan words from German:

Kindergarten, dock, seminar, plunder, zinc

Loan words from Chinese:

Lichi, typhoon, tea, ginseng

New words, which are added to English, can also be formed by using such word formation rules as compounding, derivation, acronym formation, blending, abbreviation, clipping, back-formation, and coinage.

Compounding：  It is a process of combining two or more words into one lexical unit. For example:

warweary, law-abiding, short-sighted, sit-in, end product

 

Derivation: It refers to the process by which new words are formed by the addition of affixes to the roots, stems, or words. For example,

nation

national

nationalize

nationalization

internationalization

Acronymy: It is a process of creating a word called acronym by combining the initials of a number of words. For example,

VIP (very important person)

OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries)

Blending: It is a process of forming a new word by combining parts of other words. For example,

medicare( medical + care)

smog (smoke + fog)

comsat (communications + satellite)

brunch (breakfast + lunch)

Abbreviation: An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase which represents the complete form. For example,

kg (kilogram),

TV (television),

cf (confer),

cm (centimetre)

Clipping: it is a kind of abbreviation of otherwise longer words or phrases. For example,

Zoo (zoological garden)

gym (gymnasium)

copter (helicopter)

phone (telephone)

Back-formation: It is a process by which new words are formed by taking away the suffix of an existing word. For example,

enthuse (enthusiasm)

burgle (burglar)

babysit (babysitter)

edit (editor)

Coinage: It refers to the invention of a new word, often from the brand-name or trade-mark of a product. For example, Hoover, Whiteout, Thermofax, Mace are the trademarks for their respective products, but now are commonized:

To hoover a floor

To white out a mistake

To thermofax a material

To mace demonstators

2.5 Semantic change

2. 5. 1 Semantic broadening

Semantic broadening refers to the process in which the meaning of a word becomes more general or inclusive than its historically earlier denotation. For example:

Words Past meaning Present meaning

Dog a kind of hunting any kind

dog of dog

Aunt father’s sister both father’s and

mother’s sister

Holiday a holy day any day off

2. 5. 2 Semantic narrowing

Semantic narrowing is a process in which the meaning of a word be comes less general or inclusive than its historically earlier meaning. For example： 

Words past meaning present meaning

Hund any kind of dog a dog used for

hunting

Deer an animal a special kind of

animal

2.5.3 Semantic shift

Semantic shift is a process of semantic change in which a word loses its former meaning and acquires a new, sometimes related, meaning. For example:

Words past meaning present meaning

Silly              happy stupid

Fond foolish loving, affectionate

board a piece of timber a council or

authoritative body

　

The causes of language change

No one is able to provide a consistent account for the exact causes of all types of language change, most linguists believe that physiological, linguistic or sociological factors all contribute to language change.

5. 1 Sound assimilation

Sound assimilation refers to the physiological effect of one sound on another. The assimilation can result in the identity or similarity of successive sounds, or in the loss of one of two phonetically similar syllables in sequence, phenomenon called haplology, such as the loss of “la-”in “Engla-land.”

Impossible

Irregular

illogical

5. 2 Rule simplification and regularization

Rule simplification and regularization means to regularize or simplify an irregular rule. For example, because of the process of regularization and simplification, the irregular plural forms of “leaf”, "agendum", "datum", "curriculum" and "memorandum" have the tendency to change from leaves, agenda, data, curricula, memoranda to leafs, agendas, datas, curriculums, memorandums.

The rule simplification and regularization help lessen the number of irregular forms to be remembered.

5. 3 Internal borrowing

Internal borrowing means that speakers of a particular language borrow a rule from one part of the grammar and apply it generally.

In most situations, English forms the past tense by adding –ed to the end of a verb. English speakers may borrow this rule and apply it to the situations where the rule was formerly not used. For example, they may create sweeped, spoiled, leaned to replace swept, spoilt and leant respectively.

Internal borrowing has the effect of reducing memorization burdens while communicative efficiency is maximized.

5. 4 Elaboration

Rule elaboration occurs when there is a need to reduce ambiguity and increase communicative clarity or expressiveness. Language seems to maintain a balance in rule losses and rule elaboration. The loss of a rule may be compensated for by the addition of another feature to the grammar. For example, the loss of case markers has resulted in a stricter word order in modern English than in Old English.

5. 5 Sociological triggers

Radical socio-political changes such as wars, invasions, oc cupation, colonialization, and language planning and standardiza tion policies lead to vigorous language changes. For example, the Norman Conquest marked the beginning of the Middle English period.

5. 6 Cultural transmission

Another reason for language change is the need to create new word and expression to refer to newly developed concepts and new things. Youngsters are creative enough in the use of language. They may use a word different from that used by the older generations to refer to the same thing. For example, they tend to use fridge while the older generation prefers icebox. This tenuous transmission process adds up to the inevitable and ongoing language change and variation.

7 Children's approximation toward the adult grammar

Children are exposed to diverse linguistic information， which makes it impossible for children’s grammar to be identical to adults’. Children tend to simplify and regularize grammatical rules, particularly when they see adults use certain rules optionally.

For example, adults may say "It's I" at certain times and say "It's me" at other times when the occasion is less formal. Children tend to use the less formal style and consequently, adopt the "me" variant consistently in this construction. In such cases, a change in the grammar occurs.