Language Change- Linguistics

LANGUAGE CHANGE

PHONOLOGY

Gordon:

chain shifts + mergers both: encroachment of one phoneme into the

space of another

– If 2nd phoneme changes s

– o that the distinction between both is

maintained – chain shift

- If 2nd phoneme does not change, distinction is lost – merger

IMMAGINE

- unconditional merger: phonemic contrast is lost in all

environments (AmE: cot – caught)

- conditioned merger: merger appears only in limited contexts

(AmE: pin – pen)

- production and reception should be differentiated, you may

produce a difference, but not hear it or vice versa

- reporting is not reliable, experiments should help

why are perception and reporting unreliable?

- because the context may make us hear differences that aren't here:

sun – son

- also: influence of spelling

- reasons for chain shift: communicative needs – useful phonemic

oppositions should be preserved

- chain shift: distinctions should be preserved + the changes are

interrelated (temporally, causally, individually, spatially)

What else may change in pronunciation?

- Individual sounds, e.g. /r/

- Individual words/ word pairs, e.g. either, often

- intonation: up-talking

- Voice quality

- ...

Phonological Processes

Epenthesis (insertion):

n – l àndl OE spin(el) ME spindle

n – r àndr OE thunor ME thunder

s – n àstn OE glisnian ME glistnen

m – l àmbl OE thymel ME thimble

m – r àmbr OE slumeren ME slumbren

Elision:

w – u à-u OE swylch ME such

l – chà-ch OE swylch ME swich (such)

OE mychel ME mich, much

n – finalà-- OE findan ME finde

b, d, g after nasal ànasal OE lamb, sing ME (plosive elision)

Assimilation:

thàd OE fiþele ME fiddle

OE byrþen ME burden

f àm OE wifman ME wimman

Dissimilation:

n àm Early ME raunson ME ransom

r àl Early ME marbre ME marble

Front Mutation/i-mutation

- i, i: and j on following syllable changed the vowel in the preceding

one:

musiz – mysiz – PDE: mice

Also: goose – geese, knot – knit, book – beech, food – feed, blood – bleed

MORPHOLOGY

RECENT CHANGES

- a tendency to regularise irregular morphology

e.g. dreamt- dreamed, learnt-learned, etc.

EME: climb-clomb; creep-crope, cropen;, flay- flew, yield-yolden, help-holpholpen,

speak-spake-spoke, drive-drave – drove,

- some weak verbs developed strong forms: crow-crew, snow-snew, digdug,

stick-stuck

Verb Forms

- present endings: East Anglia: no –s in 3rd person singular

- Northern subject rule: verb takes –s all way through plural if subject

is N or NP

- Various forms of be: ben, bist

- Past: levelling to was, were, was (positive)/ were (negative)

- Avoidance of progressive or extension to verbs of emotional/mental

states (What are you wanting)

- Contraction of negatives:

negative contraction He isn’t vs. auxiliary contraction He’s not

(Northern)

- Various forms of tag questions, including general southern innit?

- Unstressed do: She did live there. He do like smarties.

Pronouns

- what/ which/ as/ at as relative pronouns:

That was the man what/ which/ as/ at done it.

- us as first person singular object pronoun:

Do us a favour (for: Do me a favour)

Give us a kiss (colloquial standard)

- possessive pronoun for object pronoun in reflexive pronouns:

They gave theirselves up. (for: They gave themselves up).

- them, they, yon for demonstrative pronouns these, those:

Look at them/ they/ yon animals! – not really a tripartite system

- Pronoun exchange (subject-object):

You can come with we / Us'll do it.

- this for indefinite article:

And there was this house, you see, and this man with a gun. (colloquial

standard).

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