Lernkarten
History of the English Language I
Why does language change? What are internal factors?
Principles of Language Change/Principles of Language Production = Internal Factos
-Symmetry: Haus -> Häuser ; Baum -> Bäume
-Language Economy: avoiding repetitions by replacing names with pronous, "some" etc.. Shorten texts
-Distinctiveness: true synonymy is very rare. Denotation may be the same, whereas connotation may differ
-Processing Ease: Making texts understandable e.g. by adding words expressing relations (relative pronouns and so on)
History of the English Language I
Why does language change? What are external factors?
External Factors:
-Living Conditions (social, political, economic pressure, advances in technology)
-Cultural Conventions (religion, lifestyle)
-Media of Communication
-Contact with other languages
History of the English Language I
What linguistic levels are affected by language change?
Linguistic levels:
-Phonetics (physical aspect of sound production/reception)
-Phonology (patterns of sounds across languages)
-Morphology / Parts of Speech / Syntax (=Grammar)
-Lexis
-Semantics (meaning)
-Discourse/Text (Relations between speech units above sentence level)
-Pragmatics (Relations between speech units and context of situation)
-> Interaction between linguistic levels leading to changes
Periods of Language Change
Name the periods of language change and the corresponding time span.
What problems result from division into periods?
Common Indo European (CIE) ~3000 B.C
Common Germanic (CG) ~100 B.C.
Old English (OE) ~450 - 1100 A.D.
Middle English (ME) ~1100 - 1500 A.D.
Early Modern English (EmE) ~1500 - 1800 A.D.
Present-Day English (PDE) ~1800 - now
Problems: Language change is slow and continuous. There is no clear divide between periods.
Indo-European History
How do we know about Indo-European linguistics?
-Evidence from archeology: 5000 - 3000 B.C.: Seminomadic tribes with domestic animals and primitive agriculture.
3000 B.C.: Extensive migrations
-Linguistic evidence: Words for real world objects existing in Eastern Europe/ Western Asia:
Common words for cold, winter, wolf .....
Periods of Language Change
Why were there dialectal differences in Common Germanic?
-until Christian era, Common Germanic was one language with minor dialectal differneces
-migration within Europe lead to development of Germanic languages
What was Common Germanic like on the various linguistic levels?
-Phonology: First Consonant Shift ( Grimm's Law & Verner's Law)
-Morphology: Complex declension system
Complication of adjective declension
Verb inflection (aspect -> tense)
-Lexicon: Large common vocabulary not shared by other IE languages
-Syntax: Free word order
-Semantics: Change in meaning of certain words
Why did Common Germanic change to Old English?
-before ~50 B.C: Celtic tribes
-around 50 B.C: Roman invasion
-from 50 B.C. to ~410: England belongs to Roman Empire
-449: Beginning of Germanic invasions (from Denmark...)
-from 787 to 1000: Viking invasions
