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
What changes in phonology took place from Common Germanic to Old English?
-old English consonants: alveopalatal C, j, s
-front mutation of vowels depending on what follows (e.g. o -> e (olium -> ele) ; ea/eo -> y (eald -> yldra)
What was Old English morphology like?
-Noun declension :*nouns divided into -a stems (masc. and neut.) and -o stems (fem.)
*various cases (N,A,G,D) in both singular and plural
-Personal Pronouns: *personal pronouns in 1st, 2nd, 3rd person -> Singular, Dual, Plural
*various cases (N,A,G,D)
-
What was Old English syntax like?
SVO: basic word order
VSO. basic word order in interrogatives and imperatives
OSV
VOS
SOV: in dependent clauses
Where did Old English lexicon come from?
Indo-European origin: words common to all Germanic languages (kinship terms, sun, water, eat, tree)
Common Germanic origin: e.g. back, bone
West Germanic origin: e.g. idle, immediately
Celtic: place names (Avon, Dover, London, Thames)
Loans: Old Norse: words connected to the sea, battle, cultural items
Latin as main influence on religious/intellectual life
What types of semantic change have been taking place over the course of history?
-Amelioration: shift in meaning towards a more positive quality
-Pejoration shift in meaning towards a more negative quality
-Widening: Generalisation: shift in meaning from specific to general
-Narrowing: Specification: shift in meaning from general to specific
Name an example for each Amelioration, Pejoration, Widening and Narrowing
Amelioration: Nice (not knowing - silly - delightful)
Pejoration: Silly (blessed - innocent - foolish)
Widening: Dog ( specific dog breed - dog in general)
Narrowing: Meat (food - processed animal flesh)
Middle English History
Describe the historic events during the time when Middle English was spoken
What lead to a rise of the English language?
-From 1066: Norman invasion
*French as language of the high society
*Latin as language of the church
*English spoken by working class - no prestige
1095: beginning of The Crusades
1204: King John of England loses Normandy
*French loses influence
*standard English gains in influence
1348- 1351: Black Death
*1/3 of population dies, social turmoil
1337-1453: Hundred Year War England - France
*England loses all French possessions
1362: English as official language for legal proceedings
Characteristics of Middle English phonology
-Consonants: three new fricatives
-Change in vowels
-OE diphtongs reduced to monotongs
Characteristics of Middle English morphology
nouns -reduction in noun declension system
-symmetry in noun declension system
personal pronouns:*fewer cases (subject, object, possessive)
*loss of Dual form
*new possessive form
-
Characteristics of Middle English morphology
nouns -reduction in noun declension system
-symmetry in noun declension system
personal pronouns:*fewer cases (subject, object, possessive)
*loss of Dual form
*new possessive form
-
Middle English syntax
-as in OE and PdE: adjective + noun
-less often than in OE: noun + adjective / adjective + noun + adjective
-possessive "of"
-noun adjuncts
Verb Phrases: -perfect tense (e.g. "hauest don")
-progressive tense (e.g I am yn beldynge of a pore house)
-Auxiliary Verbs (e.g. mowe)
-"Do"- explosion: -substitute for previous verb
-as causative (like "have sth done")
-next to main verb
Middle English syntax within clauses
-trend toward mordern word order SVO
-occasionally SOV
-VSO in questions and commands
Middle English vocabulary
-massive increase in vocabulary through borrowing
-layering of vocabulary: colloquial/formal ; everyday/technical ; general/specialized
-> loss of inflectional system
-> many phonemes
-> cosmopolitan
-Scandinavian / Norse influence
-French influence most important (several bilingual generations, very few English texts before 1200)
New Affixes from French in Middle English
-prefixes: counter- , de- , in-, mal
-suffixes: -able, -age, -al ...
Early Modern English History
1476: Introduction of printing
late 15th to 16th century: Renaissance
16th century Protestant Reformation
late 16th century: Rise of Nationalism
16th to 17th century: economic changes (urbanization, rise of middle class)
Industrial Revolution
American Revolution
Language situation in Early Modern English
-Conscious borrowing from Latin vs. Rejection (inkhorn terms)
-speling reform
-dictionaries introduced
-The English Academy
-Emerge of Grammar: proper inproper / education of middle class / organization / universal
-varieties of English
Early Modern English phonology
-new fricative consonant and new nasal consonant
-Great Vowel Shift: * i -> ai = tyme -> time
* u ->au= cou -> cow
*e -> i= fet -> feet
*o -> u= goos > goose
*a -> ei= nam -> name
-> LOSS OF VOWEL LENGTH
Long vowels pronounced in higher positions, Loss of diphtongization
Early Modern English syntax
-more flexible than today
-usually SVO
-elegancy of wirting -> complexation of sentences
Early Modern lexis
-heavy borrowing from Latin and non-Indo-European languages
From Old English to Present Day English - Syntax
-simplification of case system from 5 to 2
-collapse of articles from 3 to 1
-reduction in number of verb forms
-reduction of verb auxiliary system (have - be ) -> (have)
-disappearance of impersonal verb form (''me thinks'')
-harmonization of subject position in main and subordinate clause (SVO)
-demise of V2 status, e.g. inversion not required after adverbs (''probably he will come")
-development of conversion (zero derivation), e.g lunch (noun) -> to lunch (v)
-relaxation of congruence requirement ('the police have arrived")
-lack of congruence between formal and semantic sentence categories (''the police have arrived")
History of linguistics - Overview
-began around 2500 B.C. when writing was established
-began in Egypt / southern Mesopotamia
-in cuneiform on clay tablets
-list of nouns and verbs in Sumerian
-translation into Akkadian (Babylonian)
-began because of language change and impact on religion and legalese
Linguistics in Greece -Investigation of language
-highly intellectual spirit
-language: contact with other languages
-investigation of language in the context of philosophia
-linguistics: Stoics (from 300 B.C.)
