Introduction to
English Linguistics (II)
Professor Seongha Rhee
srhee@hufs.ac.kr
Chapter 10
Historical Linguistics (2) (504-530) 1. Borrowings (or Loan Words)
2. Loss of Words
3. Semantic Change
4. Reconstructing “Dead” Languages 5. Extinct and Endangered Languages
6. The Genetic Classification of Languages 7. Types of Languages
1. Borrowings or Loan Words
[Borrowing]
• borrowing from foreign languages:
common source of new words
• Pronunciation adjustment:
ensemble [ãsãbəl] (F) > ensemble [ãnsãmbəl]
• Borrowed pronunciation:
– Bach [bax] (G) > [bax]
• Loan translation: borrowed > translated
Weltanschauung (G) > worldview
Il va sans dire (F) > It goes without saying
marige de convenance (F) marriage of convenience hot dogs (E) > perros calientes (Sp)
honeymoon (E) > 밀월 (K)
好久不見 (C) > Long time no see (E)
• Direct borrowing:
feast (F) > feast (E)
• Indirect borrowing:
algebra (A) > algebra (Sp) > algebra (E)
[Borrowing in English]
• 60% of common vocabulary (20,000 words)
• 30% of top 500 words
• 80% of token frequency
cf. and, be, have, it, of, the, to, will, you, on, that, is..
• phoneme borrowing:
/v/ & /ʒ/ from F.
• morpheme borrowing:
-able/-ible (from incredible etc.)
• Through Norman Conquest:
• Borrowing from French [meat]
ox > beef (<boeuf);
pig > pork (<porc);
sheep > mutton (<mouton) [cooking]
boil, fry, stew, roast...
[cuisinary terms]
aspic, bisque, bouillon, brie, brioche, canapé, caviar, consommé, coq au vin, coupe, crêpe, croissant, croquette,
crouton, escargot, fondue, mousse,
pâté, quiche, ragout
• Borrowing from Greek/Latin
[learned vocabulary]
• Greek: drama, comedy, tragedy, scene, botany, physics, zoology, atomic...
• Latin: bonus, scientific, exit, alumnus, quorum, describe...
• Borrowing from Scandinavian:
they, their, them... (from Old Norse)
• Borrowing from Celtic:
bin, flannel, clan, slogan, whisky...
• Borrowing from Dutch:
buoy, freight, leak, pump, yacht...
• Borrowing from Italian:
opera, piano, virtuoso, balcony, mezzanine, influenza...
• Borrowing from Arabic:
alcohol, algebra, cipher, zero...
• Borrowing from Spanish:
barbecue, cockroach, ranch, California...
• Borrowing from Native American:
hickory, chipmunk, opossum, squash...
• Borrowing from Yiddish:
yenta, lox, bagel, chutzpah, schmaltz,
schlemiel, schmuck, schmo, schlep, kibitz...
• Lending to other languages:
jazz, whisky, blue jean, rock music,
supermarket, baseball, picnic, computer...
2. Loss of Words
[egs in Romeo and Juliet ]
• beseem 'to be suitable‘
• mammet ' a doll or puppet‘
• wot 'know'
• gyve 'a fetter‘
• fain 'gladly‘
• wherefore 'why'
[Recent losses]
• two bits '25 cents‘
• nickety-split 'very fast‘
[More recent losses]
• groovy 'excellent‘
• davenport 'sofa‘
• grass / Mary Jane 'marijuana'
• stile 'steps crossing a fence or gate‘
3. Semantic Change
[Broadening]
• (dogge >) dog, holiday, picture, quarantine, manage...
• recent broadening w/ computer:
computer, mouse, cookie, cache, virus, bundle..
[Narrowing]
• meat (cf. flesh), deer, hound, skyline...
[Meaning Shifts]
• knight: youth > mounted man-at-arms
• lust: pleasure > sexual desire
• lewd: ignorant > obscene
• immoral: not customary > not moral
• silly: happy > naive > foolish
• nice: ignorant > agreeable
• fond: foolish > affectionate
4. Reconstructing “Dead” Languages
4.1 The 19
th-Century Comparativists 4.2 Comparative Reconstruction
4.3 Historical Evidence
4.1 The 19
th-Century Comparativists
• historical and comparative linguistics
[19c. linguists]
• resemblance between languages.
• systematicity of differences
• genetic relationships among languages
• 18c Sir William Jones: Sanskrit ↔ Latin, Greek
• 19c Franz Bopp: relationships among Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, Persian, and Germanic
• Rasmus Rask: relationship among Lithuanian and Armenian
• Jakob Grimm: regular sound correspondence among Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and Germanics
Latin vs English: p/f, t/ɵ, k/h among cognates
[Grimm's Law]
• voiced aspirates→ deaspirated bh>b, dh>d, gh>g
• voiced stop → voiceless b>p, d>t, g>k
• voiceless stop → fricative
p>f, t>ɵ, k>x/h
• *p cognates
• Correspondences are due to changes of phonemes/phonological rules (not 'words')
• Karl Verner: explanations for some of Grimm's exceptions
V f/ɵ/x > b/d/g
-stress
• Neo-Grammarians:
“Sound laws have no exception.”
• mutual influence between 19c linguistics
and Darwinism
4.2 Comparative Reconstruction
• comparative method:
reconstruction of parent language
by comparing daughter languages
※ Two major principles:
(i) The majority principle
(ii) The naturalness principle
h-h-f-v
h-h-f-v
h-h-f-v
h-h-f-v
4.3 Historical Evidence
• spelling
• knowledge of borrowed words
• 'naive' spellers' letters
• orthoepist's comments
• puns & rhymes, ..
5. Extinct and Endangered Languages
• causes: cataclysm, absorption to other lg:
Native American lgs, Hittite, Tocharian, Cornish, ...
• dialect extinction:
U.S. dialects, Hawaiian
UNESCO resolution for language preservation
• resurrection of dead languages: Hebrew
• Destruction of Jerusalem (A.D. 70)
• Zionism
• Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858-1922)
• 1948 Independence
• 1976 Entebbe Airport, Uganda
1976년 7월 3일 밤 12시쯤 우간다의 엔테베 공항에 이스라엘 특공대원들을 태 운 허큘리스 수송기 4대가 착륙했다. 이들은 당시 이디 아민 우간다 대통령의 전용차로 위장한 승용차를 앞세워 경비병 대기소에 접근한 뒤 순식간에 경비병 들을 해치우고 공항건물로 진입했다. 히브리어로 “엎드려”라는 고함이 터져 나 오고 총격전이 벌어졌다. 이스라엘 군은 팔레스타인 테러리스트 7명을 사살하 고, 뒤이은 우간다 군의 공격까지 물리치고는 100명 인질을 구출해 무사히 철 수했다. 인질구출작전의 전설로 남아있는 엔테베 작전에 소요된 시간은 모두 53분. 그 중에서도 테러범들을 제압하는 데 걸린 시간은 1분 45초. 그야말로 전 광석화 같은 작전이었다. 인명피해도 특공대장 조나단 네타냐후 중령 (베냐민 네타냐휴 총리의 친형)과 인질 3명이 사망하는 데 그쳤다. 최초의 원거리 인질 구출 작전으로 본국에서 4,000km나 떨어진 곳에서, 그것도 이스라엘에 적대적
[Extinction types]
• Sudden language death:
all speakers get killed; Tasmanian, Nicoleño
• Radical language death:
indigenous languages under political pressure
• Gradual language death:
contact with dominant language
• Bottom-to-top language death:
survival in liturgical language only
6. The Genetic Classification of Languages
• Certain languages show similarities English German Vietnamese
one eins mot
two zwei hai
three drei ba
four vier bon
• Indo-European Family of Languages
6.1 Languages of the World
• polyglots
• Language vs. Dialect Hindi & Urdu,
Mandarin & Cantonese
• Number of languages: 4,000-8,000
• Language & geography Nepali: Indo-European
Hungarian: non-Indo-European
• Language origin ur-language
(=‘Nostratic’)
7. Types of Languages
• There are many ways to classify languages.
- Family
- Linguistic traits
[Word Order]
• SVO, SOV, VSO, OSV...
• Every language has sentences that include a subject(S), an object(O) and a verb(V).
• The most frequent word orders in languages of the world are SVO, VSO and SOV.
• Languages with OVS, OSV and VOS basic word order are much rarer.
• SVO - English, French, Swahili, Hausa, Thai
• VSO - Tagalog, Irish, (Classical) Arabic, (Biblical) Hebrew
• SOV - Turkish, Japanese, Persian, Georgian
• OVS - Apalai (Brazil), Barasano (Colombia), Panare (Venezuela)
• OSV - Apurina and Xavante (Brazil)
8. Why Do Languages Change?
• Linguistic changes do not happen suddenly.
• Changes are more gradual. (particularly changes in the phonological and syntactic system)
• What is gradual about language change is the spread of certain changes through an entire speech community.
[language change and language acquisition]
• A basic cause of change is the way children acquire the language.
• Adult’s optional rules (e.g. It's I / It's me)
• The reason for some changes are relatively easy/difficult to understand.
• word coinage, borrowing, ...
• ease of articulation: assimilation
Nasalization
e.g. bean [bĩn], bon [bõn]
Palatalization [kj]
e.g. OE ciese (cheese), cinn (chin), cild (child)
[analogic change and regularization]
• Analogy:
dog/dogs → cow/cows (the earlier plural 'kine')
• Regularization of exceptional plural forms
datum/data, agendum/agenda, criterion/criteria..
agenda/agendas, criteria/criterias → "plural-plural"
[elaboration (complication)]
• Much of language change is a balance between the two. (simplification and elaboration.)
• Multiplicity of causes of language change
e.g. simplification of grammars, elaboration to maintain intelligibility, borrowing etc.
• Ubiquity of language change "All is flux, nothing stays still.
Nothing endures but change."
Chapter 11
Writing Systems (540-561) 1. Spoken and Written Language
2. History of Writing
3. Modern Writing Systems
4. Reading, Writing, and Speech
1. Spoken & Written Language
[differences]
• evolution
• biology
• storage
cf. orate societies
2. History of Writing
• Greek legend:
Cadmus, the Prince of Phoenicia
• Chinese legend:
Cang Jie, the four-eyed dragon-god
2.1 Pictograms and Ideograms
• pictograms: early cave drawings
• later cave drawings:
non-arbitrariness, African tribes, native Americans, Alaskan Eskimos, Incas of Peru,
Yukagirians of Siberia, Oceanic peoples...
• road signs, facilities signs
• ideograms:
[representation of an object]
=association=
[attributes/concepts of the object]
eg. sun > warmth, heat, light, daytime...
2.2 Cuneiform Writing
• oldest: Sumerians in Mesopotamia
5000 years ago.
pictography
• simplification and conventionalization of pictography
>> cuneiform
• association of "name" rather than the actual thing, (sound & concept) >> word writing system
• borrowing by Assyrians, Babylonians, & Persians;
used them to represent sounds of the syllables in their languages >> syllabic writing system
• further simplification by Persians
2.3 Rebus Principle
• A sign is used for all words with the "same sounds"
sun/son, I/eye, belief, believes, rodman, ...
• may lead to syllabic writing system (Semitic languages)
2.4 From Hieroglyphs to the Alphabet
• Egyptians, 4000 B.C. pictography
• represent the sounds (phoneticization)
>> word-writing system
• further change (Sumerian influence?)
>> syllabic writing system
• borrowing by Phoenicians >> CV representation
• borrowing by Greeks >> C or V representation
3. Modern Writing Systems
• Word Writing (Logographic system) ...
水, 江, 木, 日
• Syllabic Writing ....
ｱ ｲ ｳ ｴ ｵ ｶ ｷ ｸ ｹ ｺ ｻ ｼ ｽ ｾ ｿ
• Consonantal Alphabet Writing ...
ktb (write), lmd (learn), slm (peace)...
katab 'to read' aktib 'I write' kitab 'a book‘
cf. Eng. pkg, bldg, sbw, ...
• Alphabetic Writing .... English, love, apple...
※ If English were to use the syllabic system?
4. Reading, Writing, and Speech
4.1 Reading
4.2 Reading Acquisition 4.3 Spelling
4.4 Spelling Pronunciation
4.1 Reading
• Letters of the alphabet represent the system of phonemes (not directly).
• spacing to show word boundary (Some lgs don't space.)
• no lg uses spacing to show morpheme boundary
[punctuation]
A. Comma
(1) a. Jack, thinks Jill, is smart.
b. Jack thinks Jill is smart.
(2) a. The Greeks who were philosophers liked to think about the meaning of life.
b. The Greeks, who were philosophers, liked to think about the meaning of life.
B. Exclamation point, Question mark
(3) a. The children are going to bed at eight o'clock.
b. The children are going to bed at eight o'clock!
c. The children are going to bed at eight o'clock?
D. Apostrophe
(5) a. My cousin's friends
b. My cousins' friends
[ambiguities in written form]
(6) John whispered the message to Bill and then he whispered it to Mary.
he = John? he = Bill?
a. he: John (Normal stress in spoken lg)
b. he: Bill (Contrastive stress in spoken lg)
• Garfield's comic
(7) a. I didn't do it.
b. I didn't do it.
c. I didn't do it.
d. I didn't do it.
E. Italicization
(8) Sheep is a noun.
(9) Railroad crossing, watch out for cars.
How do you spell it without any r 's?
>> Answer: i.t.
• Written language is more conservative (10) a. It is I.
b. It's me.
4.2 Reading Acquisition
• Acquisition of literacy is a different process than acquisition of speaking fluency.
age, presence/absence, effort, etc.
• Instruction methods:
the whole-word approach, the phonics approach,
4.3 Spelling
• significance of written language for human civilization (11) spelling irregularities
(12) spelling reformers in the 14th-16th centuries
(13) Robert N. Feinstein's parody: Gnomal Pspelling
Gnus and gnomes and gnats and such Gnouns with just one G too much
Pseudonym and psychedelic P becomes a psurplus relic.
Knit and knack and knife and knocked Kneedless Ks are overstocked.
Rhubarb, rhetoric and rhyme
Should lose an H from thyme to time.
(14) Modern reforms
(attempted by The Chicago Tribune )
a. though >> tho
b. through >> thru
c. night >> nite
• Spelling reforms are always beneficial?
(15) a. The book was red. vs. The book was read.
b. dogs, cats
c. morpho-phonemic orthography
• other irregularities
(16) a.
debt, debit
b.
sign, signature
c.
bomb, bombardier
d.
gnosis, prognosis, agnostic
• sound alternation
(17) a. democrat, democracy (i) [s]: c+/a,y,i,e/
e.g. cynic, citizen, censure...
(ii)[k]: c+/all others/ or at the end e.g. coat, cat, cut, ...
b. th:
(i) ð: intervocalic & function words eg. neither, the, they, this, there...
(ii) ɵ: elsewhere
eg. bath, Beth, tooth, teeth...
4.4 Spelling Pronunciations
(18) h: silent until the 18th century
• common words [h]-less:
honest, hour, ...
• less common words spelling pronunciation:
habit, heretic, hotel, hospital, herb...
• fluctuation:
herb, humor
(19) th: originally [t], later [ɵ]
• common words Th [t]:
Thomas, Thames...
• less common words [ɵ]:
anthem, author, theater...
cf. Kate, Catherine Betty, Elizabeth Art, Arthur
