Transcript 语言学课件7

Chapter 7 Language change
 1. language change is the field of study of historical /
diachronic linguistics
 2. purpose of study:
 look into the nature of language change and the causes that
lead to language
 reconstruct linguistic history and establish the relationship
between languages that belong to the same language family.
( e.g. 30 language families have been established. Four most
important language families are Indo-European family, SinoTibetan family, Niger-Congo languages ,Afro-asiatic family
（ 非亚语系）. English, French and German all belong to
Indo-European language family)
 3. topics to discuss: the nature of language, the historical
development of english, the causes of language change
语言的谱系分类法
 1. Indo-European languages 46%(Europe,
Southwest to south Asian, America, Oceania)
 2. Sino-Tibetan languages 21% (East Asia)
 3. Niger-Congo languages 6.4% (Sub-Saharan
Africa)
 4. Afro-Asiatic languages 6.0% (North Africa to
Horn of Africa, Southwest Asia)
 5. Austronesian languages 5.9% (Oceania,
Madagascar, maritime Southeast Asia)
 6. Dravidian languages 3.7% (South Asia)
 7. Altaic languages 2.3% (Central Asia, Northern
Asia, Anatolia, Siberia)
 8. Japonic languages 2.1% (Japan)
 9. Austro-Asiatic languages 1.7% (mainland
Southeast Asia)
 10. Tai-Kadai languages 1.3% (Southeast Asia)
Nature of language change
 Universal
 Continuous, constant, gradual
 Regular and systematic
Historical development of English
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major periods in the history of English:
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1) old English: dated back to the mid-fifth century when Anglo-Saxons invaded the british
Isles from northern Europe.
Many of the basic terms in the English language originate from old English. E.g mann--man, wif---woman, cild---child, etam---eat
2） middle English: began with the arrival of the Norman French invaders in England
under William the Conqueror in 1066.
after Norman Conquest, French remained as the language of the ruling classes while
English remained as the language of the poor classes, middle English was deeply
influenced by Norman French in vocabulary and grammar. E.g. such terms as “ army,
court, prison, tax” came from French.
3) modern English: the use of the printing machine in Britain which was invented by
William Caxton simbolized the beginning of modern English.
European renaissance movement also was believed to bring changes to English .the
influence of Renaissance movement reached England in the late fifteenth century. It
brought a bout the revival of classical art and literature. Latin became the literary
language and enjoyed a prestigious position in education and culture. Many Latin words
entered into English language.
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英语语言的发展史
 英国历史上就是一个较多遭受外来侵略的国家，因此它的语言的历史也
起伏跌宕。英国语言的发展史可以分为三个阶段，分别是：古英语
（Old English），中世纪英语（Middle English）和现代英语（Modern
English）。
了解英国语言的发展史，首先我们来看一个引狼入室
的故事。
 英国是一个岛国，最早居住在岛上的居民是凯尔特人，他们的语言是印
欧语系的一个分支。公元前55年，在凯撒大帝的带领下，罗马军队侵入
英国并占领英国近400年，直至公元410年罗马军队离开。之后，北部的
苏格兰人和皮克特人趁虚而入，开始了对英国的侵略。为了抵御外敌保
卫疆土，凯尔特人邀请了安格鲁(Anglos)、撒克逊(saxons)、弗里斯兰
（Frisians）和朱特(Jutes)等德国部落的战士来帮忙。很快，德国部落
的人大量涌入英国，他们从援助者变成了入侵者并成功的统治了英国。
这些德国部落都说着各自的英语，他们融入英国血统，他们的语言汇成
一个语言，也就是英语，英语历史的划分由此开始。
英语语言的发展史
 公元450年到1100年被称作古英语时期,这个时期主要是安格鲁一撒克逊
词汇。古英语大约只有50，000到60，000词汇，并且外来词很少（只
有极少数从拉丁语和斯堪地拉维亚语中引进的），然而其派生词缀较多。
古英语中还有较多描述性的复合词。如“音乐”是earsport；“世界”
是age of man（在著名的英雄史诗《贝奥武甫》（Beowulf）中对此有
详尽描述）。
 丹麦从公元1016年到1042年统治了英国。之后撒克逊王朝复辟，爱德华
掌权，统治英国直至1066年。他死后，哈诺德继承了皇冠。由于他不是
第一王位继承人，诺曼底公爵——威廉 带领军队入侵，并于1066年统治
了英国。这次事件被称为“诺曼入侵“，它在英国语言的发展史上是一
个标志性的转折点。（见诺曼入侵对英语的巨大影响.doc）。之后的近
三百年里，法语一直是英国的官方语言，成为统治阶级用语，而平民百
姓说的英语被认为市低等语言。到1300年左右，法语的使用开始减少。
到14世纪末期，英语又重新成为官方语言。乔叟写于14世纪末期的《坎
特伯雷故事集》（Canterbury Tales）反映了政治、经济、社会等方面的
变化对英语语言的影响。
 在近四百年时间里，诺曼人给英语带来了近一万的外来词，
深深影响了英国人的社会和生活。英语语言在这一时期借用
了较多法语中的派生词缀，如-able, -ess。当然也有一些拉
丁语直接进入英语，而且多用于书面语。由于贸易的发展，
还有少量的荷兰词语在这时期融入英语中。
 公元1100到1500年被称作中世纪英语时期，在此时期内英
语发生了空前的巨大变化。许多古英语词汇消失。一些古英
语的屈折变化也不再被使用。而且中世纪英语的语音变化较
少，但句法上已经形成了固定的词序，并且扩展了情态动词、
助词结构。不规则动词越来越少，很多不规则动词的过去式
和过去分词也趋向规则化。另外英语还引入了大量法语词汇。
 公元1500年至今被称为现代英语时期。1476年，卡克斯顿
（William Caxton）在英国开始引进印刷机的使用，标志着
中世纪英语转入现代英语阶段。现代英语的发展也分为前期
和后期两个时期。在前期，大量拉丁词汇和法语词汇涌入英
语。之后，随着印刷机的使用以及探险、殖民、和贸易等各
方面走向世界化，给现代英语带来一定的冲击，英语开始向
世界各个角落的国家大量引入外来词。直到十八世纪中叶以
后,现代英语的语法、读音和拼写才逐渐固定下来,趋于统一。
 现代英语，从各行各业引入大量词汇（现在依旧在进行着）。
并且趋向规范化，统一化。
Linguistic change of English
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Sound change
Morphological change
syntactic change
Vocabulary change
Semantic change
Sound change
 Vowel sound change
 Sound loss
 Sound addition
 Sound movement
Vowel sound change
 the important changes occurred at the end of the
Middle English period between 1400 and 1600.
these changes led to the great difference between
pronunciation and spelling system of the Modern
English . this is known as the Great Vowel Shift in
the history of English. The changes involve seven
long vowels.
Change of 7 long vowels
Middle
English
Modern
English
five
Fi:v
faiv
mouse
Mu:s
maus
feet
Fe:t
Fi:t
mood
Mo:d
Mu:d
break
Br :ken
breik
broke
Br :ken
Br uk
name
Na:m
neim
Sound loss
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some sounds simply disappeared from the general pronunciation of English
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Eg 1. The voiceless velar fricative/x/ existed in Oe, but absent in MODE
OE
MODE
nicht/nixt/
night/nait/
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E.g2. when the /kn-/ clusters is in the word-initial position, in old and middle
English, both /k/ and /n/ were pronounced, but in modern English the /k/ sound
is no longer pronounced. Such as “ knight, knee”
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E.g3 . deletion of a word –final vowel segment ( apocope词尾音脱落)
OE
ME
MODE
/na:ma:/
/na:m ә /
/neim/
“name”
/lufu/
/luv ә /
/lΛv/
“love”
Sound addition
 to insert a consonant or vowel sound to the middle
of a word ( epenthesis插入音 )
 E.g. time----timer---timber glimse---glimpse,
emty--empty
Sound movement
 involves a reversal in position of two adjoining
sound segments ( metathesis语音变位)
 e.g. OE
MODE
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bridd
bird
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hros
horse
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as/aks/
ask
 the movement of /r/ sound to the right of the vowel
sounds
Morphological change
 Loss of affixes
 Addition of affixes
Affix
loss
 the most dramatic morphological loss concerns the loss of gender and
case markings.
 Old English: synthetic language-----the syntactic relation is realized by
inflexions.
 Modern English: analytic language---- the syntactic relation is realized
by functional words.( e.g. conjunctions) and word order.
 OE is a synthetic language and had complicated inflexions. the
inflexions can be added to nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verbs to
show the change in gender, case and number. Take nouns for
example,in old English, nouns were divided into three gender
classes(masculine, neuter, feminine)and four cases( nominative case,
genitive case, dative case, accusative case)
Old English gender and case affixes(singular)
masculine
neuter
feminine
Hund “dog”
Deor “animal” Gief “gift”
nominative
hund
deor
Gief-u
accusative
hund
deor
Gief-e
genitive
Hund-es
Deor-es
Gief-e
dative
Hund-e
Deor-e
Gief-e
Old English gender and case affixes(plural)
masculine
neuter
feminine
hund
deor
gief
nominative
Hund-as
deor
Gief-a
accusative
Hund-as
deor
Gief-a
genitive
Hund-a
Deor-a
Gief-a
dative
Hund-um
Deor-um
Gief-um
Affix Addition
 The influence of foreign languages triggered many
morphological changes in English. For example, some of
the most widely used affixes of MODE came from French.
 e.g. the addition of “-able” to a verb, such as “readable”.
Initially, words ending in “-able”, such as ‘ favourable” were
borrowed from French. Then this suffix became a
productive rule in English that was used with other verbs to
form adjectives. Eg. Pay-able, wash-able
 French words such as “ accomplishment, commencement”
enter English language after Norman Conquest. the suffix
“-ment” finally became a productive suffix in English..
Syntactic Change
 Change in “agreement” rule
 Change in negation rule
 Change in word order
Change in agreement rule
 Noun and pronoun agreement: (see page 96
example)
 Adjective agreement: in OE, the endings of
adjectives must agree with the head noun in case,
number and gender, but in modern English, this
rule was dropped out.
Change in negation rule
 in old English syntax, one could merely add “not”
at the end of an affirmative sentence to negate it.
E.g “I love thee not”. “he saw you not.”
 Now , except for some non-standard English
varieties , such as black English, this negation
construction is no longer considered acceptable by
most educated speakers of English
Change in word order
 Old English had a complex case marking system. This
allowed its word order to be more variable than that of
modern English.. because modern English has a much
weaker case marking system, its sentences have to follow
a basic order of SVO.
 In OE, word orders included SVO, VSO, SOV and OSV.
 e.g. SVO : He geseah pone mann.( he saw the man)
 VSO: Pa sende se cyning pone disc.( then sent the king
the dish)
 SOV: He hine geseah.( he him saw)
 OSV: Hine man ne sealde.( him man not gave)
Vocabulary change
 Addition of new words
 Loss of words
Addition of new words
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coinage(创新词)
clipped words(缩略词)
blending(紧缩法)
acronyms(词首字母缩略词)
back-formation(逆构词法)
Abbreviation
functional shift
Derivation
compounding
borrowing
Coinage
----A new word can be coined outright to fit some
purpose, e.g.
 walkman
 Kodak
 Xerox
 Ford
 Benz
 Toyota
Clipped words
----The abbreviation of longer words or
phrases, e.g.
 gym—gymnasium
 memo—memorandum
 disco—discotheque
 fridge—refrigerator
Blending
----A blend is a word formed by combining
parts of other words, e.g.
 smog—smoke + fog
 motel—motor + hotel
 camcorder—camera + recorder
Acronyms
----Acronyms are words derived from the
initials of several words, e.g.
 CBS---- Columbia Broad casting system
 ISBN----International Standard Book Number
 WTO WHO PLA AIDS UNESCO APEC
OPEC CAD SARS
Back-formation
----New words may be coined from already
existing words by “subtracting” an affix thought
to be part of the old word.
 edit  editor
 hawk  hawker
 beg  beggar
 baby-sit  baby-sitter
Functional shift
----Words may shift from one part of speech to another without the
addition of affixes, e.g.
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Noun verb: to knee, to bug, to tape, to brake…
Verb noun: a hold, a flyby, a reject, a retreat…
Adj. verb: to cool, to narrow, to dim, to slow…
Adj. noun: a daily, a Christian, the rich, the impossible…
Abbreviation
 A shortened form of a word or phrase which
represents the complete form.
 E.g. TV Dr.
Derivation and compounding
• Derivation: refer to the process by which new
words are formed by the addition of affixes to
the roots, stems or words.
• compounding: a process of combining two or
more words into one lexical unit: blackboard,
greenhouse, hotdog
Borrowing
 ----When different cultures come into contact, words are often
borrowed from one language to another. The following are
some of the loan words in English (see more in P100-101).
 Latin
bonus education
exit
 German beer
waltz
quartz
 Chinese tea
kowtow
sampan
 Russian sputnik commissar vodka
 Arabic
zero
algebra
alcohol
Loss of words
 Words can be lost from a language as time goes by.
The following words, taken from Romeo and Juliet,
have faded out of the English language.
 Beseem  to be suitable
 Wot
 to know
 Gyve
 a fetter
 Wherefore  why
Semantic changes
 Semantic broadening
 Semantic narrowing
 Semantic shift
Semantic broadening
 Holiday:
[+specific] holy day
[+general] any rest day
 Tail:
[+specific] tail of a horse
[+general] tail of any animal
Semantic narrowing
 hound: any dog
a special kind of dog
 girl:
young person of either sex
young people of female sex
 deer: any animal
a particular kind of animal
 meat: food
edible part of an animal
 corn: grain
a particular grain
Semantic shift
 inn:
a small, old hotel or pub
well-known, nice hotel
 nice: ignorant (1000 years ago)
good, fine
 lust: pleasure
with negative and sexual overtones
 silly: happy
naïve, foolish
Some recent trends
 Moving towards greater informality
 The influence of American English
 The influence of science and technology
The influence of science and technology
 Space travel
 Computer and internet language
 Ecology
Causes of the language change
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Sound assimilation
The rapid development of science and technology;
Social and political changes and political needs
Children’s approximation toward the adult grammar
“ Economy of memory” results in grammar simplification;
Rule elaboration
Theory of least effort
The End
Thank you!