Transcript The Origins and Development of the English Language Chapter 4

The Origins and Development
of the English Language
Chapter 4: The Backgrounds
of English
John Algeo and Thomas Pyles
Michael Cheng
National Chengchi University
Similarities between languages
English:
mom
miaow-miaow
me
pistachio
choose
glide
Welsh mam
Chinese mi-mi
Swahili mimi
Italian pistacchio
French choisir
Swedish glida
One original language?
Some languages share many common
features
Language family
Cognates – languages within a language
family
Not a biological family – languages don’t
get born and die at specific times, or
separate creatures from their parents
Models of languages
Family tree
Wave model
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/226/472574816_7a659b8d85.jpg
http://www.answers.com/topic/wave-model
http://www.intersolinc.com/newsletters/images/Language%20Tree.gif
English – father
German – Vater
Dutch – vader
Icelandic – faðer
Norwegian – fader
http://media-2.web.britannica.com/ebmedia/34/2034-004-9211C072.gif
The language spoken in England is related to the language spoken in
India
http://etc.usf.edu/maps/pages/2900/2965/2965.jpg
The language in the Bible is related to the language in the Rig
Veda
William Jones
(September 28, 1746 – April 27, 1794)
Greek, Latin, Persian,
Arabic, Chinese
Knew 13 languages;
familiar with 28
1768 Oxford
1773 law degree
1783 Supreme Court
judge in Calcutta
Indian culture was a new subject for
European scholarship
1786 – Sanskrit bore a resemblance to
Greek, Latin, Gothic, Celtic, and possibly
Persian
Sanskrit: pitar Greek: patēr Latin: pater
Suggested a common root language that no
longer exists
Languages from Iceland to India are related to a common
language
Based on the geographic locations of these languages, we
now call the language that Jones hypothesized Proto IndoEuropean
Jones’ philologer passage, 1786
His third annual discourse before the Asiatic Society on the history and culture of the
Hindus (delivered on February 2, 1786 and published in 1788) with the famed
"philologer" passage is often cited as the beginning of comparative linguistics and IndoEuropean studies. This is Jones' most quoted passage, establishing his tremendous find
in the history of linguistics:
The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful
structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin,
and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a
stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar,
than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed,
that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing
them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no
longer exists; there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for
supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a
very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old
Persian might be added to the same family.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jones_(philologist)
The Proto Indo-European people
Who were the people who spoke Proto
Indo-European and where did they come
from?
PIE dispersion hypotheses
Kurgan Migration
Anatolian Farmer
Balkan
Black Sea Flood
Paleolithic Continuity Theory
Kurgan Migration--Gimbutas
Cognates for:
– Alder, apple, ash, beech, birch, elm, hazel,
linden, oak, willow, yew
– Wolf, bear, lox
No common words for:
– Olive, cypress, palm
– Ocean
Suggests inland culture in temperate zone
Kurgan Culture
Herded domesticated animals
Mobile – used wagons
Warrior nobility
Worshipped sky god associated with
thunder
Sun, horse, boar, snake
Elaborate burials in mounds (kurgans)
Zeus pater
Jupitar
5000 BCE
Kurgans 4000 BCE
3000 BCE Anatolian
Expansion 2000 BCE
Evolution 500 BCE
500 CE Huns invade from East
Medieval 1500 CE Turks invade
Indo-European languages today
World Language families
Official Indo-European languages
today
Armenian homeland
Features of Proto Indo-European
Types of languages: Isolating, Agglutinative,
Inflective
Isolating
– Every morpheme forms a different word
– Chinese
Agglutinative (Incorporative)
–
–
–
–
Combine grammatical morphemes with a lexical stem
Grammatical morphemes are discrete & don’t change
Strung onto the lexical stem
Swahili, Turkish
Agglutinative example
Swahili
I will like you: nitakupenda
– ni – ta – ku – penda
– (I) (future) (2nd person object) (verb stem: like)
I liked you: nilakupenda
– ni – la – ku – penda
– (I) (past) (2nd person object) (verb stem: like)
I like him: nitampenda
– ni – ta – m – penda
– (I) (future) (him as object) (verb stem: like)
Inflective languages
Inflective
– Inseparable inflections are fused to the lexical
stem
– Greek, Latin
– I love: Amo
– Am – o
– (love) (first person, singular, present tense,
indicative)
What kind of language is English?
says
– inflective
unfriendliness
– agglutinative
the, for, to, by, no
– isolating
PIE Morphology
Parts of speech
–
–
–
–
Nouns/Adjectives
Pronouns
Verbs
Prepositions
Nouns/Adjectives and Pronouns were
inflected for Case, Number, and Gender
Noun/Adj Infections: 8 cases
Nominative: They saw me. (subject)
Vocative: Officer, I need help. (person addressed)
Accusative: They saw me. (direct object)
Genitive: Shakespeare’s play. (possessor or source)
Dative: Give her a hand. (indirect object, recipient)
Ablative: He abstained from it. (what is separated)
Locative: We stayed home. (place, where)
Instrumental: She ate with chopsticks. (means,
instrument)
Germanic cases
Nominative: They saw me. (subject)
– Vocative: Officer, I need help. (person addressed)
Accusative: They saw me. (direct object)
Genitive: Shakespeare’s play. (possessor or source)
Dative: Give her a hand. (indirect object, recipient)
• Ablative: He abstained from it. (what is separated)
• Locative: We stayed home. (place, where)
– Instrumental: She ate with chopsticks. (means, instrument)
Noun/Adj Number and Gender
Number: singular, plural, dual
Gender: male, female, neuter
Proto Indo-European Nouns
Singular
Nom.
Voc.
Acc.
Gen.
Dat.
Abl.
Loc.
Ins.
*ekwos
*ekwe
*ekwom
*ekwoso
*ekwōy
*ekwōd
*ekwoy
*ekwō
Plural
Nom/Voc *ekwōs
Acc.
Gen.
Dat./Abl.
Loc.
Ins.
*ekwons
*ekwōm
*ekwobhyos
*ekwoysu
*ekwōys
Pronouns
Cases (3)
Number (3)
Gender (3)
Person: first, second, third
Verb Inflections
Person
Number
Aspect (kind of like tense): Completion,
duration, repetition of action
Voice
Mood
IE Verb Aspect
Present: continuing action in progress
Imperfect: continuing action in the past
Aorist: momentary action in past
Perfect: completed action
Pluperfect: completed action in the past
Future: actions to come
(Evolved into only present and past tense in
Germanic languages)
IE Voice
Active
Passive
Middle (reflexive)
Germanic lost the passive and middle
voices and expressed these notions by
phrases rather than inflections
IE Mood
Indicative: statements or questions of fact
Imperative: expressing commands
Optative: expressive wishes
Subjunctive: expressing will
Injunctive: expressing unreality
IE Mood evolution into Germanic
Indicative: statements or questions of fact
– Imperative: expressing commands
Optative(Subjunctive): expressive wishes
• Subjunctive: expressing will
• Injunctive: expressing unreality
Proto Indo-European was an
inflective language: Verb inflections
English
Sanskrit
Greek
Latin
I-E
I bear
you bear
he bears
bharā-mi
pherō
ferō
*bherō
bhara-si
bhara-ti
pherei-s
pherei
fer-s
fer-t
*bheresi
*bhereti
we bear
you bear
they bear
bharā-mas
phero-mes feri-mus
phere-te
fer-tis
phero-nti feru-nt
bhara-tha
bhara-nti
*bheromes
*bherete
*bheronti
Word Order
Greenburg (Some Universals of Grammar)
SVO languages:
–
–
–
–
verb + object: The workman made a horn.
noun + modifier: the size of the building
conjunction + noun: the Senate and the House
preposition + object: Harold fought with him.
SOV languages usually reverse these
features
Word Order
Most Indo-European languages are SVO
Proto Indo-European was SOV
Proto-Germanic had more SOV characteristics
than modern German
English is evolving to being more SVO in
characteristics
– 10th century 84.4% of possessives before nouns
– 14th century 15.6% of possessives before nouns
– the building’s size vs. the size of the building
PIE Phonology
Prosody:
– Accent (stress) based on pitch differences
– Free accent: could occur on different syllables
depending on the form of the word
Germanic Prosody
–
–
–
–
Word stress based on loudness not pitch
Primary stress on root syllable
Weak stress on other syllables
Intermediate stress on secondary root or prefix
Later Germanic word stress became fixed on first
syllable
PIE Consonants
Stops, Fricative, Resonants, Laryngeal
Fricative [s]
Resonants [m, n, l, r, j, w]
Stops:
Voiceless
Voiced
Voiced
Aspirated
Bilabial Dental Velar
p
t
k
b
d
g
bh
dh
gh
Labiovelar
kw
gw
ghw
First Sound Shift – Grimm’s Law
In the first millennium BCE IE stops
transformed into different stops in
Germanic languages
Probably took several centuries to complete
the change
Voiced aspirated stops
Indo-Euro
bh
bhrāter
dh
dhug(h)tēr
Latin
f-/-bfrāter
f-/-b-
Greek
ph
th
thugatēr
Germanic
b
brother
d
daughter
gh
ghosti
h-/-d-/-ghostis
kh
g
guest
Voiceless stops
Indo-Euro
p
pətēr
Latin
Greek
Germanic
p
pater
p
t
treyes
t
tres
t
k
krnk
cornuk
f
father
θ
three
h
horn
Voiced stops
Indo-Euro
b
treb/abel-
d
dwō/drew
Latin
b
trabs
b (Russian)
jabloko
p
thorp/apple
d
duo
d (Greek)
drūs (oak)
g
genu/gweng
genu
g (Greek)
gunē
t
two/tree
k
knee/queen
Germanic
Exceptions
After s
– spuo – spit
– stella – star
After voiceless stop
– octo – eahta
– capto - hafta
More Exceptions
PIE – pətēr
Latin – pater
Greek – patēr
English – father
Gothic – fadar [faðar]
Icelandic faðir
Old English – fæder [fæðer]
Verner’s Law: Surrounded by voiced
sounds after unstressed syllable
IE voiceless Germanic
stops
p
f
Verner’s
Law
β
Exception
b
t
θ
ð
d
k
x/h
γ
g
s
z
r
Examples of Verner’s Law
was – were
exert, exist vs. exercise, exigent
OE: leosan “to lose” vs. -loren “lost”
(lovelorn)
http://www.danshort.com/ie/iecentum.htm
http://www.danshort.com/ie/iesatem.htm
Colin Renfrew’s tree
Major Changes from PIE to
Germanic
West Germanic Languages