Historical Phonology & Morphology

How Sound Systems and Word Structures Change over Time

Linguistic Structures

 Languages are made up of structured systems  These systems exist at different levels  Languages have  Phonology: sound structures  Morphology: word structures  Syntax: sentence structures

Historical Linguistics

 When languages change over time, the changes can occur in any of these structured systems  One therefore speaks of  Historical phonology  Historical morphology  Historical syntax

Historical Phonology

 Different types of sound change can happen over time  Question: how individual sound changes affect the phonology of a language; that is, how they effect the number and relations of phonemes

 A sound change might have No/little effect on the phonological system Change the allophones of a phoneme Decrease the number of phonemes Increase the number of phonemes  If the number of phonemes changes, it will affect minimal pairs

No effect on the phonological system

# 1 EMidE /t d n/ = dentals >> RETRACTION >> ModE /t d n/ = alveolars #2 Ogerm /*b *d *g/ >> OE /p t k/ = unaspirated ModE /p t k/ + STRESSED SYLLABLE = aspirated

Phonological Change

Suppose that we started to pronounce /g/ as [k] (weakening).

E.g. ‘bigger’ /’ b ıgɘ

/ /

> [’ b ıkɘ

] ]

/g/ 

CONDITIONED CHANGES

• • #1 ASSIMILATION (palatalisation + affrication) WGerm * kirka > OE circe = ModE church # 2 UMLAUT (distant assimilation) Back vowels >> fronted (pre-OE plur.) m ūs-i << OE m īs (pre-OE plur.) gōs-i << OE gēs #3 MANNER OF ARTICULATION - OE modor >> MidE mother

#1 LAT tutur >> turtle sporadic unstressed syllables DISSIMILATION

METATHESIS

# 1 West & South Slavic languages Milk : mleko Garden : ogród # 2 Germanic languages - OE þridda >> ModE third

#1 HAPLOLOGY

LOSS

# 1 WORD INITIAL /k/ + /n/ Knowledge : acknowlwdge # 2 POST-VOCALIC /r/ #3 LOSS + COMPENSATORY LENGTHENING MidE sight /s ɪxt / >> /si:t/ Apocope (final vowels) syncope (medial vowels)

Phonemic Merger

#1 Cockney English: Two unconditioned changes: [ θ ] > [f] and [ ð ] > [v] - 4 phonemes have been reduced to 2  That : vat were once minimal pairs; now homophones [væt] (Cockney)  Thin : fin were once minimal pairs; now homophones [f ɪ n] (Cockney)

Phonemic Split

#1 An earlier allophone >> a phoneme (phonemisation) OE /y y:/ >> UNROUNDING >> /i: ɪ / - sea : see ; made : maid #2 OE /f θ s/ >> PHONEMISATION >> Middle English /v ð z/

EXCRESCENCE

#1 A sound appears /u/ + /x/: OE brohte >> MidE broughte Epenthesis (medial) Prothesis (initial)

Other phonological changes

#1 The phonology of a language can change in more drastic ways than just the addition/subtraction of phonemes SOUND SHIFT = the Great Vowel Shift Long Vowels: Raising/Diphthongising /i:/ & /u:/

Regularity of Sound Change

 A fundamental principle of historical phonology 

Sound change is regular

 If sound A changes to sound B in a particular environment in some words, then sound A changes to sound B in all words with that environment.

Regularity of Sound Change

 Example: Southern American English  [e] > [ ɪ ] / _ [n] (vowel raising)  Pen and ten are [p h ɪ n] and [t h ɪ n], homophonous with pin and tin.

 This sound change is regular  It affects [ environment: when, tennis, Ben, men, glen, etc.

e ] in all words with this

Regularity of Sound Change

 Regularity of sound change is a very important principle  It will allow us to reconstruct the pronunciation of languages in the distant past, even when we have no written records  We will see how when we do historical

reconstruction

Historical Morphology

 Over time, the morphology of a language changes  The set of morphemes in the language changes  The function and meaning of morphemes changes  Inflectional paradigms change  Derivational rules change

Historical Morphology

 In extreme cases, languages that were once isolating can develop inflectional morphology  Likewise, languages can lose inflectional morphology and become isolating*  In the last 1500 years, English has lost much of its inflectional morphology

Historical Processes

              Some common types of morphological change are:

Grammaticalization (Grammaticization) Analogy Reanalysis Folk Etymology Back Formation Root Creation Functional Shift Commonisation Taboo Deformation Compounding Affixation Acronymy Abbreviation (Clipping)

Historical Processes

 Remember: The building blocks of morphology are

morphemes

, not words  The historical processes described here involve changes to morphemes

Grammaticalization

 Over time, a free morpheme (i.e. a word) acquires grammatical (i.e. morphological or syntactic) function  Often this process is accompanied by  Phonological reduction (gets shorter)  Fusion (becomes bound)  Semantic bleaching (loses original meaning)

Grammaticalization

 Example 1: English

be going to

>

be gonna

 Original meaning: motion through space  New Function: future tense marker (“I’m gonna take linguistics next quarter.”)  Phonological reduction: 3 syllables > 2 syllables, vowels become schwa  *I’m gonna the store to buy some soap.

 Semantic bleaching: sense of motion is lost  I’m gonna stay right here.

Grammaticalization

 Example 2: English

have

 Original meaning: possession  Function: auxiliary verb (“I ’ve eaten lunch already”) indicating completed action  Phonological reduction: have can be pronounced /v/ only when grammaticalized:  *Do you’ve any money on you?

 Semantic bleaching: possession meaning is lost

Analogy

 A powerful force in morphological change  A morphological rule is extended, or generalized, to forms by analogy with other forms that already fit the rule  Q: Why can we make sentences or derive words that we have never heard before?

 A: We have learned the morphological and syntactic rules and can apply them  But rules also have exceptions

Analogy

 Example: English past tense {-ed}  Children growing up hear present and past tense forms of verbs, and induce an inflectional rule based on them:  walk walked + /t/  learn learned + /d/  fade faded + / ˙ d/  Rule: Add an allomorph of {-ed} to verb stem to make past tense

Analogy

 Having learned the rule, the child might make an analogy:  Walk : walked :: go : ______  Learn: learned :: teach : ______  By analogy, the child applies the rule and says: “Yesterday we

goed

to the park” “Bill

teached

“I

taked

me how to tie my shoes” some cookies”

Analogy

 Eventually the child may learn the exceptions to the rule. But sometimes analogical formations stay in the language, and the exceptions are regularized.

 In some English dialects today, people say teached and throwed.

 Similar changes have happened to many verbs in English, and continue to happen.

 What’s the past tense of strive? cleave? dive?

Analogy

 Analogy often has the effect of reducing the overall number of allomorphs  Example 2: Old English {old} had two allomorphs, /old/ and /eald/: Old - elder - eldest  Today these are obsolete. By analogy with Red - redder - reddest (no change to stem)  We now have only one allomorph: Old - older - oldest

Reanalysis

 Speakers of a language reinterpret the location of morpheme boundaries  This may create new morphemes, or change the forms of existing morphemes  Example 1: English a

napron

> an

apron

 Example 2: English an

ewt

> a

newt

 Listeners put the morpheme boundary in a new location, and changed the form of the words napron and ewt.

Reanalysis

 Example 3: Creation of a new morpheme  Historical morpheme boundary: alcohol-ic  Alcohol: noun; -ic: adjective-forming suffix  Alcoholic: adj (“an alcoholic beverage”)  “An alcoholic person” > alcoholic: noun (“a person addicted to alcohol)  New morpheme boundary: alc-oholic  -oholic/-aholic: derivational suffix: work aholic, choc-oholic

Reanalysis

 Example 4: Lollapalooza  Slang: “Something outstanding or amazing”  After the big Lollapalooza music tours, palooza was reanalyzed as a derivational suffix meaning “an event that’s big and exciting”  Country-palooza, Polka-palooza, Metal- palooza, Soap-a-palooza, Polar-palooza, …

Folk Etymology

    A specific type of re-analysis in which people misunderstand the historical origin of a word (etymology refers to word origins) Example 1: In some dialects of English, asparagus is now called sparrow-grass.

Example 2: Hamburger derives from the German city Hamburg plus suffix -er.

Speakers assume the word is a compound with first morpheme ham, so conclude that burger is a morpheme too, meaning a type of food patty.

Back Formation

     A specific type of reanalysis and/or analogy that creates new stems from derived or inflected forms Happens when language speakers misidentify a word as being composed of a stem and affix, then remove the affix to get back to what they think is the original stem Child (pointing to plate of cheese): “What’s that?” Parent: “Cheese” Child (hearing /z/ and assuming it is a plural suffix): “Can I have a chee?”

Back Formation

 Consider these verb-noun pairs     compensate denigrate operate procrastinate compensation denigration operation procrastination   delegate _________ delegation orientation  By analogy, speakers assume the verb stem is orientate (historically it is orient). Orientate is a back-formation.

Back Formation

    In Old English, the word for pea was pise (singular), pisan (plural) In Middle English, singular pease was reanalyzed as having a plural {-s} suffix.

A new singular form pea was created by back formation, and peas was reanalyzed as a plural.

The singular pease is still preserved in the old nursery rhyme: “Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold, pease porridge in the pot nine days old.”

 #1 Words out of nothing

ROOT CREATION

GAS NYLON RAYON

FUNCTIONAL SHIFT (ZERO-DERIVATION/CONVERSION)

A knee >> to knee A shoulder >> to shoulder a burden In and out >> to know the ins and outs

COMMONISATION

#1 Proper names, inventors, popularisers, trade names: The 4th Earl of Sandwich >> a sandwich Diesel >> a diesel engile Bowie >> a bowie knife Derringer >> a derringer Echo >> echo Spartan >> spartan A sliding fasterner >> zipper

TABOO DEFORMATION

GOD-DAMNED >> GOL-DARNED, GOL-DERNED, GOSH DARNED EUPHEMISMS: TO DIE >> TO BE MET ONE’S MAKER, PASS AWAY, LEAVE THE VALE OF TEARS

AFFIXATION

MORPHEMES ARE FUSED TOGETHER ANTIESTABLISHARIANISM

COMPOUNDING

#1 NOUN + NOUN OE w īfmann; MidE hūswīfe; ModE schoolboy #2 ADJ. + ADJ.

OE wynsum; MidE snauwhīt; ModE red-hot #3 NOUN + ADJ.

watertight, life-long, time-consuming # 4 VERB + NOUN MidE pickepurse; ModE pickpocket, press-button #5 PREP. + NOUN/VERB afterbirth, downfall, output

ACRONYMY #1 The initial sounds of several words  RADAR  LASER

MOTEL SMOG URINALISYS

BLENDING

TELLY LAB PROF.

DOC

ABBREVIATING (CLIPPING)

End