Historical Phonology & Morphology How Sound Systems and Word Structures Change over Time Asian 401
Download ReportTranscript Historical Phonology & Morphology How Sound Systems and Word Structures Change over Time Asian 401
Slide 1
Historical Phonology &
Morphology
How Sound Systems and Word
Structures Change over Time
Asian 401
Slide 2
Linguistic Structures
We have seen that languages are made
up of structured systems
These systems exist at different levels
Languages have
Phonology: sound structures
Morphology: word structures
Syntax: sentence structures
Slide 3
Historical Linguistics
When languages change over time, the
changes can occur in any of these
structured systems
We therefore speak of
Historical phonology
Historical morphology
Historical syntax
Slide 4
Historical Phonology
We’ve looked at different types of
sound change that can happen over
time
We can now ask how individual sound
changes affect the phonology of a
language; that is, how they effect the
number and relations of phonemes
Slide 5
Phonological Change
A sound change might
Have no 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
Slide 6
No Change in # of Phonemes
Example 1: Chinese
[a] > [] / j_n
E.g. ‘sky’ [thjan55] > [thjn55]
The number of phonemes did not change
But the allophones of /a/ did change:
/a/ [] / j_n
[a] elsewhere
Slide 7
No Change in # of Phonemes
Example 2: English hypothetical
Suppose that we started to pronounce /g/
as [©] (weakening).
E.g. ‘bigger’ [bÈgß%] > [bÈ©ß%]
The number of phonemes does not change
Bigger and bicker are still a minimal pair
/g/ [©] (same phoneme, new allophone)
This change is happening in the Northwest
Slide 8
No Change in # of Phonemes
Example 3: Japanese hypothetical
Japanese has five vowel phonemes
/a e i o ɯ/
Suppose [ɯ] > [u] (unconditioned change)
The number of phonemes does not change
There are still five vowel phonemes:
/a e i o u/
Slide 9
Phonemic Merger
Example: Cockney English
Two unconditioned changes:
[ ƒ] > [f] and [Ï] > [v]
Four phonemes have been reduced to two
That and vat were once minimal pairs;
now homophones [væt]
Thin and fin were once minimal pairs;
now homophones [f Èn]
Slide 10
Phonemic Split
Example 1: Modern English /p/
Peak [phik]
/p/ complementary
Speak [spik]
/p/
distribution
Beak [bik]
/b/
Suppose there is deletion of /s/:
Peak [phik]
/ph/ new minimal
Speak [pik]
/p/
pair
Beak [bik]
/b/
Slide 11
Phonemic Split
Example 2: Japanese ongoing
Japanese /d/ has allophones [dʒ] (before
/i/) and [d] (elsewhere).
But some new English loans have [di], e.g.
disɯko ‘disco’, contrasting with native
words with [dʒi].
This is creating the potential for minimal
pairs and thus the introduction of a new
phoneme /dʒ/.
Slide 12
Other phonological changes
The phonology of a language can
change in more drastic ways than just
the addition or subtraction of
phonemes
Syllable structure can change
Chinese and Vietnamese were once
non-tonal languages; they developed
tones about 1500-2000 years ago
Slide 13
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.
Slide 14
Regularity of Sound Change
Example: Southern American English
[] > [È] / _ [n] (vowel raising)
Pen and ten are [phÈn] and [thÈn],
homophonous with pin and tin.
This sound change is regular
It affects [] in all words with this
environment: when, tennis, Ben, men,
glen, etc.
Slide 15
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
Slide 16
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
Slide 17
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
Slide 18
Historical Processes
Some common types of morphological
change are:
Grammaticalization
(Grammaticization)
Analogy
Reanalysis
Folk Etymology
Back Formation
Slide 19
Historical Processes
Remember: The building blocks of
morphology are morphemes, not words
The historical processes described here
involve changes to morphemes
Slide 20
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)
Slide 21
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.
Slide 22
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
Slide 23
Grammaticalization
Example 3: Chinese 了 /ljaw214/ > /l˙/
Original meaning: verb ‘to finish’
Function: completed action marker (/wø21
tswø51 l˙/ “I have done it.”)
Phonological reduction: monophthongization,
vowel reduction, loss of tone
Semantic bleaching: no longer used as a verb
meaning ‘to finish’
Slide 24
Grammaticalization
Example 4: Japanese /ageru/
Original meaning: verb ‘to give’
Grammaticalized function: indicates that an
action is done on someone’s behalf
Example: “Yamada taught Brown kanji.”
Yamada-san ga Brown-san ni kanji o osiete
agemasita
Yamada SUBJ Brown IO kanji DO teach-gave
Semantic bleaching: no gift changes hands
Slide 25
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
Slide 26
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
learn
walked
learned
+ /t/
+ /d/
fade
faded
+ /˙d/
Rule: Add an allomorph of {-ed} to verb stem
to make past tense
Slide 27
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” or “Bill
teached me how to tie my shoes” or “I taked
some cookies”
Slide 28
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?
Slide 29
Analogy
Analogy often has the effect of reducing the
overall number of allomorphs
Example 2: Old English {old} had two
allomorphs, /old/ and /‰ld/:
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
Slide 30
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.
Slide 31
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: workaholic, choc-oholic
Slide 32
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, Metalpalooza, Soap-a-palooza, Polar-palooza, …
Slide 33
Reanalysis
Example 5: Sanskrit > Pali
Sanskrit developed into Pali in the first
millennium BC in Northern and Central India
Sanskrit root krı̄ ‘to buy’
kre-tum ‘to buy’ (infinitive)
krı̄ -ta ‘bought’ (past participle)
stem+past participle suffix
krı̄ -ṇā-ti ‘he/she buys’
stem+present tense suffix+3rd-person sg. suffix
Slide 34
Reanalysis
In Pali, the morpheme boundary in the present
tense form was reanalyzed as:
krı̄ ṇ-āti ‘he/she buys’
stem+3rd person sg. suffix
Part of the present tense suffix was reanalyzed as
part of the verb stem, yielding a new stem kiṇ
The result was these new forms in Pali:
kiṇ-itum ‘to buy’ (compare Skt.kre-tum)
kiṇ-ita ‘bought’ (compare Skt. krı̄ -ta)
kiṇā-ti ‘he/she buys’ (compare Skt. krı̄ -ṇā-ti)
Slide 35
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.
Slide 36
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?”
Slide 37
Back Formation
Consider these verb-noun pairs
compensate
denigrate
operate
procrastinate
delegate
_________
compensation
denigration
operation
procrastination
delegation
orientation
By analogy, speakers assume the verb stem is
orientate (historically it is orient). Orientate is a
back-formation.
Slide 38
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 backformation, 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.”
Slide 39
Next Time
Historical Syntax: How sentence and
phrase structure changes over time
Historical Reconstruction: How we can
look at modern languages and
determine what they used to sound
like—even without written documents
Slide 40
End
Historical Phonology &
Morphology
How Sound Systems and Word
Structures Change over Time
Asian 401
Slide 2
Linguistic Structures
We have seen that languages are made
up of structured systems
These systems exist at different levels
Languages have
Phonology: sound structures
Morphology: word structures
Syntax: sentence structures
Slide 3
Historical Linguistics
When languages change over time, the
changes can occur in any of these
structured systems
We therefore speak of
Historical phonology
Historical morphology
Historical syntax
Slide 4
Historical Phonology
We’ve looked at different types of
sound change that can happen over
time
We can now ask how individual sound
changes affect the phonology of a
language; that is, how they effect the
number and relations of phonemes
Slide 5
Phonological Change
A sound change might
Have no 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
Slide 6
No Change in # of Phonemes
Example 1: Chinese
[a] > [] / j_n
E.g. ‘sky’ [thjan55] > [thjn55]
The number of phonemes did not change
But the allophones of /a/ did change:
/a/ [] / j_n
[a] elsewhere
Slide 7
No Change in # of Phonemes
Example 2: English hypothetical
Suppose that we started to pronounce /g/
as [©] (weakening).
E.g. ‘bigger’ [bÈgß%] > [bÈ©ß%]
The number of phonemes does not change
Bigger and bicker are still a minimal pair
/g/ [©] (same phoneme, new allophone)
This change is happening in the Northwest
Slide 8
No Change in # of Phonemes
Example 3: Japanese hypothetical
Japanese has five vowel phonemes
/a e i o ɯ/
Suppose [ɯ] > [u] (unconditioned change)
The number of phonemes does not change
There are still five vowel phonemes:
/a e i o u/
Slide 9
Phonemic Merger
Example: Cockney English
Two unconditioned changes:
[ ƒ] > [f] and [Ï] > [v]
Four phonemes have been reduced to two
That and vat were once minimal pairs;
now homophones [væt]
Thin and fin were once minimal pairs;
now homophones [f Èn]
Slide 10
Phonemic Split
Example 1: Modern English /p/
Peak [phik]
/p/ complementary
Speak [spik]
/p/
distribution
Beak [bik]
/b/
Suppose there is deletion of /s/:
Peak [phik]
/ph/ new minimal
Speak [pik]
/p/
pair
Beak [bik]
/b/
Slide 11
Phonemic Split
Example 2: Japanese ongoing
Japanese /d/ has allophones [dʒ] (before
/i/) and [d] (elsewhere).
But some new English loans have [di], e.g.
disɯko ‘disco’, contrasting with native
words with [dʒi].
This is creating the potential for minimal
pairs and thus the introduction of a new
phoneme /dʒ/.
Slide 12
Other phonological changes
The phonology of a language can
change in more drastic ways than just
the addition or subtraction of
phonemes
Syllable structure can change
Chinese and Vietnamese were once
non-tonal languages; they developed
tones about 1500-2000 years ago
Slide 13
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.
Slide 14
Regularity of Sound Change
Example: Southern American English
[] > [È] / _ [n] (vowel raising)
Pen and ten are [phÈn] and [thÈn],
homophonous with pin and tin.
This sound change is regular
It affects [] in all words with this
environment: when, tennis, Ben, men,
glen, etc.
Slide 15
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
Slide 16
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
Slide 17
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
Slide 18
Historical Processes
Some common types of morphological
change are:
Grammaticalization
(Grammaticization)
Analogy
Reanalysis
Folk Etymology
Back Formation
Slide 19
Historical Processes
Remember: The building blocks of
morphology are morphemes, not words
The historical processes described here
involve changes to morphemes
Slide 20
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)
Slide 21
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.
Slide 22
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
Slide 23
Grammaticalization
Example 3: Chinese 了 /ljaw214/ > /l˙/
Original meaning: verb ‘to finish’
Function: completed action marker (/wø21
tswø51 l˙/ “I have done it.”)
Phonological reduction: monophthongization,
vowel reduction, loss of tone
Semantic bleaching: no longer used as a verb
meaning ‘to finish’
Slide 24
Grammaticalization
Example 4: Japanese /ageru/
Original meaning: verb ‘to give’
Grammaticalized function: indicates that an
action is done on someone’s behalf
Example: “Yamada taught Brown kanji.”
Yamada-san ga Brown-san ni kanji o osiete
agemasita
Yamada SUBJ Brown IO kanji DO teach-gave
Semantic bleaching: no gift changes hands
Slide 25
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
Slide 26
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
learn
walked
learned
+ /t/
+ /d/
fade
faded
+ /˙d/
Rule: Add an allomorph of {-ed} to verb stem
to make past tense
Slide 27
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” or “Bill
teached me how to tie my shoes” or “I taked
some cookies”
Slide 28
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?
Slide 29
Analogy
Analogy often has the effect of reducing the
overall number of allomorphs
Example 2: Old English {old} had two
allomorphs, /old/ and /‰ld/:
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
Slide 30
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.
Slide 31
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: workaholic, choc-oholic
Slide 32
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, Metalpalooza, Soap-a-palooza, Polar-palooza, …
Slide 33
Reanalysis
Example 5: Sanskrit > Pali
Sanskrit developed into Pali in the first
millennium BC in Northern and Central India
Sanskrit root krı̄ ‘to buy’
kre-tum ‘to buy’ (infinitive)
krı̄ -ta ‘bought’ (past participle)
stem+past participle suffix
krı̄ -ṇā-ti ‘he/she buys’
stem+present tense suffix+3rd-person sg. suffix
Slide 34
Reanalysis
In Pali, the morpheme boundary in the present
tense form was reanalyzed as:
krı̄ ṇ-āti ‘he/she buys’
stem+3rd person sg. suffix
Part of the present tense suffix was reanalyzed as
part of the verb stem, yielding a new stem kiṇ
The result was these new forms in Pali:
kiṇ-itum ‘to buy’ (compare Skt.kre-tum)
kiṇ-ita ‘bought’ (compare Skt. krı̄ -ta)
kiṇā-ti ‘he/she buys’ (compare Skt. krı̄ -ṇā-ti)
Slide 35
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.
Slide 36
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?”
Slide 37
Back Formation
Consider these verb-noun pairs
compensate
denigrate
operate
procrastinate
delegate
_________
compensation
denigration
operation
procrastination
delegation
orientation
By analogy, speakers assume the verb stem is
orientate (historically it is orient). Orientate is a
back-formation.
Slide 38
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 backformation, 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.”
Slide 39
Next Time
Historical Syntax: How sentence and
phrase structure changes over time
Historical Reconstruction: How we can
look at modern languages and
determine what they used to sound
like—even without written documents
Slide 40
End