LANGUAGE CHANGE PART 1 & PART 2 (BEL1023)

Summary

The lecture surveys major ways languages change over time, using English as its main example. It distinguishes changes in pronunciation, word form, sentence structure, vocabulary, and meaning.

1. Historical and comparative linguistics

• Historical linguistics studies how languages change through time.
• Comparative linguistics compares languages to identify relationships and patterns of change.
• Sound changes are generally regular rather than random. Comparing older and newer forms, or regional pronunciations, can reveal recurring patterns.
• Regional variation is one source of pronunciation differences. For example, the lecture notes that some Southern American speakers pronounce the vowel in pie differently from speakers of the standard variety.

2. Language families and sound correspondences

• A proto-language is an ancestral language from which related languages develop.
• As communities separate and their varieties change, dialects may become distinct languages.
• Latin is presented as the source of the Romance languages, including French, Spanish, and Italian. Proto-Germanic is presented as an ancestor of English and German.
• Similar sound patterns across words—such as the initial sounds in English father, French père, and Spanish and Italian padre—can offer clues that languages are related.
• These examples illustrate comparison, though the subtitles simplify the wider relationships among language families.

3. Phonological change

Phonological change affects how words are pronounced. It may involve sounds being lost, added, or changed.

• The lecture discusses the loss of an older velar fricative, with examples such as night and drought. The transcript’s pronunciations for some examples are unclear.
• It also describes sound additions or differences in words such as leisure.
• Pronunciation can change while spelling preserves older forms, so modern spelling does not always match current pronunciation.
• Changes can also affect grammatical contrasts. The examples house as a noun versus a verb, and bath versus bathe, illustrate differences in final fricative sounds.

4. The Great Vowel Shift

• The Great Vowel Shift is dated roughly to the period between the 1400s and 1600s.
• During this period, English long vowels changed substantially, altering the pronunciation of many words.
• The lecture uses bite and mouse to illustrate shifts in vowel pronunciation between Middle English and Modern English.

5. Morphological change

Morphological change affects the form or structure of words, including endings that mark grammatical categories or relationships.

• The lecture compares older and modern English word forms, including changes in possessive or genitive marking.
• Word endings and other morphemes may change or disappear over time.

6. Syntactic change

Syntactic change affects word order and sentence structure.

• Modern English commonly places adjectives before nouns, as in sweet showers. The lecture contrasts this with an older order in which the noun could precede the adjective.
• Modern English generally places the verb after the subject and before the object, as in I marry you. The lecture contrasts this with an older pattern in which the verb could appear later in the sentence.
• The lecture connects syntax with grammar and notes that changes in pronunciation and sentence structure can influence one another.

7. Lexical change

Lexical change affects vocabulary. The lecture covers several processes:

• Changes in word class: A word may take on a new grammatical role. Text and tweet, for instance, can be used as verbs as well as nouns.
• Coinage: New words enter the vocabulary, including words associated with products or science. Examples include podcast, smog, Xerox, Kleenex, jello, neutron, and genome.
• Eponyms: Words derived from names. Sandwich is given as an example and linked to the Earl of Sandwich.
• Blends: Words formed by combining parts of other words. Examples include smog (smoke + fog), brunch (breakfast + lunch), motel (motor + hotel), bromance, frenemy, and chillax. Podcast is also discussed as a blend associated with iPod and broadcast.
• Word reduction:
  • Clippings shorten longer words, as in telephone → phone, laboratory → lab, and influenza → flu.
  • Acronyms are formed from initial letters and pronounced as words. Examples include radar, laser, and scuba.
  • Initialisms or alphabetic abbreviations are pronounced letter by letter. Examples include NFL, MRI, and OMG.
• Borrowing: English has adopted words and expressions from other languages. The lecture gives examples from French, Malay, Latin, and Italian, including ensemble, among, ditto, and pronto, as well as the expression “it goes without saying.”
• Loss of words: Some words disappear as usage, technology, and occupations change. The lecture mentions older words from Romeo and Juliet and terms associated with obsolete jobs or forms of transport.

8. Semantic change

Semantic change is a change in a word’s meaning. The lecture describes three broad patterns:

• Broadening: A word gains a wider range of meanings. Mouse, once referring to an animal, also refers to a computer device. Other examples include holiday, quarantine, and footage.
• Narrowing: A word’s meaning becomes more restricted. Meat once referred more generally to food but now commonly refers to animal flesh eaten as food. Deer is another example of narrowing.
• Meaning shift: A word develops a substantially different meaning. The lecture uses knight and silly as examples and notes the historical change in the meaning of gay.

Speakers and sources mentioned

• Speaker: One lecturer presents the material alongside slides. The subtitles do not identify the lecturer by name; the channel is Haliza Harun.
• Sources or works mentioned: Lecture slides; a textbook (page 34, in connection with loanwords); The Canterbury Tales; Romeo and Juliet; and Harry Potter. These are referenced as examples or learning materials, not as additional speakers.