Chapter 7

Grammatical, Semantic and Lexical Change

PART III

Commentary on Crowley

WHAT’S THIS? LET’S BEGIN WITH THE

SAME OLD QUESTION

7.2 Grammaticalization

Same old question

Why do languages differ typologically?

Because Languages Change !

More precisely, linguists have a term to describe the origin and evolution of affixes and function words.

This term describes the evolution of function words and affixes.

Grammaticalization

Evolution of function words

In the beginning were the words, and they were lexical roots, and the language was morphologically isolating, and the people said that it was good.

Then it came to pass that some words were used more frequently than others. And so the frequently-used words begat function words; and some of these, in turn, were used more frequently than the other function words.

Evolution of clitics and affixes

And so the frequently-used function words begat clitics, and it came to pass that some clitics were used more frequently than others.

And so the frequently-used clitics begat affixes, and the language underwent morphologization, and the people said that it was gut (by which they meant agglutinating).

Eolution of morphological types

And they laughed at their neighbors to the East whose language was isolating, and they laughed at their neighbors to the West for allowing their agglutinating language to beget inflections; and they laughed at their neighbors to the South, whose inflectional language had begotten isolating spawn. Then they allied themselves with neighbors to the North, whose formerly isolating language finally begat a Gut language like their own.

And Og smote them all for neglecting the land and the children, so intent were they on laughing at their neighbors and fighting with them.

Crowley’s example of grammaticalization in contemporary English, p. 145

1. John is going to go to Harvard.2. John is going to the store.3. John is gonna go to Harvard.4. *John is gonna the store.

Why is (4) ungrammatical?

English modals used to be verbsHe tried to go.He started to go.He wanted to go.*He cans to go > He can go.*He not cans to go > He can’t go.*He wills to go > He will go.

That is, some high-frequency verbs became grammaticalized as modal auxiliaries.

Grammaticalized have, do, be, get, will and go

He had an appointment.He had an obligation/plan/intention to meet his

mother.He had an obligation/plan/intention to meet his

mother.

Because grammaticalization is often partial, a function word may co-exist with a homophonous lexical item which is, in fact, its etymon. Thus English have, do, be, get, will and go all retain the original lexical as well as the innovating grammatical uses.

And Crowley saw that it was gut.

(End of section 7.2 - Grammaticalization)

7.3 Mechanisms of Grammatical Change

Mechanisms of Grammatical Change

There are three mechanisms of grammatical change.

Reanalysis Analogy Diffusion

Analogy was discussed earlier in the course.

See Slides 4-19 in the Power Point titled: “Melanau Morphology”

Diffusion is another term for borrowing; it derives from the

phrase “cultural diffusion”

In this context, diffusion means that a grammatical construction can enter a language via borrowing.

Crowley suggests here and in Chapter 12 that word order change is especially suseptible to influences from neighboring languages, mediated typically by bilingual speakers.

Reanalysis

That leaves one more major topic:

Accusative to ergative shift involved Reanalysis

To review: the shift from accusative to ergative typology occurred because, after the active form was lost, the erstwhile passive underwent Reanalysis as active (and basic) structure.

Below is another example of Reanalysis reconstruct-able in the history of the Malayo-Polynesian languages.

Reanalysis

Reanalysis accounts in part for the Melanau passive infix -i-. This element originated in PMP as a tense marker *-in- which is reconstructable internally based on Tagalog data.

PMP *-in- ‘past tense’ infixPMP *-in ‘passive voice’ suffix

Tagalog reflects both PMP affixes directly; however, they do not co-occur in a word.

su-sulat ‘will write’ su-sulat-in ‘will be written s-in-ulat-Ø ‘was written’ s-in-u-sulat-Ø ‘was being written’ su-sulat-an ‘will be written on’ s-in-u-sulat-an ‘was being written

on’

Past-to-Passive ReanalysisTagalog speakers (and most grammar books)

regard the infix -in- as a passive marker today.

Historically, PMP *-in- underwent Reanalysis from its original ‘tense/aspect’ function to a passive function in Tagalog.

Melanau inherited the reanalyzed passive infix *-in-, which underwent phonological reduction via vowel syncope and cluster reduction, e.g pre-Melanau *t-in-əbaŋ>t-in-baŋ>t-i-baŋ ‘be felled’

Reanalysis typically originates as an ‘error’ that becomes standardized.

French: cerise ‘cherry’ was borrowed into English as ‘cherries’ and then reanalyzed as plural, from which the singular cherry is derived via back-formation.

German: Hamburger ‘a person from Hamburg’German: Hamburger Weisswurst ‘sausage from

Hamburg.American: hamburger sandwich: a sandwich made with

ground beef on a bun; reference to Hamburg totally lost.American: burger (clipping of the above)American: tuna-burger, fish-burger, etc. results from

Reanalysis of burger as a suffix.

Cf. evolution of suffix -gate from Watergate Building in D.C.

End of 7.3 – Mechanisms of grammatical change

ONLY TWO MORE SECTIONS TO GO IN THIS CHAPTER !

7.4 Semantic Change7.5 Lexical Change

Saussure means clarity

7.4 Semantic change: A word changes its meaning. In Saussurean terms: A word’s sound can remain constant while its meaning changes.

7.5 Lexical change: A new word can be added or lost. In Saussurean terms: A new sound/meaning unit can be introduced into a language, or an existing one can disappear.

Four Types of Semantic Change

(A word’s sound can remain constant while its meaning changes.)

BroadeningNarrowingBifurcation (split)Shift

Four Types of Semantic Change

(A word’s sound can remain constant while its meaning changes.)

Broadening – *dogge ‘dog1’> dog ‘dog’Narrowing – *hund ‘dog’ > hound ‘dog1’Split – *artillary ‘catapult’ > artillary

‘cannon’Shift -- *silly ‘blessed’ > silly ‘silly’

Four Mechanisms of Semantic Change (A word’s sound can remain constant while its

meaning changes.)

Metaphor – pig ‘pig’ > pig ‘sloppy person’; *insult ‘assault’ > insult ‘insult’

Euphemism – *native ‘native’ > First Nation ‘native’ (Canada)

Hyperbole – absolutely ‘without limit’ > absolutely ‘yes’

Interference – *gay person ‘1. happy 2. homosexual’ > gay person ‘homosexual’

Do true synonyms exist?

Linguist Dwight Bolinger suggested that there are no true synonyms in a language.

When synonymous pairs arise, they always develop nuances so that they are not truly synonymous. One member is always more polite, or distinct in some other feature.

Thus even though ‘gay’ and ‘happy’ were once called synonyms, there was still a difference of meaning between them.

And when ‘gay’ shifted its meaning (via euphemism) to include ‘homosexual’ it further distanced itself semantically from its erstwhile synonym.

Psycholinguistic test

Write the first five barnyard animals you can think of.

Psycholinguistic test

Write down the first five kinds of meat Americans are fond of eating. (not counting a Vegan’s preferences)

Psycholinguistic test

What caused the shift in meaning from cow meat to beef?

Cow, Pig, Sheep, Chicken, Goat (barnyard animals)

Beef, Pork, Mutten, Chicken, Goat (varieties of meat eaten by the farmer)

A Semantic Change in Progress? Pimping?

Bill Maher video titled: Ebonic Plaguehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/new-rule-ebonic-plague_b_88536.html

Question: Does the metaphorical use of the word pimp(ing) have a future in the English language?

7.5 Lexical Change: A new sound/meaning unit can be introduced into a language, or an existing one can disappear.

How new words enter a language. This is a big topic.

How words exit a language. A sound/meaning unit (word) can disappear altogether when (a) the referenced item disappears from the culture, or (b) the unit is totally replaced by a borrowed unit (word).

How new words enter a language

When I teach LING 270 I introduce this topic with a mnemonic formula: ABCD 1341.

AcronymBlending, Borrowing, Back FormationCoining, Conversion, Compounding, Clipping Derivation

The formula gives students a taste of the complexity of lexical innovation.

Unfortunately, we don’t have time to go any further into the subject of change in semantic structure and lexicon.

But two final examples are hard to resist.

Ms. /mɪz/ - What has it come to mean in the U.S. Congress? And what happened to Miss?

Roll Call

Mr. Kerry, Mr. Kerry “Ay”Mrs. Dole, Mrs. Dole “Nay”Mz. Collins, Mz. Collins “Ay”

Etymology of the French word aujourd'hui (today)

When words become too compact, there is a tendency to use syntactic means to make them longer.

In language, there are always processes of shortening and lengthening going on at the same time. For example, many French words are shorter than the original Latin etyma. Then there is "aujourd'hui" (today). The "d’hui" originally comes from Latin hoc die, meaning "this day". The whole word means literally "on the day of this day." Presumably "d’hui" became too short for comfort.

Aujourd’hui

“on the day of this day”

LING 485/585Winter 2009

Grammatical, Semantic and Lexical Change – Part III