JPN494/598: History of the Japanese Language

Basic concepts in historical linguistics

Basic Concepts in Historical Linguistics synchronic vs. diachronic studies dia- (through) + chronos (time) + -ic Diachronic linguistics is concerned with

change in language or languages over time. Synchronic linguistics deals with a language

at a single point of time.

philology: (i) historical linguistics, the historical study of language; (ii) the study of old written documents, linguistic studies based on old writings

etymology: (the study of) historical origins of individual words 稲荷寿司 ( いなりずし ) 面白い ( おもしろい ) glamour < ‘grammar’

cf. folk-etymology デマ (‘false rumor’) < でまかせ ? asparagus < sparrow-grass?

( ク語法 )

“ 見らく少なく恋ふらくの多き”

見らく (‘ 見ること’ ), 恋ふらく (‘ 恋いること’ ), 清けく (‘ 清いこと’ )

見る + あく (miru + aku) ? 　 恋ふる + あく (kouru + aku) ? 　 清き + あく (kiyoki + aku)?

あく = ‘ こと、ところ’ あくがる (Mod J: あこがれる ‘ to admire, to be attracted to’

)

Varieties of Linguistic Changes

Domain: Sound, Syntactic, and Lexical Changes, etc.

Cause: Analogy, Borrowing, etc. (or no obvious cause)

Sound changes

Regular Changes conditioned or unconditioned? phonemic or not? (e.g. whether they lead to a

change of the phonemic system) Sporadic Changes

Two major types of sounds

Consonants: speech-sounds produced when the speaker either stops or severely constricts the airflow in the vocal tract.

Vowels: speech-sounds produced with a relatively open vocal tract, which functions as a resonating chamber.

Consonants

Place(s) of Articulation: lips, teeth, alveolar ridge, hard palate, velum (soft

palate), … Manner of Articulation

stops (plosives), fricatives, affricates, approximants, …

Voicing (Phonation) voiced vs. voiceless

Vowels

Three major parameters that characterize a vowel: How wide the mouth is open (or, how high the ton

gue is) (open, open-mid, close-mid, close) How forward the tongue position is (front, central,

back) The shape of the lips (rounded, spread)

Simple vowels (monophthong) can be combined to form a diphthong (e.g. English [aɪ] as in I am …) or triphthong.

Web resources

The original IPA chart: (http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/fullchart.html)

“Pronounceable” IPA chart with sound files: 1. (

http://web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ipa/charts/IPAlab/IPAlab.htm) (U of Victoria)

2. (http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/course/chapter1/chapter1.html) (UCLA)

Plosives (Stops): complete closure of the articulators, which blocks the air stream through the mouth.

Nasals: the same as plosives but with airflow through the nasal cavity & nostrils.

Fricatives: close approximation of two articulators; the air stream is partially obstructed and turbulent airflow is produced

Affricates: continuous sequences of plosives and fricatives

Taps (Flaps): a quick contact of two articulators (e.g. the tongue and the alveolar ridge)

Trills: repeated quick contacts of articulators Approximants: A gesture in which one articu

lator is close to another, but without the vocal tract being narrowed to such an extent that a turbulent airstream is produced.

(Lateral: the tongue is in contact with the upper structure of the mouth.)

Regular sound change: a kind of change that takes place whenever the sound or sounds which undergo the change are found in the circumstances or environments that condition the change.

Conditioned vs. unconditioned sound changes p > b / V _ V (Latin to Spanish)

capillus > cabello, caput > cabo, … pater > padre, professio > profesión, …

> j (in many dialects of Spanish) calle: [kae] > [kaje], llamar: [amar] > [jamar] halla ‘find’ vs. haya ‘have (subj.)’

Merger, loss, split of sounds (phonemes) Certain (regular) sound changes affect the ph

onemic system of a language, while certain others don’t.

Phonology vs. Phonetics Phonetics deals with linguistic sounds as phy

sical objects (phones). Phonology deals with linguistic sounds as un

its of meaningful expressions (phonemes).

Phonetics vs. Phonology

pin [phɪn], spin [spɪn], pop [phɑp] [ph] vs. [p]: “different” or “same”? They are different from the phonetic perspecti

ve, but the same from the phonological perspective.

[ph] and [p] are allophones of the same phoneme, /p/ (in English).

Notational Convention

phonetic description: […] (e.g. [phɪn]) phonological (phonemic) description: /…/ (e.

g. /pɪn/)

Complementary distribution

Complementary distribution: allophones do not occur in the same phonological environment OK: pin [phɪn], spin [spɪn] ??: pin [pɪn], spin [sphɪn]

Pairs of expressions that have different meanings and that differ in only one sound (phone) are called minimal pairs; they can be used to show that two phones are not allophones of the same phoneme. pin: bin hit : heat

Allophones in one language are not necessarily allophones in another language.

[p] and [ph ] are considered the “same” in English (phonologically).

But they are not in some other languages 비 [pi] ‘rain’ vs. 피 [phi] ‘blood’ (Korean)

The inventory of phonemes of a given language may expand or shrink through historical change.

(Not all sound changes, on the other hand, affect the number of phonemes in the language.)

// and /j/ merged (into /j/) in many dialects of Spanish halla ‘find’ vs. haya ‘have (subj.)’

/ɑ/ and /ɔ/ merged (into /ɑ/) for many speakers of American English (e.g. law vs. la, cot vs. caught)

Sporadic (non-regular) sound changes:

E.g.: けむり [kemuri] ‘smoke’ < けぶり [keburi] たき [taki] ‘water fall’ < たぎ [tagi]

Syntactic Change

The Wycliff Bible (14th century; middle English):And a litil aftir, they that stooden camen, and

seiden to Petir, treuli thou art of hem for thi speche

makith thee knowun.

The King James Bible (1611; early modern E.):And after a while came vnto him they that stood by,

and saide to Peter, Surely thou also art one of them,

for thy speech bewrayeth thee. The New English Bible (1961; modern E.):

Shortly afterwards the bystanders came up and said

to Peter, ‘Surely you are another of them; your

accent gives you away!’

Lexical changes

The vocabulary (the collection of words) of a language may acquire new members through: borrowing coining

gas, smog (to) xerox, guillotine, canary radar (< radio direction and ranging), VCR (< video

casette recorder) (acronym/alphabetism)

Words may be lost; sometimes they are replaced by new words; sometimes they simply become obsolete along with the concepts associated with them. 活動写真 ( かつどうしゃしん ; motion picture) 年貢 ( ねんぐ ; land tax)

Meanings associated with words can change through time, with the phonetic forms unchanged.

There are various types of semantic changes; a complete/consistent classification is hard to come by.

Varieties of semantic changes

widening & narrowing degeneration & elevation hyperbole, litotes euphemism semantic expansion by metaphor and

metonymy

Widening & Narrowing

Widening dog: ‘a specific breed of dog’ > ‘dog in general’ salary: (a Latin word for) ‘a soldier’s allotment of salt’

> ‘a soldier’s pay’ > ‘wages in general’

Narrowing hound: ‘dogs in general’ > ‘a specific type of dog’ meat: ‘food in general’ > ‘meat’

Degeneration & Elevation

Degeneration silly: ‘happy, innocent’ > ‘foolish’ putta: ‘girl’ > ‘whore’ (Italian)

Elevation knight: ‘boy, servant’ > ‘mounted worrior,

nobility’ pretty: ‘crafty, sly’ > ‘lovely’

Hyperbole & Litotes

Hyperbole (Exaggeration) ‘I am terribly sorry.’

Litotes (Understatement) meurtre: ‘to bruise’ > ‘to kill’ (Spanish)

Euphemism

euphemism: replacement of words regarded as unpleasant/obscene

“Terms for ‘toilet’ frequently come to be considered indelicate, and substitutions lacking the distressing sentiments are made” (Campbell 99: 263)

water closet (WC) → toilet → bathroom, mens’/ladies’ room, rest room, etc.

Semantic expansion

polysemy & (lexical) ambiguity A word (form) is called polysemous when it

has multiple meanings (that are connected with each other)

bank: (i) financial institution, (ii) river side

Expansion by metaphor grasp: {‘seize’} > {‘seize’, ‘understand’} to chill: {‘to cool down’} > {‘to cool down’, ‘to calm down, to relax’}

leg, crane, は ( 歯・刃 ) before

Metaphor: a process whereby one thing is conceptualized in terms of another, with a leap across semantic domains.

A metaphor is based on the resemblance of two things. (e.g. Snow White)

Expansion by metonymy dish: {‘tableware’} > {‘tableware’, ‘food’} timber: {‘room, building’} > {‘building’, ‘material for building (wood)’} >

{‘wood’}

メガネ , blonde Champagne, Toyota go to bathroom, 頭を下げる , 頭を抱える

Metonymy: a process whereby the name of one thing is substituted by the name of another, closely related object.

A metonymy is based on the contiguity/relevance of two things.(product-place, person-attire, part-whole, etc.) (e.g. Little Red Riding Hood)

Borrowing

Lexical borrowing (loanwords) is very common in Japanese as well as in English.

Japanese words can be classified by their origins: 和語 ( わご ); 固有語 ( こゆうご ) 　 native word

s 漢語 ( かんご ) Sino-Japanese words 洋語 ( ようご ) foreign words 混種語 ( こんしゅご ) hybrid words

Motivation for (lexical) borrowing need: coffee, tobacco; コーヒー , タバコ prestige: アクロバット ( かるわざ , 曲芸 ), ア

ナリスト ( 分析家 ), アメニティー ( 快適さ ), …

“English could have done perfectly well with only native terms for ‘pig meat’ and ‘cow meat’, but for reasons of prestige, pork and beef were borrowed [from French].” (Campbell 99:64)

Sound borrowing is less common than lexical borrowing, but may happen after extensive/intimate language contact.

/ʒ/ (as in leisure, vision) became an English phoneme through French loanwords.

(cf. leisure vs. ledger) ファン [ɸaɴ], ティー [ti:]

Syntactic borrowing: “is much more frequent and important than some scholars have thought in the past” (Campbell 99)

(From Spanish to Pipil) Esa mujer es más linda que tú. ne siwa:t mas galá:na ke taha

Analogy (analogical change)

Analogy has been considered one of the most important factors in linguistic change (along with regular sound change and borrowing).

The definition of linguistic analogy, however, tends to be quite vague.

E.g., “Analogy is a process whereby one form of a language becomes more like another with which it is somehow associated.”

ex. January, Febuary, …

Analogy is a “wastebasket” category of linguistic change, and includes various subtypes, such as:

proportional analogy analogical leveling analogical extension

metanalysis hypercorrection…

A proportional analogical change can be represented in an equation of the form:A : B = C : X

where one solves for X.

A proportional analogical change that makes the

paradigm {simpler/more uniform} is

called analogical leveling.

ex 1: old-elder-eldest > old-older-oldest

late-latter-last > late-later-latest

new : newer = old : x

ex 2:Standard EnglishI was We wereYou were You wereHe was They were

Some dialects (e.g. Smith Island English)I was We wasYou was You wasHe was They was

A proportional analogical change that makes the paradigm {more complex/irregular} iscalled analogical extension.

ex 1:ride : rode = dive : x

ex 2: ラ抜き言葉 ( らぬきことば )

Type 1 - verb 書く : 書かれる : 書ける 読む : 読まれる : 読める

Type 2 - verb 食べる : 食べられる : 食べれる 見る : 見られる : 見れる

Type 1 - verb kak-u : kak-are-ru : kak-e-ru yom-u : yom-are-ru : yom-e-ru

Type 2 - verb tabe-ru : tabe-rare-ru : tabe-re-ru mi-ru : mi-rare-ru : mi-re-ru

are : rare = e : X

Hypercorrection involves an attempt to change a

form in a less prestigious variety to make it

conform to how it would be pronounced in a more

prestigious variety.

lawn > lawned, across > acrost (in analogy with han vs. hand, firs vs. first)

umbrella > umbrellow (in analogy with fella vs. fellow)

Metanalysis involves a change in the structural

analysis (by the speakers).

amalgamation

all most > almost; do on > don reanalysis

a norange > an orange; a napron > an apron

Models of linguistic change/diversification The family tree model vs. The dialectologi

cal model (the wave theory)

The family tree model: attempts to show how languages (& dialects) diversify and how language families are classified (typically using the comparative method).

The family tree model emphasizes on the regularity of sound changes.

“Sound laws suffer no exception.” Thanks to the regularity of sound changes, we are abl

e to reconstruct extinct, ancestral languages (proto-languages), using the comparative method.

Many scholars believe that the comparative method is effective for the reconstruction of the syntax of the proto-language as well (as opposed to the sound system only)

The “wave theory” (the dialectological model):

“Each word has its own history.”

“Linguistic changes spread outward concentrically like waves, which become progressively weaker with the distance from their central point.”

k > ʃ / _ a (from Latin to French)

1. candēla > chandelle ‘candle’ (ʃ)

2. cantāre > chanter ‘sing’ (ʃ)

3. cattu(s) > chat ‘cat’ (k)

4. campus > champ ‘field’ (k)

regular sound changes + borrowing + analogical changes

“Neither the family tree model nor the dialectological model [(the wave theory)] is sufficient to explain all of linguistic change and all the sorts of relationships that can exist between dialects and related languages.”

The wave theory deals with changes due to contact among languages and dialects.

Excerpts from Campbell (2004) Excerpt from Shibatani (1990) IPA chart Assignment #1