Stephen van Vlack

Sookmyung Women`s University

Graduate School of English

Introduction to Linguistics

Fall 2004

Week 11: Answers for Singleton, Chapter 8

1. How do linguists determine how languages have changed over time?

The simplest way for linguists to determine how a language or group of languages has/have changed over time is to look at older forms of the language. Thus if we want to find out more about English and how it changed over its history we simply go to older texts. We can then trace how changes have developed. While this might work fairly well for the Indo-European family of languages it generally does not work for most languages. First of all very few of the world`s languages have been written and even fewer have had an early literature that was extensive enough to see much change. In addition, the type of writing system will also affect the type of change that can be observed. Thus, the Chinese writing system, though it is both ancient and supports an extensive literature base, is based on meaning (logographic) and not based on sound. Therefore, it is impossible to tell what earlier versions of Chinese might have sounded like. Because so few languages have been written or written in a phonemic system indicating sound structure linguists needed to devise other ways of looking at language change over time.

The chief method linguists have developed for such purposes is the comparative method. The comparative method works by comparing as many different instances of a language/languages as possible. For example, if we want to find out what Old Korean was like we make up a list of the same word in as many different dialectical variations as we can find. We then compare the related forms looking at different features, such as initial consonants, vowels in certain positions, etc. By doing this linguists cannot reconstruct an older form of the language but they can get figure out how each dialect changed over time. The same method can be applied to languages to determine how what was once a single language, Proto Indo-European, for example may have split into other languages like Proto Slavic, or Proto Romance. They can also determine the features which make these languages different from one another.

2. How does lexical diffusion work?

Lexical diffusion is a process/phenomenon observed by historical and comparative linguists related to the ways sound and morpho-phonemic changes move through a language. It has been observed that although phonological and morpho-phonemic change might seem regular how the these changes move through language are seen as being less than regular or at least dominated by a different type of process. Before moving on to exactly what lexical diffusion might be, it is probably important we review just a little bit about phonological morphological change once again.

When Singleton says that sound change, and here we will also include morpho-phonemic change, is a regular process I think we need to be careful how we interpret this. His statement does not necessarily mean that Singleton beliefs that there is such a thing as underlying representations and surface representations and that rules are used by speakers to map the two. That is, Singleton is probably not advocating a strong generative view of how sound change might work. Rather, a thing we can interpret his statement as indicating that there seems to be regularity in sound change, and this is certainly true. If we look at sound change carefully we can see that there seem to be a limited number of possible sound changes both in type and scope. Based on this weekend argues that sound change is indeed regular if not rule-governed. So, vowel changes along the lines of the great vowel shift, which we discussed briefly in class, are based on raising and lowering of vowels in chains. Thinking about generative linguistics approaches to phonology, we might need to consider whether this vowel raising or lowering as seen in the great vowel shift actually changed underlying representations or if all speakers of English are still using pre-vowel shift underlying representations and using rules to generate the different surface structures that different speakers have. Part of the controversy here is that different dialects of English have actually undergone different changes in relation to the great vowel shift. Some have shifted more others have shifted less so the degree to which the great vowel shift has occurred vary raising questions about the validity of a rule-governed approach to phonological change. Now, just remember that there seems to be some regularity in how sounds change and this includes change on the universal level, not just within a particular language. Thus, diverse languages undergo similar types of sound changes.

Lexical diffusion itself can be seen in a similar way as sound change as we discussed above. The basic idea is that lexical diffusion is not rule-governed but does seem to have regularity in how it functions. What lexical diffusion basically claims is that sound change does not move immediately through the language. Lexical diffusion basically claims that sound change works its way word by word through the lexicon. Thus, change is neither immediate nor rule-governed, at least in respect to the way it applies to words.

Take, for example, the long /i:/ sound in Old English word s /i:s/ `ice`. This word is pronounced today /ais/. At some point in its history the long /i:/ sound underwent a process of diphthongization. And this change was not limited to just that word. Other words with the same long /i:/ sound, particularly in the center of the word also underwent a similar change. A simple example would be the modern English word `might` meaning strength. The idea underlying this change is that all the words that had a long /i:/ sound, and particularly in the center, did not immediately change, in this case undergo a diphthongization process.

According to the process of lexical diffusion, this sound change moved slowly through the language first affecting words that were somehow related to the first word which may have undergone this change then affecting more and then possibly also more. But as interesting about sound change is that won't want sound change is moving through the language other ones start and move also through the language and sometimes they end up pumping up next to each other and cancel each other out or causing further changes right on top of another change. The important point to remember is that how sound change moves through the language is not determined by the language itself, that is the structural elements of the language, but by the lexicon. Lexical diffusion basically claims that the lexicon and how it is organized controls how sound change is going to move through the language. Thus words that are closely related will undergo similar sound changes. Words that are less strongly connected to the once every undergone the change may or may not undergo the change depending on how strongly changes and what other changes might be occurring at the same time. Thus sound change is a rather complex process. It is not neat or clean as many different changes are occurring at the same time and it takes time for change to move through the language. Again the important point for us to remember is that the structure of the language itself is not determined how the change will disperse or move. The structure of the word made in part determine how the word might change but it is the lexicon and how it is organized, including strengths and weaknesses in connections, which determine how far and wide a specific change will be carried. Is essentially the idea of lexical diffusion.

3. How does lexical meaning change over time?

We said above that sound change would seem to be a regular process both in how the change may occur and also in how changes are distributed throughout the language according to the phenomenon or process of lexical diffusion. Meaning change, however, is a very different process. Meaning change is not thought to be regular in that it does not apply in the same way to features of word meaning in the same way that sound has been shown to change. Meaning change is not all limited or predictable in the same way that sound change seems to be. Certainly there are some regular forces which seemed to work on meaning change in which have been identified by linguists working in this area. Things like amelioration, pejoration, limiting scope, and expanding scope are the main forces which linguists have identified, but certainly meaning change is much more complex than just these four basic forces. To begin with, even in limiting scope works and the scope of capacity process of deciding which elements of a word meaning are going to be cut out and which ones are going to be focused on, which ones might be used for expansion. Underlying this whole process is well is the idea of metaphor. Metaphor basically works by taking features of two previously unrelated entities and in joining them so that the two entities are somehow locked together and thereby formed a new sands or new meaning. The important thing to remember about meaning change is that it is highly idiosyncratic and really not very predictable both in the way it occurs and distribution. In fact, there is the distribution for certainly meaning changes. Meaning change seems to occur just on one word at a time. Other related words do not undergo the same meaning changes as one word may undergo. In this way we can see that meaning change is a highly idiosyncratic process which is neither controlled by any kind of structure nor controlled by the lexicon. Thus, meaning change is much more idiosyncratic often with metaphor as the chief mechanism of change.

This then begs the question what must then be controlling the process of meaning change. Certainly if nothing more controlling it then meaning change would be wholly unlimited and this would lead to drastic comprehension errors. The point is if meaning change were not somehow controlled by some higher system people would create meaning changes that other people would not be able to understand and the certainly does not seem to be the case therefore there must be something controlling meaning change.

4. Why does lexical change occur?

Looking at lexical change globally, that is looking at both sound and meaning change over time, linguists have come up with a number of possible reasons why this might occur and here before continuing we should distinguish sound changes from meaning changes. It is an important aspect of linguistic theory that the structural aspects of language are controlled by universal grammar (UG) and are not related to any other parts of the brain most specifically cognition and/or the world in general (perception). This means that sound change is said to occur for basically no reason. Maybe the best way of understanding this is to liken sound change to something akin to fashion. Fashions change for the sake of changing. A longer skirt for example is not better in an evolutionary sense than a shorter one. In the same way of diphthong is no better than a long vowel. The change occurs just because maybe people make mistakes. Meaning change in the other hand is a different phenomenon. Because meaning is somehow linked to the world and is not necessarily controlled by universal grammar completely than their might be certain motivations for meaning change which do not exist for sound change. Some of these basic motivations that linguists have come up with are shown in the list below.

A. Changes in social reality

B. Foreign influence

C. Technological developments

D. etc.

The important thing to remember about these different motivations is that they all fall back on one basic idea which is mainly that meaning change basically occurs due to changes in the world around the speakers. Based on this we can see that at least some level language must be linked to the world. The world is where meanings must come from particularly when we look at meaning change. This is an idea that linguists working in degenerative area are reluctant to claim. The basis of the generative model of language is that there's a separation of different modules. We can certainly understand the separation in the structural modules from the world (even if we don't fully support it is in my case) but it is actually quite hard to understand a separation of meaning from the world yet in extreme views of generative semantics that is exactly what people are trying to do. The important point to remember here is that by sitting back and looking at some meaning changes we see that they really are determined to a certain extent by the world around them. Granted, not all changes come about this way. Some meaning changes happen again simply because change must occur but other changes seem to be truly motivated and not just by technical development or foreign influence but by basic societal changes. This important point that you should think about in trying to assess the valley the different approaches both to meaning but also to language itself.