HSTORICAL LINGUISTICS

GENERAL LINGUISTICS
 Branches of linguistics
The study of linguistics is divided into
numerous branches. Two of it most
contrastive branches are
• Historical linguistics
• Descriptive linguistics
These are named by Saussure as
• Diachronic Linguistics
• Synchronic Linguistics
 Historical and descriptive
linguistics
• Historical linguistics studies how languages change
or maintain their structure during the course of
time. Diachronic literally means, “History calling”.
That is why this field of linguistics has been named
as diachronic linguistics. While descriptive
linguistics investigates and attributes to the
linguistic data a uniform status of linguistic
simultancity without any regard for time factor.
Synchronic means at a given time not necessarily
present. That is why this approach of studying
languages has been named as synchronic
linguistics.
 Domain of historic linguistics
• Historical linguistics is that branch of linguistics
which
• 1-Focuses on the interconnections between different
languages in the world
• 2-Studies their historical developments
• 3-Investigate how languages evolve and changes
through time
• 4-How multiple offspring languages can arise from
one past parent language
• 5-How cultural contact between speakers of
different languages can influence language
development and evolution.
 Definition
Brian D. Joseph( ) defines historical
linguistics as
Historical linguistics is the branch of linguistics
that is concerned with language change in general
and with specific changes in languages, and in
particular
• With describing them
• With cataloging them
• And ultimately with explaining them
Interdependency of diachronic
and synchronic linguistics
The strict division between these two branches of
linguistics is based on a misunderstanding of the
relationship between these two aspects of the study
of language. The unstable state of a language at a
given point of time is the consequence of historical
processes, and its very instability is the evidence
that these processes continue to operate in the
present. There is also a close interrelationship
between synchronic linguistic variations and
diachronic linguistic change. Diachronic linguistics
as well needs the synchronic data of the language at
different times.
 LANGUAGE CHANGE

Everything in the human affairs change. It

would be a surprise if languages do not
change. A basic assumption in historical
linguistics is that languages are constantly
changing. It is not something static or non-
changing. It is one of the most dynamic
areas of culture.
HISTORCAL BACGROUND
1-Antiquity and the middle ages
• The ancient Greeks laid down the
foundation for the studies of historical
linguistics. Their philosophic studies
incorporated speculations on the nature of
language. In etymology they debated
whether or not the names of things arose
due to the natural attributes of the objects in
question or were founded by convention.
 2-The Renaissance
With the advent of Renaissance, language studies
underwent a change as both local and non-Indo-
European languages came under linguistic scrutiny.
As trade routs opened to the East and explorers
ranged the lands of the New World, data on exotic
languages began to stimulate the minds of the
linguists. An important trend in the seventeenth
century was to the effort to compare and classify
languages in accordance with their resembences.
The study of etymology also gained momentum.
 3-The twentieth century
The first decade of the twentieth century saw a shift
in the linguistic sciences with the work of Ferdinand
de Saussure. His view of language
• 1-as a system of arbitrary signs
• 2-His distinction between language and speech
• 3- His separation of descriptive and historical
linguistics into two defined spheres of interest
These views caused development in the field of
descriptive linguistics while historical linguistics
and comparative studies lost their prominence.
 Historical linguistics today
Today among the disciplines that make
up the broad field of linguistics
(descriptive, historical, sociological,
psychological, etc) historical linguistics
has become another branch of the
multivaried area of investigation.
 PRINCIPLES OF THE HISTORICAL
LINGUISTIC ENQUIRY
1-All languages are in a continual process of change
• 2-All languages are subject to the same kind of
modifying influence.
• 3-Language change is regular and systemic,
allowing for unhindered communication among the
speakers.
• 4-Linguistic and social factors are inter-related in
language change
• 5-Linguistic systems tend towards as-yet-
unspecified states of economy.
•
 Substance of change

Virtually all aspects of language are subject

to change, except for those that correspond
to absolute linguistic universals that truly
cannot be violated. Thus the simple answer
to what can change in language is
“everything”(phonology,morphology,
semantics, grammar etc)
 Why do languages change?
Reasons given by non-specialists
• 1-Change in language is brought about under the
influence of geography
• 2-Change is brought due to change in internal
anatomy
• 3-People are too lazy too use the language properly
Reasons given by linguists
• 1-Functional explanation
• 2-Psycholinguistic change
• 3-Sociolinguistic explanations
 The concept of language
inferiority
Speakers of different cultures and periods
have often tended to thin that their own
language is inferior to that of their
forbearers. For them language is a matter of
decline or decay. But this is a
misconception. Changes are a necessary
development to make language more
communicatively effective as they become
attune to changing social needs.
 Why do languages change?
All languages are continually changing- their sounds,
their syntax, their meaning. None of the changes
happen overnight. They are gradual and probably
difficult to discern while they are in progress. The
most pervasive source of language change seems to
be in the continual process of cultural transmission.
Each new generation has to find a way of using the
language of the previous generation. In this unending
process whereby each new language user has to
recreate for himself the language of the community,
there is an unavoidable propensity to pick up some
elements exactly and others approximately.Due to
this transmission process it is expected that language
will not remain the same.
•
 Aims and scope of historical
linguistics
• 1-It studies the history of particular languages on
the basis of existing written data.
• 2-It studies the pre history of languages by means
of comparative reconstruction.
• 3-It studies the ongoing change in language.
• 4- it deals with the questions lie
What is changed in a language?
How is it changed?
Why did the change occur?
 COGNATES

Cognates are vocabulary words from two or

more languages, which sound similar and
refer to the same thing. Cognates serve as
clues that two or more languages are related
to one another related to one another since
they share strong similarities in the form
and meaning of certain vocabulary.
 DIALECTS
If multiple languages can be shown to have come
from the same common root, which the linguists
assume to have happened, then what is the historical
process that ultimately leads to their separation into
different languages?
One possible answer of this question is the
formation of dialects. A dialect can be defined as a
geographical or social subdivision of a language that
differs systematically from other such subdivisions
of the same language in its vocabulary, grammar,
and phonology.
 Extension or broadening of
meaning
• In extension or broadening of words the meaning of a word
becomes more general i.e. from particular to general.
• The main mechanisms in it are metaphor and metonymy.
• Metaphor involves the transfer or term because of an
imagined similarity.
• Metonymy uses the name of an attribute to denote the
whole entity, such as white house for the American
president
 Semantic narrowing
• In semantic narrowing meaning of a word
becomes particular i.e. from general to
particular. It is a reverse process of
extension.
 Grammaticalization
• Semantic bleaching, a particular type of
semantic change, is connected with
grammaticalization as when English will
develop from its full verb meaning 'to want'
into the modern auxiliary will, which now
only has grammatical meanings.
 speaker’s evaluation
• Meanings can also be classified according to speaker’s
evaluation. Speaker may interpret an evaluation as neutral,
positive, or negative and this interpretation or evaluation is
subject to change. And such different evaluations are the
result of associations which words take in different contexts,
i.e. in the process of speech.
• An improvement of meaning or amelioration of meaning
has occurred in the case of word knight, originally it was
used for boy, youth and attendant but its meaning is
improved to its modern meaning.
 speaker’s evaluation
• Pejoration of meaning or negative evaluation is
there in knave, in old English it was used for a boy,
then for peasant, and now as villain.
• Extensive shift of meaning clouds the
relationship of original meaning with the modern
meaning. For example meanings of silly.
 Borrowing of words
• We borrow words from other languages, a
result of intercommunication. We often a
word for which we have a synonym native
word and this borrowing results in the
disappearance of the word e.g. ceapman for
merchant.
 Why these semantic changes
occur?
• Both linguistic as well as extra linguistic factors are involved in
semantic change.
• Extra linguistic factors
• Need
• Psychological factor is also involved in the semantic change and it is
a basic human tendency to emphasize and exaggerate. Constant use of
words may fade the specific meanings, so new and more expressive
forms are needed.
• Another main cause or factor of lexical change is taboo; we don’t
want to give direct reference to unpleasant or socially stigmatized
concepts.
 Linguistic factors
• The meaning relation plays a major role in semantic
change.
• Tendency to avoid synonym words for reason of economy.
• Homonymic clash, For example the old English word
laetan (to let) and lettan (to hinder); they have opposite
meanings but became homonym under the form let. Then
gradually lettan (to hinder) disappeared due to this
homonymic clash.
• So, there are number of factors involved in semantic
changes.
HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS
 Grammatical Change
Grammatical change can be understood by
morphological level and syntactical level

• Morphological change
• Phonemes provides information on the grammatical
relations between words in a sentence.
• For example
• Teach +es
• Teach is the free lexical morpheme and es is the bond
inflectional Grammatical change can be understood by
morphological and syntactic change.
• Morphological morpheme.
• It expresses complex meaning ‘3rd person singular present
tense’.
 Language Typology; isolating,
agglutinating, and inflecting
– Isolating : A language in which words generally
consist of single and clearly distinguishable
morpheme. Like Chinese
– Agglutinating: A language in which words consist
of morphemes which are formally neatly separable
and each have a single meaning , such as Turkish
and Japanese.
– Inflecting: Language in which grammatical
relationships like number, tense etc. are
predominantly expressed by grammatical affixes.
Like Latin and Greek
• Languages tend to change their
morphological type in a kind of cycle
• Isolating languages became agglutinating,
these in turn gradually become
agglutinating , these in turn gradually
becoming inflecting , only to end up as
isolating again.
• Changes from isolating structures to
agglutinating have been observed in pidgin
and Creole languages.
 Syntactic Change
• Difference between the structure of sentences in old
and modern English involve “word order”
• For example:
• The subject can follow the verb, as in Ferde he (he
travelled)
• Object can be placed before verb, as Hine geseah (he
saw him)
• Or at the beginning of the sentence him man
ne sealed, (no man gave to him)
• A double negative construction was also
possible with both “not” and never.
• (and) (not) (gave) (you) (me) (never) (a)
(book)
• Change in tense form; for example Old English knew
two tenses present and past whereas modern
opposition in ‘progressive’ forms as in ‘I read’ vs. I am
reading etc.
• Reanalysis; The re interpretation of a sequence of
morphemes or a syntactic construction by reassigning
them a new function or internal structure.
• To_ the_ king pleased (the) pears.’
• O V S
• The king liked the pears
• Grammaticalization: The process whereby an
independent lexical word gradually acquires a
grammatical function.
• For example: development from main to auxiliary
verbs
• Will want
• Development of progressive form, he is hunting, he is
a hunting, he is on hunting.
 Sound change
• sounds of a language are affected over the course of
time by modifications that tend to be regular and
systematic. The study of sound change is the best
researched area of historical linguistics, with the
longest tradition. The speech sounds we hear are
realizations or ‘allophones’ of underlying abstract
distinctive sound units, the phonemes.
• Sound change or phonological change may happen
both on the concrete level of speech production
(phonetic change) and on the abstract level of
phonemes (phonemic change).
 How Sounds are produced?
• We can only understand phonetic change if we know
the basic principles of how speech sounds are
produced.
• In the production of vowel and consonant, the speaker
modifies the airflow from the lungs through different
positions and movements of the speech organs, i.e. the
vocal folds, larynx, oral and nasal cavities, tongue,
jaws, teeth and lips.
• The involvement of speech organs, as well as acoustic
criteria, provide the basis for a classification of sounds.
 Vowels
• All vowels are voiced sounds, i.e the passing airflow is
modified by the vibrating vocal folds or cords. The
quality of vowels results from the shape of the oral
cavity, which depends mainly on the position of the
tongue, though lips and jaws also play some role. A
rather low tongue produces the ‘open’ or ‘low’ Vowel
[2], while the tongue is raised for the closed’ or ‘high’
vowels [i,u].
• With ‘front’ or ‘palatal’ vowels the front part of the
tongue is raised.
• With back or velar ones its back part.
• With central vowel being in the middle.
 Consonants

• The production of all consonants involves different kinds of

obstruction of the air flow (called manner of articulation).
• Another parameter for classification is the place of
articulation i.e the point where the obstruction is formed: the
labials [p,b] involve the lips.
• The labio – dentals [f,v] the teeth.
• The lower lips [ ] are formed with the tongue against the
teeth.
• While [s,z,,z] involve different parts of the alveolar ridge
just behind the teeth.
• With nasal cavity serves as a resonator, producing bilabial
[m], dental or alveolar [n].
• Palatalization of the vowels

A sound in which the position of the tongue is

fronted towards the hard palate,
e.g.
As in the change from
[u] > [y] or of
[o] > [e] was frequent in old English.
It is still reflected in the vowel alteration of pairs such
as
English mouse – mice,
foot – feet,
Where the vowel in the second forms was palatalize
by an [ i ]
 velarization
• The sound change in which the back of the tongue
is moved backwards towards the velum e.g [e] > [o]
• Vowels may also be raised as in English goose,
boot, where [u:] developed from middle English [o]
• (iii) Diphthongization
• The change of a pure vowel into a diphthong i.e. a
vowel ending in a glide, as in [u:] > [au]
• Diphthongization changes a simple vowel into a
diphthong i.e. a vowel in whose production the
tongue changes its position, as in English house,
ride which in middle English had [u:] and [i:]
respectively
 Monothongization
• Monothongization
• The process whereby a diphthong becomes
a monophthong i.e. a vowel with a
perceived stable quality, e.g. [ai] > [a:]
• Fire > [fa:]
Change in Manner of Articulation
in relation to consonants

• Consonants may change both their manner and their

place of articulation. A wide spared in manner of
articulation is spirantization.
• Spirantization
• The sound change from stop to fricative, as
• In [p] > [f]
• The change from stop to fricative, as in Grimm’s
law when the Indo-European voiceless stops [p,t,k]
became voiceless fricatives [f,o,x] etc.
 Phonetic Change
• Phonetic change may be
• Unconditioned, i.e affect all occurrences of
a specific sound irrespective of its context,
or
• Conditioned, i.e in that it only occurs in a
specific phonetic environment, as when in
English [r] was lost before consonants and
word – finally, as in court [k: t], hair [hea]
but we retained in all other positions like,
ring, hairy etc.
 Lenition
• Lenition
• The cover term for process which involve
some ‘weakening’ of sounds, such as
voicing. For example, in some kind of
hierarchical order like the change of
voiceless consonants in voiced ones,
spiranization as in Grimm’s law,
vocalization of consonants and the deletion
or disappearance of sounds as in French
mur ‘mature’ Latin ‘maturus’
 Assimilation
• Assimilation The process whereby two
neighboring sounds become more similar
(‘partial’) or identical (‘complete’).
• For example
• In the first syllabus of English impossible,
illiterate the two different allomorphs of a
morpheme meaning ‘not’ are due to
assimilation to the following consonant.
 Dissimilation
• Dissimilation
• The process whereby a sound becomes less
similar to another, neighboring one, as in
pilgrim (< Latin peregrinus).
 Phonemic Change
• Phonemic Change
• Language differ in their number of phonemes and in the
way they are organized into systems.
• Phonemic Merger
• The phonemic change whereby one phoneme merges
(completely or partially) with another one, thus leading to a
loss of phonemic opposition phonemic merger is complete
merger of two formerly distinct phonemes occurred with
middle English long ‘e’ sounds as in meet and reed etc.
These two vowels must have been similar to acoustic and
articulatory terms, so that the margin of security between
was rather small – a fact which may have contributed to
their merging under in modern English.
 Chain Shift

• Chain Shift
• A series of interrelated unconditioned sound changes in
which the phonetic realization of certain phonemes changes
systematically with one charge initiating another as the
change of indo – European.
• ∕p, t, k∕ > ∕ f, o, x∕ ; ∕b, d, g∕ > ∕p, t, k∕
• ; ∕bh, dh, gh/ > /b, d, g/.
•
 CONCLUSION
This focuses on the wide scope and changing
emphasis of historical linguistics. Language
is the most human property we have and
with other historical disciplines, the study
of language change can fundamentally
contribute to our understanding of our past
history as well as of our present condition
as human beings endowed with language.