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Lecture by Uffaq Zahra
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Historical Linguistics
1.Define Linguistics with 1 definition
2. 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 and Synchronic Linguistics
3. 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.

4. 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.
5. Definition:
Brian D. Joseph. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. HISTORCAL BACKGROUND
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.
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
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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.
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.
12. 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.
13.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)
14. 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
15. 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.
16. 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
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exactly and others approximately.Due to this transmission process it is expected that language will
not remain the same.
17.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 lies
What is changed in a language? How is it changed? Why did the change occur?
18.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.
20.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.
21.Semantic narrowing
In semantic narrowing meaning of a word becomes particular i.e. from general to particular. It is a
reverse process of extension.
22.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.
23.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.
24.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.
25.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.
26.Why these semantic changes occur?
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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.
26.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., there are number of factors involved in semantic changes.
HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS
29.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 ‘3 rd person singular present tense ’.
30.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.

35.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
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both on the concrete level of speech production (phonetic change) and on the abstract level of
phonemes (phonemic change).
36.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.
37.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.
38.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].
43. 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.
44. 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.