Aspects of Language Change

Mariam BedraouiMaster Student

Moroccan American StudiesHassan II University, casablanca

Aspects of language Change

Lexical Semantic Phonological Syntactic

Outline1. Lexical Change

Borrowing Coining new words

2. Semantic Change Broadening Narrowing Shifts of meaning

3. Sound change Loss of phonemes Addition of phonemes Metathesis

4. Syntactic Change Word order Re-analysis Grammaticalization

Lexical Change: Borrowing Languages are avid borrowersTwo-fifths of common words in

English are loan wordsDirect/indirect borrowingPhonological and morphological

treatment of loansRarely borrowed words

Borrowing: ExamplesKayakRaccoon

Borrowing: Further ExamplesExamples of Loan

Words kayak superstarYogurt Top modelRacoon T- shirtSki Check- upkangaroo Gentleme

nTsunami lookdemocracy

cool

coach computeryacht diskalgebra fan

Lexical Change: Coining New Words New words can be formed using the basic

resources of the language through a number of processes:

Compounding: Combining two or more words to form new wordsBlackboard- girlfriend- gingerbreadshopkeeper- sky diving laptop- ozone friendly

Derivation: Using affixes to create new words warmth- length- depth- wisdom- freedom- stardomOtherwise- clockwise- moneywise- profitwise miniskirt- mini-budgets- mini-project- mini-wars

Lexical Change: Coining New Words Clipping: Forming a word by extracting an arbitrary portion of a word

of an identical meaning phone (telephone) bus Gym (gymnasium) Flu (influenza) Ciggie (cigarette)

Blending: Pieces of existing words are combined to form new words Motel Smog Brunch Chunnel Oxbridge

Acronyms: The reduction of long phrases to a few letters NATO- FBI- BBC TA- LA Laser

Semantic Change: Broadening and NarrowingBroadening: Words acquire more meanings

beside the original one• Dog• Holiday• Picture• Mouse• Virus

Narrowing: limiting the semantic scope that words used to have• Meat• Deer• Girl

Semantic Change

Semantic Change: Shift of MeaningShift of Meaning: Words cease to

mean what they used to, and take on new semantic representations• Silly• Nice• Immoral• With• cheer

Sound Change

Phonetic and phonological

Natural Ease of

articulation

Sound Change: TypesLoss of phonemes• Knot- knee- knife-know• Make- time- dive• Lit- gros- murs- aimer- part• Wednesday- Choclate- camera- correct- police

Addition of phonemes• Latin: scala- snob- smeralda- spatha• Spanish: escala- esnob-esmerada- espada• Middle English: amonges- amiddes, betwix

Amongst- amidst- betwixt

Sound Change: TypesMetathesis: It occurs when two sounds

switch places• Old English: Ask- aks• Latin: crepare- parabola- miraculu-

pericula• Spanish: quebrar- palabra- milagro-

peligru

Syntactic Change: Types It occurs in the grammatical notions that govern languages Slow and in need for further investigation

Word order• Old English: SOV and SVO language• Modern English: An SVO language

Reanalysis: a process whereby grammatical notions which has one particular function comes to be perceived by the speakers of a language as having a second.

The perfect tense in English I have finished my dinner I have a copy of her new book She have my hair cut She has her daughter trapped in war Old English: Your faith has you healed Your faith healed you

Syntactic Change: TypesGrammaticalization: The process

whereby lexical items are reduced to grammatical items without entirely losing their function as words.• Verbs meaning ‘go’, ‘come,’ want very

often develop into grammatical markers of futurity• Going to• Will

Thanks for your attention