453 Chapter 4

Before there was English…

Food for Thought Consider and explain…

Chinese: ma = ma = Mother German: bam = bong = bell’s

sound French: fille = filly = girl Bantu: nguba = goober = peanut Russian: brat = brother = brother

Why are there so many similarities?

Food 4 Thot 2

To what extent can we explain why languages change? Consider: Time Geography Social factors

Indo-European

AKA: Proto Indo-European 3,000 - 4,000 BC Farming culture Religious Elaborate burial sites ~ Northern Europe // Southern Russia Sir William Jones

Language Family

Mother – Daughter Families – Family Trees

BUT: ≠ Birth≠ Intentional branching≠ Death (?)

Language Classifications Isolating Agglutinative Incorporative Inflective

OR Genetic

Reconstruction

Best guess based on comparative study

Marked by * *kmtom “hundred”

Cognates

Similar in form Similar in menaing

IE Latin Greek Old EngT.Eng

*bher- fer- pher- ber- bear

Inflections Nominative: I saw a cookie Vocative: Sally, give me a cookie Accusative: She gave me a cookie Genitive: It’s now my cookie Dative: She gave me a cookie Ablative: I should avoid cookies

Locative: I should put them away Instrumental: I eat with my hands

Word Order

Greenberg Lehmann

VO … OV

I-E Germanic

1. New words2. Loss of inflection (not pres/past)3. Dental suffix4. Adjectival declension5. First syllable stress6. Vowels o α // ᾱ ō7. Consonants Grimm’s Law

Grimm’s Law bh b dh d gh g p f t Ө k h b p d t g k

Verner’s Law Proto-Germanic voiceless fricatives

Become voiced In voiced environment

Except Word initial Adjacent to voiceless sound I-E stress on first syllable

Exercises

4.2 4.8 4.9 4.11 – Part of each 4.12 4.14