PATRICIA DIAZ PERALTA

LEXICAL ANALYSIS

Unit 1:The English Language

The English Language

ENGLISH LANGUAGE

ORIGINS AND HISTORY

MODERN ENGLISH VS EARLIER

ENGLISHEXTERNAL AND

INTERNAL CHANGE

The English Language

1. Origins and History:

The British Isles have been inhabited by different people for at least 5.000 years

English was influenced by: English (British)

Celtics Germanic Latin

The English Language

English is a Germanic Language with influences of The Angles, The Saxons and Jutes. However the word “English” derives from the Angles.

English has borrowed words from other languages such as French and Latin.

The English Language

2. Modern English compared to earlier English and other Languages:

Old English

Modern EnglishSounds

WordsSentenc

es

Differences in:

The English Language

Modern English Other LanguagesVowels 13 or 14 4 (Inuit and Navajo

5 (Hawaiian and Spanish)

Consonants At least 25 35 (Polish)8 (Hawaiian)13 (Finnish)

Syllable structure Some words may have three consonants in a syllable

CV: consonant vowel (Spanish)

Endings On verbs and nouns Almost no endings present (Chinese)

Word order and Grammatical words

Not that different from Chinese.

Use to mark the functions of different elements in a sentence. (Chinese)

Differences between English and other languages:

The English Language

3. External and Internal Change

External Change Internal Change

• Politically• Geographically• Socially

motivated

• Linguistically motivated

The English Language

External changes: (unpredictible)

Causes:

Language contact. (between speakers of different languages)Innovations by speakers.Issues of political and social identity.

The English Language

Internal change: (more predictable)

Causes:

Children’s different way to analyze the language they hear.

The previous idea may result in changes in vowels or consonants.

The category of a word is reanalyzed.