sociolinguistics

1. Types of Language Change
• There are several changes that occur to languages:
• Sound change
• Morphological change
• Syntactic change
• Semantic change
• Semantic and sociocultural changes
• Causes of language change
• Disappearing, reappearing and emerging languages

2. Sound change
• As we saw before, William Jones noticed that many words in Sanskrit, Latin and
Greek that had the same meaning were very similar phonemically. Such word pairs
or sets are called cognates.
• Cognates are words that have a common etymological origin.
• Jones assumed that the cognates were similar because they derived from the same
parental language. This is the main premise of the relatedness hypothesis: similarity
in sound and meaning must be the result of a common origin.
• Jones’s conclusions were based on his knowledge of ancient and modern languages
and his intuition about their relatedness.

3. Example of cognates in Indo-European languages:
• Night (English), nuit (French), Nacht (German), nacht (Dutch), nag (Afrikaans),
nicht (Scots), natt (Swedish,Norwegian), nat (Danish), nátt (Faroese), nótt
(Icelandic), noc (Czech, Slovak,mPolish), ночь, noch (Russian), ноќ, noć
(Macedonian),нощ, nosht (Bulgarian), ніч, nich (Ukrainian),ноч, noch/noč
(Belarusian), noč (Slovene), noć (Serbo-Croatian), νύξ, nyx (Ancient Greek),
νύχτα/nychta in ModernGreek), nox/nocte (Latin), nakt (Sanskrit), natë
(Albanian),noche (Spanishnos (Welsh), nueche (Asturian), noite (Portuguese and
Galician), notte (Italian), nit (Catalan), nuèch/nuèit (Occitan), noapte (Romanian),
nakts (Latvian), naktis(Lithuanian) Naach (Colognian).
• All these words mean"night" and are derived from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
*nókʷts, "night"

4. • Rasmus Rask (1787-1832), a Danish
scholar who had remarkable talent
for the acquisition of languages,
built on Jones’s conclusions by
being the first person to formally
outline some of the regularities in
sound differences in certain
languages.
• He noticed that certain sounds in
Greek regularly correspond to
different sounds in Germanic
languages.
Greek
/ph/
English
/b/
German
phater brother der Brüder
phero bear der Bär

5. • Jakob Grimm (1785-1863), a German
linguist, expanded on Rask’s work on the
regularity of sound differences.
• The conclusion made by Grimm, is known as
Grimm’s law, or the first Germanic sound
shift. He introduced a rigorous
methodology for comparative studies that
greatly influenced the growth of historical
linguistics.
• Grimm’s law involved regular changes in
three natural classes of sound:
• Grimm was aware that this law was not really a
law in that there are exceptions.
• Grimm´s law provides an example of an
unconditioned sound change, which is a sound
change that appears to have happened
spontaneously and everywhere (with a few
exceptions) in the language.
• As it was observed a /b/ in Proto-Indo-
European is now a /p/ in English and other
Germanic languages. This is because the
definition of a sound change is that one
distinctive feature is replaced by another.
Proto-Indo-European English
Voiced aspirated
stops
Voiceless
stops
Voiceless
fricatives
[bʰ] p f
[dʰ] t ɵ
[gʰ] k X or h
Video of Grimm’s law

6. • Another example of an
unconditioned sound change is
referred to as the Great Vowel Shift.
• The Great Vowel Shift occurred in
English between about 1400 CE
(during the time that Middle English
was spoken) and about 1700 CE
(during the time of Modern English).
• The Great Vowel Shift altered the
seven long Middle English vowels.
Some ME vowels became
diphthongs in MoE.

7. • In the following chart we can see that the
high vowels [iː] and [uː] became the
diphthongs [aɪ] and [aʊ], while the long
vowels underwent an increase in tongue
height, as if to fill in the space vacated by
the high vowels. In addition, [aː] was
fronted to become [eː].
• These changes are among the most
dramatic examples of regular sound shift.
The phonemic representation of many
thousands of words changed.
• Today, some reflection of this vowel
shift is seen in the alternating forms
of morphemes in English:
please—pleasant; serene—serenity;
sane—sanity; crime—criminal; sign—
signal; etc.
• Before the Great Vowel Shift, the
vowels in each pair were pronounced
the same. Then the vowels in the
second word of each pair were
shortened. This is why the vowels in
the morphologically related words
are pronounced differently today:

8. • Phonological rules may add or delete entire segments. The process of inserting a
consonant or vowel is called epenthesis.
• Epenthesis /əˈpɛnθəsɪs/ is the insertion of an extra sound into a word. For example
film becomes [filəm] in Ireland, Scotland, and South Africa.
• Some speakers distinguish the following pairs, but others insert a consonant and say
them identically:
mince - mints; prince - prints; patience - patients;
chance - chants; tense - tents; Thomson - Thompson.
• The addition of an i before the t in speciality is an example.
• The pronunciation of jewelry as 'jewelery' is a result of epenthesis.
• ‘Contentuous' for contentious is also a result of epenthesis. .
• ‘Relitor' for realtor is anther example.
• ‘Athalete' for athlete is also an example.

9. • When a word becomes widely used with the added sound, the spelling of the word
changes to conform.
• The process of epenthesis slowed when writing became the foremost means of
communication. Now we are back to emphasis on speaking, via television, radio,
and films and our language is reflecting the prevailing influence of the oral media
over the written word.
Words in
Middle English
Words with consonants added during a period when
speech prevailed over writing
Thimel Thimble
Tunor Thunder
Emty Empty

10. • Segment deletion rules are commonly found in many languages and are far more
prevalent than segment insertion rules. Elision /ɪˈlɪʒən/ is the omission of sounds,
syllables, or words in spoken or written discourse producing a result that is easier
for the speaker to pronounce, or in casual or rapid speech.
• We often delete the unstressed vowels in words like: mystery general memory
funeral vigorous Barbara.
• The silent g that torments spellers is the result of a segment deletion rule.
A B
sign [sãɪn] signature [sɪgnəʧər]
design [dəzãɪn] designation [[dezigneyshuhn]
paradigm [pʰærədãɪm] paradigmatic [pʰærədɪgmæɾək]
• In none of the words in column A is there a phonetic [g], but in each corresponding
word in column B a [g] occurs. Our knowledge of English phonology accounts for
these phonetic differences.
Rule: Delete a
/g/ before a
nasal consonant.

11. • Given the rule, the phonemic representations of the stems in sign/signature,
design/designation, malign/malignant, phlegm/ phlegmatic, paradigm/paradigmatic,
and so on will include a /g/ that will be deleted by the regular rule if a prefix or suffix is
not added.
• By stating the class of sounds that follow the /g/ (nasal consonants) rather than any
specific nasal consonant, the rule deletes the /g/ before both /m/ and /n/.
• Additionally unstressed syllables are the most prone to be elided.
• It is a common misconception that contractions automatically qualify as elided words.
Not all elided words are contractions and not all contractions are elided words.
'going to' → 'gonna' is an elision that is not a contraction.
'can not' → 'cannot‘ is a contraction that is not an elision.

12. Examples of elision besides cuppa tea, cats n dogs are:
Word
IPA before
elision
IPA after elision
Fifth /fifθ/ /fiθ/
Laboratory /læˈbɔrətɔri/ /ˈlæbrətɔri/ (AE), /ləˈbɒrətri/ (BE)
Temperature /ˈtɛmpərətʃər/ /ˈtɛmpərtʃər/, /ˈtɛmprətʃə/
Vegetable /ˈvɛdʒətəbəl/ /ˈvɛdʒtəbəl/, /ˈvɛtʃtəbəl/
Family /ˈfæmɪli/ /ˈfæmli/
Bomb /bomb/ /bom/
Picture /ˈpɪktʃər/ /picher/
Maintanance /ˈmeɪntənəns/ /ˈmeɪnəns/
Camera /ˈkæmərə/ /ˈkæmrə/

13. • Assimilation is a common phonological process by which one sound becomes
more like a nearby sound. Assimilation can be synchronic—an active process at
a given point in time or diachronic— a historical sound change.
• For the most part assimilation rules stem from articulatory processes. There is a
tendency when we speak to increase the ease of articulation.
• The /n/ and /t/ in the phrase “don’t be silly”, are assimilated to /m/ by the
following /b/ to pronounce “dombe silly”.
• When the phoneme changes to match the preceding phoneme we are talking
about progressive assimilation.
• In non Standard English the word ‘seven’ is usually pronounced as [sεvm] instead
of [seven] in which [en] is changed into [m] syllabic because of the influence of
the sound /v/.
• In shortening captain is pronounced cap'm rather than cap'n.

14. • If the phoneme changes to match the following phoneme, we are talking about
regressive or anticipatory assimilation.
• The example of “this shop” where the word this has the sound /s/ at the end if it is
pronounced on its own(in isolation). But when the word this is followed by /ʃ / in
the word shop it often changes in rapid speech to /ʃ /, giving the pronunciation
/ ðɪʃʃɒ p/.
• The Latin prefix in- meaning not, non, un, appears in English as il-, im-, ir- in the
words illegal, immoral, impossible and irresponsible as well as in the unassimilated
original form in- in indecent and incompetent
• In rapid speech native speakers of English tend to pronounce ten bucks as though it
were written tembucks: the voiceless s of son in the phrase his son is not as fully
voiced as the s in his daughter, where it clearly is [z]."

15. • In phonology, particularly within historical linguistics, dissimilation is a
phenomenon whereby neighboring sounds become less similar.
• For example, when one /r/ sound occurs before another in the middle of a
word, the first tends to drop out, as in [supprise]for surprise, [paticular]
for particular.
• This does not affect the pronunciation of government, which has only one /r/,
but it tends to be pronounced [goverment], dropping out the first /n/.
• Another example of dissimilation is the substandard pronunciation of chimney
as [chimley].

16. Other examples of dissimilation
Forward forwə (r)d
Governor gʌvə (r)nər
Afterwards æftə (r)wərdz
Enterpreneur Ant(r) əprənur
Spectrogram spEkt(r)əgræm
Secretary sEk(r)ətEri
Particular p(r)"tIkjələr
temperature "tEmp(ərət)Sər
Literature lIR(ərə)tSər
Interpret tərp(r) ət
Surprise sə (r)"praIz
Feb(r)uary ˈfɛbyuɛri
Canterbury kæn(t) ə(r)bəri
Caterpillar kæRə (r)pIlər

17. • Metathesis is the phonological process that reorders segments, often by transposing
two sequential sounds. e.g., the pronunciation of ask /æsk/ in some English dialects
as [æks].
• "Wasp used to be waps; bird used to be brid; horse used to be hros. Other examples:
asterisk → asterix
cavalry → calvary
comfortable → comfterble
foliage → foilage
introduce → interduce
integral → intergal
pretty → purty
relevant → revelant
iron → iern

19. Morphological change
• Following the Norman invasion of England in 1066 English acquired (borrow) a
large number of lexical items from French.
• A borrowing is a linguistic item that has been copied from another language,
with the phonological and semantic properties basically remaining intact.
• As the borrowings became increasingly numerous and integrated into language,
those affixes were identified, and came to be attached to native English words as
well. Derivational morphemes such as –able, -ment, dis- and re- , entered the
English language this way.
• Morphemes can be lost over time. Old English verbs took a -n in stodon ‘they
stood’, which was lost over time as a result of a regular sound change.

20. • There are other morphological processes that lead to change. One of those is
called analogy.
• Analogic change is a generalization of rules that reduces the number of
exceptional or irregular morphemes in the shape of more common forms.
• It was by analogy to plow/plows /plaʊ/ and vow/ vows /vaʊ/ that speakers started
saying cows as the plural of cow instead of the earlier plural kine.
• Plural marking continues to undergo analogic change. The plural forms of
borrowed words like datum/data, agendum/agenda, curriculum/curricula,
memorandum/memoranda, medium/media, criterion/criteria, and
virtuoso/virtuosi are being replaced by regular plurals by many speakers: agendas,
curriculums, memorandums, criterias,,and virtuosos.
• Many speakers now regard data and media as nouns that do not have plural forms,
like information.

21. • The past-tense rule is also undergoing generalization. By analogy to bake/ baked
and ignite/ignited, many children and adults now say I waked last night (instead
of woke) and She lighted the bonfire (instead of lit).
• These regular past tense forms are found in today’s dictionaries next to the
irregular forms, with which they currently coexist.
• Similarly, in various communities irregular past participles are being replaced by
past tense forms. For example, instead of I have gone or I’ve driven, speakers of
these dialects say I have went, I’ve drove.

24. • Another example of analogy is the English verb help which once had the preterit
holp and the past participle holpen.
• These obsolete forms were discarded and replaced by helped by the power of
analogy (widened application of the verb-ed rule.)
• Irregular forms can sometimes be created by analogy; one example is the past
tense form of dive: dove, formed on analogy with words such as drive: drove.
• Neologisms can also be formed by analogy with existing words. For example
software, formed by analogy with hardware.
• Another example is the humorous term underwhelm, formed by analogy
with overwhelm.