Understanding Language Change

✍ Scribed by Kate Burridge; Alexander Bergs

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 314
• Series: Understanding Language
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

For a full list of titles in the Understanding Language series, please visit https://www.routledge.com/Understanding-Language/book-series/ULAN

Understanding Language Change offers a complete introduction to historical linguistics and language change. The book takes a step-by-step approach, first by introducing concepts through English examples and building on this with illustrations from other languages.

Key features of this introductory text include:

• up to date and recent case studies at the end of each chapter
• chapter summaries and exercises that feature a wide range of languages
• coverage of application of historical linguistics in each chapter
• glossary of terms

This book is essential reading for any students studying Historical Linguistics for the first time.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of figures
List of maps
List of tables
Acknowledgements
Publisher’s acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
1 Setting the scene
Introduction
1.1 Change occurs at all levels
1.1.1 Phonetics and phonology
1.1.2 Morphology
1.1.3 Syntax
1.1.4 Semantics
1.1.5 Pragmatics
1.1.6 Change across different levels
1.2 Variation and change – two sides of the same coin
1.3 Evidence of change in progress
1.4 Attitudes to change
1.5 How this book is structured
Summary
Further reading
Exercises
2 Changes to the lexicon
Introduction
2.1 Gaining words – lexical addition
2.1.1 Compounding
2.1.2 Affixation
2.1.3 Backformation
2.1.4 Conversion
2.1.5 Abbreviation
2.1.6 Acronyms
2.1.7 Blending
2.1.8 Commonization
2.1.9 Reduplication
2.1.10 Borrowing
2.1.11 Sound symbolism
2.1.12 A final word on the processes
2.2 Losing words – lexical mortality
2.2.1 Obsolescence
2.2.2 “Verbicide”
2.2.3 Reduction
2.2.4 Intolerable homonymy
2.3 Etymology – study of the origin of words
Summary
Further reading
Exercises
3 Changes to the semantics
Introduction
3.1 Consequences of semantic change
3.1.1 Broadening
3.1.2 Narrowing
3.1.3 Shift
3.1.4 Changing values – amelioration and deterioration
3.1.5 Chain reaction changes
3.2 Why words change their meanings
3.2.1 Socio-cultural factors
3.2.2 Psychological factors
3.2.3 Linguistic factors
3.3 Regularity in semantic change – a more explanatory account
Summary
Sources and further reading
Exercises
4 Changes in sound structure
Introduction
4.1 Phonological processes
4.1.1 Old sounds drop out – loss
4.1.2 New sounds appear
4.1.3 Old sounds are modified – assimilation, dissimilation, metathesis
4.2 Phonetic versus phonemic change
4.2.1 Phonetic change – changes in accent
4.2.2 Phonemic change – changes that alter the sound system
4.3 On exceptions in sound change
4.4 Why do sounds change?
4.4.1 Simplicity
4.4.2 Contact induced change
4.4.3 Structural pressure
4.4.4 Social change
4.4.5 Frequency factors
Summary
Further reading
Exercises
5 Changes in word structure
Introduction
5.1 Reanalysis and actualization – reinterpretation of structure
5.2 Analogy – attraction to structure
5.3 Typology – change in morphological type
5.4 Why – explaining morphological changes
Summary
Further reading
Exercises
6 Changes in sentence structure
Introduction
6.1 Change in word order
6.1.1 Grammatical change is gradual
6.2 Typology and word order change
6.2.1 The contribution of Joseph Greenberg and others
6.3 Creating grammar
6.3.1 Case study – the evolution of not in English
6.3.2 Where is English negation heading now?
Summary
Sources and further reading
Exercises
7 The spread of change
Introduction
7.1 Diffusion within the linguistic system
7.2 Spread in social structures – the speech community and the individual
7.2.1 Wavy, gravity, cascady . . .
7.2.2 Social factors
7.2.3 Social networks
7.2.4 Communities of practice
Summary
Further reading
Exercises
8 Languages in contact
Introduction
8.1 Types of contact
8.1.1 Language maintenance
8.1.2 Language shift
8.1.3 The creation of new languages
8.1.4 The linguistic Sprachbund – a special case of language convergence
8.2 Case study: Pennsylvania German and English in contact
8.2.1 English to Pennsylvania German – superstratum influence
8.2.2 Pennsylvania German transfers into English – substratum influence
8.3 Language death
8.4 Language planning and policy
8.5 The dangers of purism
Summary
Further reading
Exercises
9 Relatedness between languages
Introduction
9.1 Languages, dialects and standards
9.2 Establishing genetic relationships
9.3 The family tree model
9.4 The wave model
9.5 Quantitative approaches to language divergence
9.6 Long-distance comparison and Proto-World
9.7 Reconstructing the past
9.7.1 Written sources as evidence of change
9.7.2 The comparative method
Summary
Further reading
Exercises
10 An end on’t
Introduction
10.1 Five questions for any theory of change
10.2 Additional theoretical perspectives
10.2.1 Corpus linguistics
10.2.2 Historical pragmatics
10.3 Historical sociolinguistics
10.4 The rate of change – diversity and stability
10.4.1 The effects of new and emerging media
10.4.2 Social change
10.5 Where to from here?
Further reading
Exercises
References
Index

✦ Subjects

linguistic change; historical linguistics