How do we know about earlier periods of

How do we know about earlier periods of a language? The role of textual records:

The Anglo-Saxon Invasion of Britain The settlement of the invading Anglo-Saxon tribes in Britain Language: closely related tribal dialects called Pre- or Continental Old English

The Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy Language: (Insular) Old English (cca 5001100 AD)

Mediaeval England Language: Middle English (cca. 11001500)

Elizabethan England Language: Early Modern English (cca 15001750)

Modern England Language: Modern (Present-day) English (from cca the 19 th c. )

The historical (genetic) kinship of English Pr-d English is 1/ West Germanic (together with German Dutch and Frisian) 2/ Germanic (WGmc, NGmc/Scand, EGmc – now extinct) 3/ Indo-European (since Gmc is part of the IEu language family, together with cca 11 other branches) Evidence for these genetic relationships to be discussed later

Lecture I The Study of Language Change I Historical linguistics: description and explanation of language change The Nature of Language Change: Study the OE translation of the following sentence from Bede the Venerable’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastic History of the English people): Þā sendan hī hām „renddracan then sent they home messenger ‘then they sent home a messenger’ Differences from Pr. DE: 1/ pronunciation: hām [ha: m] → ME [hƒ: m] → Pr. DE [həUm] 2/ morphology: OE suff. send-an – past tense + plurality; „renddraca-n – Acc. sing. inflection

Lecture I The Study of Language Change II 3/ syntax: different types of word order: • Adv – V – S – Adv – O (see above) • and Seaxan Þā sige geslōgan ‘and Saxons then victory won’ S - OV • hī oncneowon Þā Þæt hī nacode wæron ‘they knew then that they naked were’ S V Adv cj S C V • hī gehyrdon his stemne ‘they heard his voice’ S V O

Lecture I The Study of Language Change III 4/ Lexicon: a/ words that disappeared: „renddraca ‘messenger’ sige ‘victory’ b/ words that have survived: sendan ‘send’ c/ maintained, but with a change in meaning: geslōgan, past tense of slēan Pr. D E ‘slay’, OE meanings: ‘strike’, ‘beat’, ‘coin’, ‘forge (weapons)’ ← semantic strengthening All these examaples imply that all components of language (grammar) from meaning (semantics) to individual sounds (phonology) are subject to change. 5/ Systematicity of language change: SVO affects all verbs; development of OE ā [a: ] in hām, bāt, stān, etc.

Lecture I The Study of Language Change III Some causes of language change: • articulatory simplification: see some details of sound change below; • spelling pronunciation: the case of often, Kádár’s manner of speech; • analogy and reanalysis: the cases of goed and hamburger; • hypercorrection (overcompensation): the case of he saw John and I; • language contact: adstratum – the case of Old English and Old Norse substratum (Amerindian-Am. E) superstratum (OFr-ME)

Lecture II Sound Change I Types: • sequential: at least two segments involved; • segmental: only one segment involved; • auditorily based: replacement of one segment with another, similarly sounding segment; Sequential change: 1/ Assimilation: total vs partial (place or manner of articulation) • other assimilative processes include: - palatalization - nasalization - umlaut - PG breaking

Lecture II Sound Change II • “Assimilation may be partial or total. In the phrase ten bikes, for example, the normal form in colloquial speech would be /tem baiks/, not /ten baiks/, which would sound somewhat 'careful. ' In this case, the assimilation has been partial: the /n/ sound has fallen under the influence of the following /b/, and has adopted its bilabiality, becoming /m/. It has not, however, adopted its plosiveness. The phrase /teb baiks/ would be likely only if one had a severe cold! The assimilation is total in ten mice /tem mais/, where the /n/ sound is now identical with the /m/ which influenced it. " (David Crystal, Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, 6 th ed. Blackwell, 2008) • Alveolar Nasal Assimilation: "I ain't no ham samwich" "Many adults, especially in casual speech, and most children assimilate the place of articulation of the nasal to the following labial consonant in the word sandwich: sandwich /sænwɪč/ → /sæmwɪč/ The alveolar nasal /n/ assimilates to the bilabial /w/ by changing the alveolar to a bilabial /m/. (The /d/ of the spelling is not present for most speakers, though it can occur in careful pronunciation. )" Total (a) and partial (b) assimilation in the history of E: (a) wīf + man → wīf man → wimman → Pr-d E woman (regressive) (b) cēped → cēpəd → cēpt → Pr-d E kept (progressive) •

Lecture II Sound Change III 2/ Dissimilation: one segment is made less like another; 3/ Epenthesis: the insertion of a sound in a particular environment; 4/ Prothesis: the insertion of a sound before a consonant cluster to make pronunciation easier; 5/ Metathesis: a change in the relative positioning of segments (adjacent or at a distance) 6/ Weakening and deletion: both vowels and consonants are affected. Types: voiceless stops stronger • apocope: deletion of a word-final vowel; voiceless fric. • syncope: loss of a medial vowel; voiced stops • consonant deletion; nasals • consonant strength: liquids glides weaker

Lecture II Sound Change IV Segmental change: deaffrication of affricates in Fr, its role in defining the relative chronology of some loans from Fr into E (chance and chef) Auditorily based change: • [x] → [f] • [T] → [f] (Cockney) Phonetic vs Phonological Change: if sound changes affect the overall sound pattern → phonological change Types: • splits (sing vs sin) • mergers (fin and thin in Cockney) • shifts (the GVS)

Lecture III Morphological Change I Addition of affixes: - by borrowing - by fusion Loss of affixes: - for no obvious reason - through sound change OE: complex system of affixes marking case, number and gender of nouns, 4 distinct case forms ME: consonant deletion + vowel reduction, 2 case forms, further vowel reduction (deletion of [@] → -s Development of E morphological structure: synthetic (many affixes) → analytic (few affixes) → synthetic tendencies reappearing in E

Lecture III Morphological Change II Causes of morphological change: - analogy (decrease of mutated plurals, growth of weak verbs, etc. ) - reanalysis: the case of Pr. DE –ly as an adjectival/adverbial suffix Syntactic Change I S vs Dir. O distinction in all languages through: - case marking - word order OE: many endings → word order more variable, for examples see above Languages of the world: - SOV (many case endings, cf. H), majority - SVO (few case endings, cf. E) - VSO

Lecture III Syntactic Change II History of E : SOV → SVO Gallehus horn: Ek Hlewagastir Holtijar horna tawido ‘I Hlewagastir of Holt horn made’ - compounds showing OV patterns in OE Inversion in E: OE, ME, EMod. E: inversion applied to all verbs, not just auxiliaries: Speak they the truth? Call you that keeping? What make you here? (Sh, AYL) In questions all verbs (aux + “main”) moved to the left Pr. DE: Only aux move to the left → do appears

Lexical and Semantic Change I I. Addition of lexical items through: 1/ Word formation (examples from) OE: a/ compounding: N+N sunbēam nouns A+N middelnīht N+A blōdrēad adjectives A+A dēadboren b/ derivation: bæc (verb) + ere → bæcere nouns frēond + scipe → frēondscipe

Lexical and Semantic Change II wundor + full → wundorfull adjectives cīld + isc → cīld + isc Compounding in Pr. DE still productive: air+craft, ~crew ~head, ~liner ~plane, etc. Some OE compounds and derived forms that went out of use but still understandable: hwalrād, bōccræft, mancyn, mīldheortniss, manscipe, heofonisc, c/ conversion: not available in OE, causes 2/ Borrowing: substratum, adstratum and superstratum influences

Lexical and Semantic Change III Celtic substratum in Pr. DE: a huge number of place names (London, Dover, Thames, Avon, Cumberland, etc. ) Latin words through Celtic intermission: Chester (Manchester, Winchester) ←Celt. ← Lat. castrum, street ← Celt. ← late Lat. strāta, port ← Celt. Lat. portus, ass ← Lat. asinus very few common terms: brock, bin, curse II. Loss of lexical items Changes in society, advancement in technology (the object or the notion becomes obsolete): Dolgbōt ‘compensation for wounding’; Þeosc ‘hunting spear’; eafor ‘tenant obligation to the king to convey goods’; flûtme ‘a blood-letting instrument’

Lexical and Semantic Change IV III. • • • Semantic change typically a step-by-step process involving: broadening: meaning becomes more inclusive aunt, barn, bird narrowing: meaning becomes less inclusive disease, fowl, hound, meat amelioration: meaning becomes more positive knight, pretty, queen pejoration: meaning becomes less positive/derogatory hussy, silly, wench weakening: soon ‘immediately’ → ‘in the near future’ quell ‘kill, murder’ → ‘to put down, pacify’

Lexical and Semantic Change V • shift: loss of former meaning, taking on a new (related) meaning – immoral ‘not customary’ → ‘unethical’ – the new meaning may become unrelated to the original: hearse ‘triangular harrow’ → ‘frame for church candles’ → ‘device which holds candles over a coffin’ → ‘framework on which curtains were hung over a coffin’ → ‘the vehicle used to transport a coffin’

Lexical and Semantic Change VI • metaphor: based on a perceived similarity between distinct objects or actions, a word with a concrete meaning takes on a more abstract sense, the original meaning is not lost: grasp ‘understand’, yarn ‘story’, high ‘on drugs’, down ‘depressed’ sharp ‘smart, clever’ dull ‘stupid’ • metonymy: a word or phrase that is used to stand in for another word "The pen is mightier than the sword, “ – pen stands for written word, sword for military aggression and force Crown - in place of a royal person The White House - in place of the President or others who work there silver fox - for an attractive older man hand - for help

Language Reconstruction I Based on strong resemblance of certain words to each other. By systematically comparing languages we can establish whether two or more languages descended from a common parent and are therefore genetically related. I. COMPARATIVE RECONSTRUCTION Systematic phonetic correspondences: the most reliable sign of family relationship, must point toward a common source. Cf some Gmc data E Dutch G Dan Sw man Mann mand man hand Hand hånd hand foot voet Fuß fod fot bring brengen bringe bringa

Language Reconstruction II Conversely: where languages are not related, their voc. items fail to show systematic similarities. Cf. Turkish and Hun, unrelated to Gmc: Turkish Hun E adam ember man el hand kéz ajak foot láb getir bring hoz

Language Reconstruction III Words descended from a common source: cognates Where languages are distantly related, the systematic correspondence may be less striking: E Russian Hindi vs Turkish Hungarian two dva dō iki két three tri tīn yts három brother brat(r) bhāji kardes fivér (barát: loan from Slavic) nose nos nāk burun orr

Language Reconstruction IV Existence of a relationship between two or more languages established: attempt to reconstruct the common source → proto-language, protoforms: hypothetic (usually printed with an *), unrecorded, inobservable. II. TECHNIQUES OF RECONSTRUCTION Uncovered processes can be reversed. It is possible to reconstruct all components/levels of a proto-language: phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon, semantics. Two main strategies: 1/ Phonetic plausibility strategy: any changes posited between the protoforms and later forms must be phonetically plausible; 2/ Majority rules strategy: if no phonetically plausible change can account for the observed differences, then the segment found in the majority of cognates should be assumed. The first strategy always takes precedence over the second!

Language Reconstruction V Reconstruction and the catalogue of sound changes The following sound changes can be considered highly probable: Rule Name of change t → t∫, ts /_i palatalization k → t∫, ts n →m /_b assimilation (place of articulation) t→d p→b / V_ V voicing k→ 0 / V_ st consonant deletion, etc. Low probability: the reverse of all these processes

Language Reconstruction VI Consider the representations of ‘full’ in IEu groups: Germanic E G Du Icel Dan Sw Gothic full vol fullr fuld fulls ← Proto-Gmc *fullaz Slavic Russian Polish Serbo-Croatian полный pełny pun Baltic Lithuanian Latvian pìlnas pilns Latin plēnus Greek πλήρηζ

Language Reconstruction VII Two factors allowing for the reconstruction of Proto-IEu *pol-~ple ‘to fill’: 1/ Phonetic plausibility voiceless plosives → voiceless fricatives: highly probable p → f (also t → θ and k → x) for t → θ cf. OE þrīe, E three, Icel. Þrīr vs Slavic tri, Latin tres (It. tre), Greek τρεις, Baltic (Lith. ) trys ← Proto-IEu *treies; for k → x: E hound (OE hund) G Hund (← Proto-Gmc *hundaz) vs Latin canis, Greek κυων, ← Proto-IEu *kwntós ‘dog’; (the examples above are part of the 1 st Gmc consonant shift described by Jacob Grimm and therefore called Grimm’s Law, see below for details); 2/ Majority principle: of all the examples above, those beginning in a voiceless plosive represent the majority, therefore the appearance of voiceless fricatives in the Gmc words must have been secondary.

The Discovery of Indo-European (IEu) I Sir William Jones (1746 -1794), lawyer and scholar working in India, summed up the implications of his findings in 1786 as follows: “The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists; there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family. ”

The Discovery of IEu II Several decades of intensive historical-comparative work during the 19 th c. Study of phonetic correspondences→ most languages of Europe, Persia and Northern India belong to a single family now called Indo-European (IEu, terms formerly used: Indo-Aryan, Indo-Germanic) Outstanding figures: Rasmus RASK (Danish, 1787 -1832): Undersøgelse om det gamle Nordiske eller Islandske Sprogs Oprindelse (Essay on the Origin of the Ancient Norse or Icelandic Tongue), 1818 – careful documentation of the relationships between cognates in a number of IEu languages; Franz BOPP (German, 1791 -1867): Über das Conjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache in Vergleichung mit jenem der griechischen, lateinischen, persischen und germanischen Sprache (On the Conjugation System of Sanskrit in Comparison with That of Greek, Latin, Persian and Germanic), 1816 – the first comparative analysis of Sanskrit, Greek, Persian, and Germanic;

The Discovery of Indo-European III Jacob GRIMM (German, 1785 -1863) Deutsche Grammatik (A Grammar of German) 1822 - the first to explain the relationships betwen the cognates noted by Rask in terms of a sound shift – a systematic modification of a series of phonemes (Grimm’s Law, German: grimmsche Gesetz or Erste oder germanische Lautverschiebung), an overall restructuring of the PIEu system of plosives: 1/ PIEu voiceless plosives → Gmc voiceless fricatives: p t k kw → f θ x xw 2/ PIEu voiced plosives → Gmc voiceless plosives: → b d g gw p t k kw 3/ PIEu aspirated voiced plosives → Gmc non-aspirated voiced plosives: bh dh gh gwh → b d g

The Discovery of Indo-European IV Examples of Grimm’s Law: 1/ for p, t, k → f, θ, x see above, slides 22, 23 2/ IEu (Slavic) *bol- (cf South Slavic bla-t-ŭnŭ ‘moorish, swampy’, H Balaton) → Gmc (E) pool Sansk. Gk Lat Gmc (E) daça δέκα decem ten αγρός 3/ Sansk. Gk bhrātā φράτηρ vidhavā είθεος (g)hansa ‘swan’ χήν ager ‘land, field’ Lat. Slavic frāter bratrŭ vidua vŭdova (h)ānse *g. Ysĭ acre Gmc (E) brother widow goose

The Discovery of Indo-European V Comments: 1/ Reflexes of PIEu gh and gwh are fairly irregular in different languages. 2/ Systematic exceptions: PIEu st → Gmc st (not sθ) - *stə- Lat stare E stand PIEu kt → Gmc xt (not xθ) - *oktō Lat octo, OE ēaht E eight G acht 3/ Most important group of exceptions Compare the following pairs of sets: a/ IEu t → Gmc θ (Grimm’s Law) Sansk. Gk Lat Slavic Gmc (Gothic) bhrāta φράτηρ frāter bratrŭ broþar (θ) as opposed to pitā πατήρ patér fadar b/ IEu p → f (Grimm’s Law) Lith. Czech pilnas πλήρηζ plēnus plný fulls