Grammatical, Semantic and Lexical Change

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Commentary on Crowley

• Chapter 7
• Grammatical, Semantic and Lexical Change
• PART III

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7.2 Grammaticalization

• WHATS THIS? LETS BEGIN WITH THE SAME OLD
  QUESTION

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Same old question

• Why do languages differ typologically?

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Because Languages Change !

• More precisely, linguists have a term to
  describe the origin and evolution of affixes and
  function words.

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Grammaticalization

• This term describes the evolution of function
  words and affixes.

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Evolution of function words

• In the beginning were the words, and they were
  lexical roots, and the language was
  morphologically isolating, and the people said
  that it was good.
• Then it came to pass that some words were used
  more frequently than others. And so the
  frequently-used words begat function words and
  some of these, in turn, were used more frequently
  than the other function words.

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Evolution of clitics and affixes

• And so the frequently-used function words begat
  clitics, and it came to pass that some clitics
  were used more frequently than others.
• And so the frequently-used clitics begat affixes,
  and the language underwent morphologization, and
  the people said that it was gut (by which they
  meant agglutinating).

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Eolution of morphological types

• And they laughed at their neighbors to the East
  whose language was isolating, and they laughed at
  their neighbors to the West for allowing their
  agglutinating language to beget inflections and
  they laughed at their neighbors to the South,
  whose inflectional language had begotten
  isolating spawn. Then they allied themselves
  with neighbors to the North, whose formerly
  isolating language finally begat a Gut language
  like their own.
• And Og smote them all for neglecting the land and
  the children, so intent were they on laughing at
  their neighbors and fighting with them.

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Crowleys example of grammaticalization in
contemporary English, p. 145

• John is going to go to Harvard.
• John is going to the store.
• John is gonna go to Harvard.
• John is gonna the store.
• Why is (4) ungrammatical?

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English modals used to be verbs

• He tried to go.
• He started to go.
• He wanted to go.
• He cans to go gt He can go.
• He not cans to go gt He cant go.
• He wills to go gt He will go.
• That is, some high-frequency verbs became
  grammaticalized as modal auxiliaries.

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Grammaticalized have, do, be, get, will and go

• He had an appointment.
• He had an obligation/plan/intention to meet his
  mother.
• He had an obligation/plan/intention to meet his
  mother.
• Because grammaticalization is often partial, a
  function word may co-exist with a homophonous
  lexical item which is, in fact, its etymon. Thus
  English have, do, be, get, will and go all retain
  the original lexical as well as the innovating
  grammatical uses.

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And Crowley saw that it was gut.

• (End of section 7.2 - Grammaticalization)

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7.3 Mechanisms of Grammatical Change
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Mechanisms of Grammatical Change

• There are three mechanisms of grammatical change.
• Reanalysis
• Analogy
• Diffusion

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Analogy was discussed earlier in the course.

• See Slides 4-19 in the Power Point titled
  Melanau Morphology

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Diffusion is another term for borrowing it
derives from the phrase cultural diffusion

• In this context, diffusion means that a
  grammatical construction can enter a language via
  borrowing.
• Crowley suggests here and in Chapter 12 that
  word order change is especially suseptible to
  influences from neighboring languages, mediated
  typically by bilingual speakers.

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That leaves one more major topic

• Reanalysis

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Accusative to ergative shift involved Reanalysis

• To review the shift from accusative to
  ergative typology occurred because, after the
  active form was lost, the erstwhile passive
  underwent Reanalysis as active (and basic)
  structure.
• Below is another example of Reanalysis
  reconstruct-able in the history of the
  Malayo-Polynesian languages.

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Reanalysis

• Reanalysis accounts in part for the Melanau
  passive infix -i-. This element originated in
  PMP as a tense marker -in- which is
  reconstructable internally based on Tagalog data.

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PMP -in- past tense infixPMP -in passive
voice suffix

• Tagalog reflects both PMP affixes directly
  however, they do not co-occur in a word.
• su-sulat will write
• su-sulat-in will be written
• s-in-ulat-Ø was written
• s-in-u-sulat-Ø was being written
• su-sulat-an will be written on
• s-in-u-sulat-an was being written on

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Past-to-Passive Reanalysis

• Tagalog speakers (and most grammar books) regard
  the infix -in- as a passive marker today.
• Historically, PMP -in- underwent Reanalysis from
  its original tense/aspect function to a passive
  function in Tagalog.
• Melanau inherited the reanalyzed passive infix
• -in-, which underwent phonological reduction
  via vowel syncope and cluster reduction, e.g
  pre-Melanau t-in-?ba?gtt-in-ba?gtt-i-ba? be
  felled

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Reanalysis typically originates as an error
that becomes standardized.

• French cerise cherry was borrowed into
  English as cherries and then reanalyzed as
  plural, from which the singular cherry is derived
  via back-formation.
• German Hamburger a person from Hamburg
• German Hamburger Weisswurst sausage from
  Hamburg.
• American hamburger sandwich a sandwich made
  with ground beef on a bun reference to Hamburg
  totally lost.
• American burger (clipping of the above)
• American tuna-burger, fish-burger, etc. results
  from Reanalysis of burger as a suffix.
• Cf. evolution of suffix -gate from Watergate
  Building in D.C.

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End of 7.3 Mechanisms of grammatical change

• ONLY TWO MORE SECTIONS TO GO IN THIS CHAPTER !

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7.4 Semantic Change7.5 Lexical Change
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Saussure means clarity
7.4 Semantic change A word changes its
meaning. In Saussurean terms A words sound
can remain constant while its meaning
changes. 7.5 Lexical change A new word can be
added or lost. In Saussurean terms A new
sound/meaning unit can be introduced into a
language, or an existing one can disappear.
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Four Types of Semantic Change(A words sound can
remain constant while its meaning changes.)

• Broadening
• Narrowing
• Bifurcation (split)
• Shift

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Four Types of Semantic Change(A words sound can
remain constant while its meaning changes.)

• Broadening dogge dog1gt dog dog
• Narrowing hund dog gt hound dog1
• Split artillary catapult gt artillary
  cannon
• Shift -- silly blessed gt silly silly

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Four Mechanisms of Semantic Change (A words
sound can remain constant while its meaning
changes.)

• Metaphor pig pig gt pig sloppy person
  insult assault gt insult insult
• Euphemism native native gt First Nation
  native (Canada)
• Hyperbole absolutely without limit gt
  absolutely yes
• Interference gay person 1. happy 2.
  homosexual gt gay person homosexual

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Do true synonyms exist?

• Linguist Dwight Bolinger suggested that there are
  no true synonyms in a language.
• When synonymous pairs arise, they always develop
  nuances so that they are not truly synonymous.
  One member is always more polite, or distinct in
  some other feature.
• Thus even though gay and happy were once
  called synonyms, there was still a difference of
  meaning between them.
• And when gay shifted its meaning (via
  euphemism) to include homosexual it further
  distanced itself semantically from its erstwhile
  synonym.

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Psycholinguistic test

• Write the first five barnyard animals you can
  think of.

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Psycholinguistic test

• Write down the first five kinds of meat
  Americans are fond of eating. (not counting a
  Vegans preferences)

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Psycholinguistic test

• What caused the shift in meaning from cow meat to
  beef?
• Cow, Pig, Sheep, Chicken, Goat (barnyard animals)
• Beef, Pork, Mutten, Chicken, Goat (varieties of
  meat eaten by the farmer)

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A Semantic Change in Progress? Pimping?

• Bill Maher video titled Ebonic Plague
• http//www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/new-rule-
  ebonic-plague_b_88536.html
• Question Does the metaphorical use of the word
  pimp(ing) have a future in the English language?

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7.5 Lexical Change A new sound/meaning unit
can be introduced into a language, or an existing
one can disappear.

• How new words enter a language. This is a big
  topic.
• How words exit a language. A sound/meaning unit
  (word) can disappear altogether when (a) the
  referenced item disappears from the culture, or
  (b) the unit is totally replaced by a borrowed
  unit (word).

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How new words enter a language

• When I teach LING 270 I introduce this topic with
  a mnemonic formula ABCD 1341.
• Acronym
• Blending, Borrowing, Back Formation
• Coining, Conversion, Compounding, Clipping
• Derivation

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The formula gives students a taste of the
complexity of lexical innovation.
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Unfortunately, we dont have time to go any
further into the subject of change in semantic
structure and lexicon.

• But two final examples are hard to resist.

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Ms. /m?z/ - What has it come to mean in the U.S.
Congress? And what happened to Miss?

• Roll Call
• Mr. Kerry, Mr. Kerry Ay
• Mrs. Dole, Mrs. Dole Nay
• Mz. Collins, Mz. Collins Ay

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Etymology of the French word aujourd'hui (today)
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When words become too compact, there is a
tendency to use syntactic means to make them
longer.

• In language, there are always processes of
  shortening and lengthening going on at the same
  time. For example, many French words are shorter
  than the original Latin etyma. Then there is
  "aujourd'hui" (today). The "dhui" originally
  comes from Latin hoc die, meaning "this day". The
  whole word means literally "on the day of this
  day." Presumably "dhui" became too short for
  comfort.

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Aujourdhui

• on the day of this day

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Grammatical, Semantic and Lexical Change Part
III

• LING 485/585
• Winter 2009