Chapter Seven: Models of linguistic change
So far, we've mostly been looking at the 'family tree' model of linguistic change, assuming that sound changes apply completely to a language, without exception. There is also the 'dialectology' side - studying the variations within a language, and the borrowings between them.
A note on terminology: if two forms of speech are mutually intelligible, they are dialects of the same language.
Or at least, that would be a useful definition to have. Alas, languages are firstly not always reciprocal: Portuguese speakers understand Spanish quite well, but not the other way around. Secondly, there is quite a lot of politics involved. Norwegian and Swedish are mutually intelligible, and 'Chinese' covers as wide a range of languages as 'Indo-European' does. (Note that Indo-European includes German, Latin and Hindi.)
This has led to the statement "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy", popularised by Max Weinreich.
Note that e.g. Received Pronunciation is a dialect of English by this definition: it may be the prestige dialect (preferred in writing, broadcasting, formal situations or the like), but it is one variety among many, not the language itself.
A note on terminology: if two forms of speech are mutually intelligible, they are dialects of the same language.
Or at least, that would be a useful definition to have. Alas, languages are firstly not always reciprocal: Portuguese speakers understand Spanish quite well, but not the other way around. Secondly, there is quite a lot of politics involved. Norwegian and Swedish are mutually intelligible, and 'Chinese' covers as wide a range of languages as 'Indo-European' does. (Note that Indo-European includes German, Latin and Hindi.)
This has led to the statement "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy", popularised by Max Weinreich.
Note that e.g. Received Pronunciation is a dialect of English by this definition: it may be the prestige dialect (preferred in writing, broadcasting, formal situations or the like), but it is one variety among many, not the language itself.
Chapter Eight: Internal Reconstruction
Internal Reconstuction is the application of the comparative method within a single language. Rather than looking at the same word in different sister languages, we look at the same morpheme and see how it changes in different environments. (A morpheme is a part-word with some meaning. For example, /ɪn/, in- means 'not'; it changes to be /ɪm/ in impossible and /ɪŋ/ in inconvenient.)
This only works if the changes are conditioned, and the environments that conditioned them are still around (or at least recoverable from other data).
This only works if the changes are conditioned, and the environments that conditioned them are still around (or at least recoverable from other data).
Chapter Nine: Syntactic change
Syntax (loosely 'grammar') is a more modern area of focus for linguistics. There are 3 mechanisms of syntactic change: reanalysis, extension, and borrowing.
Reanalysis involves changing the underlying representation of a phrase whilst keeping the surface appearance the same. For example, 'below' and 'beside' are now prepositions, but they used to be phrases 'by low' and 'by side' (there have been some spelling and pronunciation changes which make this less obviously 'the same surface representation', but you get the idea).
Extension takes an ambiguous form, and extends the second meaning to places where it wasn't previously ambiguous.
For example, the Spanish reflexive 'se' can also be interpreted as passive; se ha enterrado en el cementerio, 'he has himself buried in the graveyard', also means 'he is buried in the graveyard'.
This is then extended to inanimated objects that cannot be reflexives: los vinos se venden, literally 'the wines sell themselves', is 'the wines are sold'.
This is then extended to inanimated objects that cannot be reflexives: los vinos se venden, literally 'the wines sell themselves', is 'the wines are sold'.
Finally, just as words can be borrowed, so too can case markers, comparative constructions, negatives affixes, etc etc...