Change and Development in the English Language

Collins English Dictionary defines the number five as ‘…the cardinal number that is the sum of four and one’ and it can be represented numerically as ‘5’ and ‘V’ in roman numerals. The number five can be used in many ways for instance, in Mathematics and in everyday use to express quantity (noun). Five can also be used as an adjective, for instance in the sentence “I usually get off work at five” (616). In an Anglophone context five can be used as a phrasal word and a compounding word as well. According to The Dictionary of Jamaican English, five is used ‘in boys’ games’, at which ‘entitles one to five seconds’ immunity from being caught.’ Five in that dictionary is also used as a compound word as in ‘five-finger’ and a phrasal sentence ‘five o’clock bush’ (181).
In the Anglophone country like Trinidad and Tobago, five is used as a noun as well as an adjective, and its pronunciation in a Trinidadian context would be [faɪv].
Five [faiv] is known to be an adaptation of the Old English fif and Proto-Germanic *fimfe, which ultimately derived from the Proto Indo-European *penkʷe. It is also said to be related to ‘Old Norse *finun ‘five’ and Gothic *fimf’ (Collins English Dictionary, 616). In Old English, five is phonetically transcribed as [fi:v] where the vowel is a long vowel [i:]. There were little transformations in the word five as none of the consonants were affected. Some of the long vowel sounds however in Old English that were not affected, preserved their original quality in Middle English, for example in the word five, Old English fif [fi:v] to Middle English fif [fiv]. Another example of this would be the Modern English word house, [hŭs], where both the Old English and Middle English spellings for this word are the same. The vowel changes did not stop there as Middle English sounds were going through continuous changes again. During this period, the Great Vowel Shift had come about.

The Middle English to Modern English transformation of vowels can be shown in the diagram above where the unrounded close front vowel [i:] phonetically changed into a diphthong vowel [ǝi] in Early Modern English and later on however, further changed into the diphthong [aɪ]. During the Middle English (ME) period, it can be noted that ME high vowels for instance, [i:] were diphthongized, and the vowel then became centralized and lowered into two steps being, [ǝi] and [aɪ].
Phonologically, the pronunciation of the word did change from ME to ModE. The consonant f became voiceless in the word fif because it came at the beginning of the word. More so, the consonant f in the word fif was pronounced as voiced [v] because it fell (between) after a voiced vowel sound being [i:] in the word fif. More so, the OE phoneme /f/ had one allophone [f] and there was no separate phoneme /v/.
The cardinal number was also affected morphologically where affixation took place. The inflectional suffix for pluralizing a word was added which also did exist in the Indo-European language. The plural tense for the word fif was represented as fife, where the addition of the suffix was ‘–e’. In OE there were also inflectional forms such as fīfa, fīfum, (Hoad, 172). However, more than inflection took place; the word had also derivational meaning in Old English (OE) as well. OE derived the word fiftēne from the word fif, causing a derivational change which means that the word’s meaning changed from being a cardinal number between digits four and six, to being between digits fourteen and sixteen. However, one can say that during the derivational and inflectional process, root of the word stays the same: fif-e, fif-tēne. In addition, when referring to ME inflection occurs when the pluralized form –s occurs where the meaning of the word changes. However, when a suffix is added to the word for instance, fivish, not only does the meaning change but the word class of the word changes. The word five moves from being a noun to adjective.
One can say that semantically the word five did not change entirely during the transition from OE to ME to Mod E. However, more meanings have been given to the word due to language itself is always being dynamic and ever changing. For instance, the word five still has its authentic meaning of being a cardinal number (noun) as well as it can refer to an adjective as amounting to five in number.
For the word five, it carries the same form but possess two different meanings, therefore one may call this word a homonym which one can say the meanings of the word is historically connected. The first meaning of the word five is that it is a cardinal word and the other meaning of the word five gives the representation of what time is it.
In modern usage this word is used in many ways throughout the Caribbean and other geographical locations. Five is not only used for telling time as well as for arithmetic purposes, but it is used as an expression in phrases in a Trinidadian context ‘five piece’, which means a five dollars worth of marijuana. ‘High five’ means in an American context is to cheer them on by hitting their hand with yours. Five can be used in another Trinidadian context where one expresses themselves that they are going to take a rest by saying, ‘I am going to take a five now’.
One can add to this by saying that they are many variations in pronunciations of the word five. In a Trinidadian context, five would be phonetically transcribed as [faɪv], however, in a Guyanese context, five would be phonetically transcribed as [faɪ:v], which means that some Guyanese places a stress on the vowel sound.
One can therefore comprehend that the word five ultimately had gone through a transition from the Old English Period straight through to the Modern English period and one can further note that such a transition is still taking place. According to Allsopp, the word five has many Caribbean English usage, for instance in Guyana, there is adjectival phrase ‘break five’ and ‘give me five’ in Dominica (233).

Works Cited

Allsopp, Richard, and Jeannette Allsopp. Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Print

Crozier, Justin. Collins English Dictionary. Glasgow: HarperCollins, 2006. Print.

Dictionary of Jamaican English. Cambridge Univ Pr, 2009. Print.

Hoad, T F. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. Oxford: Oxford/Clarendon Press, 1986. Print.

Cited: Allsopp, Richard, and Jeannette Allsopp. Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Print Crozier, Justin. Collins English Dictionary. Glasgow: HarperCollins, 2006. Print. Dictionary of Jamaican English. Cambridge Univ Pr, 2009. Print. Hoad, T F. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. Oxford: Oxford/Clarendon Press, 1986. Print.