Historical (diachronic) linguistics
14. Historical (diachronic) linguistics
14.1. Reasons of language change
All living languages are changing in the course of time. If the evolution of some language stops on some level and doesn’t develop anymore it will become the dead language (e.g. Sanskrit, Latin). There are lots of reasons of language change and their difference is in between linguistic levels. For example If we consider vocabulary, we will convince ourselves that new things, objects, activities, establishments, ideas and so on need new words (e.g. in 20th century those were: astronaut, AIDS, babysitter, ethnic cleansing, motel, perestroika) and at the same time other words are becoming dead because of the lack of need. Contacts with other nations and languages frequently cause new loanword in vocabulary, rarely there are phonology, morphology and syntax borrowings. In the situation of linguistic contacts there are substratum (linguistic influence of the inferior language) and superstratum (linguistic influence of the dominant language). For example, French is based on Latin in general, but it has Celtic (Gaulish) substratum. It is more difficult to explain the difference in pronunciation, inflection and syntax and frequently answer for the same question involves lots of other questions. For example, it is assumed that one of the reasons of powerful reduction and disappearance of inflectional endings in the historical development of English was fixed stress on a syllable of word stem. As a result endings have become in unstressed position; but it does not give us an answer why did stress in German attach to a syllable of word stem. From the Structuralism’s point of view we may consider changes as a system repair that is as filling in gaps or removing excess. For example, in Middle English feminine third-person singular personal pronoun (Middle English hēo) sounded the same as masculine third-person singular personal pronoun (Middle English hē). It is obvious that in such a way the very
14.1. Reasons of language change
All living languages are changing in the course of time. If the evolution of some language stops on some level and doesn’t develop anymore it will become the dead language (e.g. Sanskrit, Latin). There are lots of reasons of language change and their difference is in between linguistic levels. For example If we consider vocabulary, we will convince ourselves that new things, objects, activities, establishments, ideas and so on need new words (e.g. in 20th century those were: astronaut, AIDS, babysitter, ethnic cleansing, motel, perestroika) and at the same time other words are becoming dead because of the lack of need. Contacts with other nations and languages frequently cause new loanword in vocabulary, rarely there are phonology, morphology and syntax borrowings. In the situation of linguistic contacts there are substratum (linguistic influence of the inferior language) and superstratum (linguistic influence of the dominant language). For example, French is based on Latin in general, but it has Celtic (Gaulish) substratum. It is more difficult to explain the difference in pronunciation, inflection and syntax and frequently answer for the same question involves lots of other questions. For example, it is assumed that one of the reasons of powerful reduction and disappearance of inflectional endings in the historical development of English was fixed stress on a syllable of word stem. As a result endings have become in unstressed position; but it does not give us an answer why did stress in German attach to a syllable of word stem. From the Structuralism’s point of view we may consider changes as a system repair that is as filling in gaps or removing excess. For example, in Middle English feminine third-person singular personal pronoun (Middle English hēo) sounded the same as masculine third-person singular personal pronoun (Middle English hē). It is obvious that in such a way the very