Language Change (Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics)

         Any treatment of linguistics must address the question of language change. The way languages change offers insights into the nature of language itself. The possible answers to why languages change tell us about the way language is used in society, about how it is acquired by individuals and may reveal to us information about its internal organisation. There is no simple explanation for why languages change. This is an area in which there is much speculation and little proof. The area is an interesting and fruitful one but there are few if any direct answers. For this reason historical linguistics has traditionally been concerned with how languages evolve and not why they do so in one particular direction and not in another. To begin this section a number of statements about language change are be made.

1) All languages change There is no such thing as a language which is not changing. The rate of change may vary considerably due to both internal and external factors (see below). English, for example, has changed greatly since Old English. Other languages, like Finnish and Icelandic, have changed little over the centuries. 

2) Language change is largely regular One can recognise regularities in the types of change which languages undergo, even if these cannot be predicted.

A. PHONOLOGY

Phonology is a branch of linguistics concerned with the systematic organisation of sounds in language.

Epenthesis Vowel is a low-level phonetic rule which is used to break up clusters of consonants which are unacceptable in a certain language or variety. There are instances from the varieties of English where a prohibition on sequences of two sonorants in a syllable coda is resolved by vowel epenthesis which leads to re-syllabification (the syllable boundary is indicated by a dot in the following). 

film /film/        -         [fi.lqm]           (Irish English) 
 arm /arm/        -         [a.rqm] 

Consonant epenthesis is different in its motivation. It arises in order to provide a more consonantal syllable coda. There are some words in English which originally ended in an alveolar nasal or an /s/ and which developed an epenthetic stop after the final segment. The result is that the syllable rhyme of such words shows a steady decrease in sonority from the nucleus to the right edge. Examples can be found from the history of English.

High sonority                                     -                    Low sonority 
vowel                                      nasal/fricative          stop 
sound (< French son)           against (< againes) 

Metathesis This phenomenon involves the reversal of linear order with two segments. It most commonly occurs with a vowel and /r/ and is attested widely across many languages.

bridde                           bird                         (Middle English and Modern English)  
modern                         [m>drqn]                (Modern English and Irish English) 
brennen                         burn                        (German and English) 

B. MORPHOLOGY

In linguistics, morphology /mɔːˈfɒlədʒi/ is the identification, analysis and description of the structure of a given language's morphemes and other linguistic units, such as root words, affixes, parts of speech, intonations and stresses, or implied context. In contrast, morphological typology is the classification of languages according to their use of morphemes, while lexicology is the study of those words forming a language's word-stock.

Second person pronouns in English In Old and Middle English there are singular pronouns for the second person – thou /3u:/ (later /3au/) and thee /3e:/ (later /3i:/) – which have long since disappeared from mainstream varieties of English except in religious usage. The survival of you as the only second person pronoun is somewhat surprising as this was previously an oblique form. The original distribution of pronominal forms is given in the following table.

                           Singular                Plural
Nom.                  thou                      ye 
Acc./Dat            thee                       you         -       sole surviving form in 
                                                                               mainstream varieties

Unrecognised morphology In a language contact situation it may happen that speakers of the receiving language fail to recognise the morphological structure of a borrowed word. This has happened with a small group of Scandinavian verbs which were borrowed in the north of England in the late Old English period. Here the reflexive pronominal suffix -sk was not recognised by the English and the reflexive verbs were treated as monomorphemic non-reflexive verbs. An example is Old Norse batha-sk which appears as Middle English bask ‘to bathe in sunlight’; another case is be the northern verb busk ‘prepare, get dressed, hurry’ from Old Norse bua-sk.

Morphological misinterpretation This is, in a way, the reverse of the previous phenomenon. It can be seen clearly with some French loanwords in Middle English where the final /s/ was misinterpreted as a plural suffix (as in English) and removed for the singular form of the loan. An example is Old French cerise which turns up in Middle English as cherry without the final /s/ (in the singular). The word pea is a similar case: the Old English word pise (plural pisan) was misinterpreted as a plural and the final /-s/ was removed.

C. SYNTAX

Syntax is a set of rules in a language. It dictates how words from different parts of speech are put together in order to convey a complete thought.

The general word order of an English sentence is “Subject+Verb+Object”. In poetry, however, the word order may be shifted to achieve certain artistic effects such as producing rhythm or melody in the lines, achieving emphasis, heightening connection between two words etc. The unique syntax used in poetry makes it different from prose. Let us consider the following examples of syntax:

Example #1

In casual conversations, we can simply say, “I cannot go out” to convey our inability to go out. P J Kavanagh’s in his poem Beyond Decoration does not rely on merely stating a prosaic “I cannot go out”. Rather, he shifts the syntax and says “Go out I cannot”, which lays a much stronger emphasis on the inability to go out conveyed by the word “cannot”.

Example #2

Similarly, Milton shifts words in his poems frequently. Let us analyze lines from his poem Lycidas:

“Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves, And all their echoes mourn” 

D. SEMANTICS

Semantics means the meaning and interpretation of words, signs, and sentence structure. Semantics largely determine our reading comprehension, how we understand others, and even what decisions we make as a result of our interpretations. Semantics can also refer to the branch of study within linguistics that deals with language and how we understand meaning. This has been a particularly interesting field for philosophers as they debate the essence of meaning, how we build meaning, how we share meaning with others, and how meaning changes over time.

Example:

One of the central issues with semantics is the distinction between literal meaning and figurative meaning. With literal meaning, we take concepts at face value. For example, if we said, 'Fall began with the turning of the leaves,' we would mean that the season began to change when the leaves turned colors. Figurative meaning utilizes similes and metaphors to represent meaning and convey greater emotion. For example, 'I'm as hungry as a bear' would be a simile and a comparison to show a great need for sustenance.

Let's look at the context of the Shakespearean quote we mentioned earlier:

'Juliet: O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?

Deny thy father and refuse thy name;

Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,

And I'll no longer be a Capulet.

Romeo: (Aside) Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?

Juliet: 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;

Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.

What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,

Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part

Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!

What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,

Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,

And for that name which is no part of thee

Take all myself.'

The quote: 'That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,' is actually an example of figurative meaning when we look at the context, the surrounding text that clarifies meaning. Romeo and Juliet's families, the Montagues and the Capulets, were in a notoriously hideous feud, hence the couple's characterization as star-crossed lovers. Juliet uses this metaphor to make the argument to Romeo that his name (his family) does not matter to her, she wants Romeo for himself. Juliet's dialogue about their family would be an example of literary meaning.

References Link:

http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-semantics-definition-examples-quiz.html

http://literarydevices.net/syntax/

https://www.uni-due.de/ELE/LanguageChange.pdf