Dr. Fee's Study Guide for Evolution vs. Decadence

English 209: Evolution vs. Decadence


Finish terminology discussion

Questions about terms, issues, or concepts from the reading for today?

Language Change: Decadence or Evolution?
· Neither; “change” is less judgmental
· Change is both inevitable and constant in living, natural languages

What do we mean by “language change”?
· Permanent alteration of one or more systems of a language
· These changes must be adopdted by a sizeable number of users (more or less) permanently
· In simplest terms, loss/gain/both in subsystems of language (substitution)


Are all changes systematic?
· No, some are sporadic, while others are systematic

What are the two types of systematic changes, and how are they different from each other?
· Conditioned—context sensitive (examples from book)
· Unconditioned—not context sensitive (examples from book)

Are all such changes irreversible?
· Most are (especially in phonology, morphology, and syntax)
· A few examples in book of reversed changes

What are the two “types” of history associated with language change?
· Internal history
· External history

Explain how the history of political change and/or literary change are related to, but distinct from, the history of linguistic change:
· Political history often has an enormous impact on the language (1066, etc.); but only a limited amount of linguistic change is attributable to external factors
· Ditto for literary history; however, written grammatical structures, vocabulary, and phrasology will have an important impact. Further, literacy gives rise to concepts of “correctness”, and tends to slow linguistic change a bit (or has in the past)

Why are there so many different languages?
· The capacity to learn language is innate, universal and unchanging, but absorbing any particular language is a learned process, and the language itself is volatile.

Why does language change?
· Principle of least effort
· Analogy
· Imperfect learning

What are some external pressures for language change?
· Foreign contacts
· Contact between dialects

What is the most common internal pressure for language change?
· Changes in one system impinging upon another system

What are some factors impeding change?
· If there are extensive changes going on in one subsystem,the others tend to remain fairly stable (otherwise all hell would break loose)
· Languages with graphic systems tend to be more conservative (permanence, opportunity for reference, desire for consistency)
· Colonial peoples are more conservative in their language use

Are there natural divisions between the periods demarcating the history of English which we study?

What are these periods and their rough dates?
· OE (450-1100)
· ME (1100-1500)
· EME (1500-1800)
· PDE (1800-Present)

What are the sources of information for our study?
· Descriptive statements
· Recordings
· Contemporary dialects
· Loanwords
· Contemporary spellings
· Texts

What are the primary sources for history prior to this century?
· Texts

Problems with historical texts?
· Not many
· Interpretation
· So many are translations of Latin and French