Language Change: Historical Linguistics II

“regular and exceptionless’

• Consider:
• OE cnafa /knava/ > ModE knave /nejv/
• OE cniht /knixt/ > ModE knight /najt/
• So what’s the rule?
• And what’s the ModE reflex of OE cyning /kyniŋ/?

“regular and exceptionless’

• OE /kyniŋ/ > ModE /kɪŋ/
• Why not /nɪŋ/?
• Because the rule that deletes initial /k/ only applies before /n/.
• So, the rule getting rid of initial /k/ is exceptionless, but it has a specific environment when it applies, just like phonological rules

The Comparative Method

• If we assume that sound-change is regular and exceptionless in this way, we can use systematic comparison of languages to see the relationships between them.
• This is known as the Comparative Method.

Grimm’s Law

• Important result of the comparative method
• Grimm’s Law: consonant changes between Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Germanic

Grimm’s Law

• p t k > f θ x
• became fricatives in Germanic, but stayed same in Latin & Greek
• b d g > p t k
• devoiced in Germanic, but stayed same in Latin & Greek
• bh dh gh > b d g
• deaspirated in Germanic, but fricatives in Latin (f, f, h), devoiced in Greek (ph, th, kh), retained in Sanskrit, Hindi

p > f

• Sanskrit pita padam
• Greek pate:r poda
• Latin pate:r pedem
• Gothic fadar fotu
• English father foot
• PIE *pǝter- *ped-
• (majority rule here in the inference about PIE)

Completed Chain Shift

• e.g. The Great Vowel Shift

Chain Shift in Progress

• e.g. The Northern City Shift (around the Great Lakes, esp Syracuse, Rochester, Detroit, Chicago)
• ӕ > ej (ɪj), ɑ > a (ӕ), ᴐ > ɑ, ɛ > ʌ, backing of ʌ

• ɪ

• a

• ɛ →

• ↘