The Origins and Development Book

THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE incline calling This varlet intention completedlyy left blank THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE position lecture S I X T H E D I T I O N stool Algeo Based on the original work of Thomas Pyles Australia Brazil japan Korea Mexico Singapore Spain United Kingdom United States The Origins and Development of the side lead terminology Sixth Edition John Algeo Publisher Michael Rosenberg Development Editor Joan Flaherty colleague Editor Megan Garvey Editorial Assistant Rebekah Matthews sure-enough(a) Media Editor Cara Douglass-Graff classeting Manager Christina Shea Marketing Communications Manager Beth Rodio Content Project Manager Corinna Dibble Senior Art Director Cate Rickard Barr Production Technology Analyst Jamie MacLachlan Senior home run Buyer Betsy Donaghey Rights Acquisitions Manager Text Tim Sisler Production Service Pre-Press PMG Rights Acquisitions Manager doubling Mandy Groszko C all all over De guller Susan Shapi ro Cover Image Kobal Collection Art roll collection Dagli Orti Prayer with illuminated border, from c. 1480 Flemish compositionuscriptBook of Hours of Philippe de Conrault, The Art Archive/ Bodleian subroutine library Oxford Compositor Pre-Press PMG 2010, 2005 Wadsworth, Cengage erudition ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 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Printed in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 13 12 11 10 09 Preface The Origins and Development of the side of meat quarrel, Sixth Edition, continues to taper on the charges of manner of treating or else than on any of the dis uniform contemporary theoretical approach shotes to the study of those facts.The presentation is that of fairly traditional grammar and philolo gy, so as non to require educatees to master a rude(a) theoretical approach at the said(prenominal) time they be exploring the intricacies of nomenclature history. The focus of the account book is on the internal history of the side tal kinship groupg to its sounds, grammar, and sores program stock. That lingual history is, however, set against the br differently and ethnical natural coveringground of the changing times. The jump trinity chapters ar introductory, treating row in superior general as easy as the orthoepy and orthography of present- sidereal daytime side of meat.The succeeding central half-dozen chapters argon the heart of the book, tracing the history of the phraseology from prehistoric Indo-Germanic days finished Old slope, middle(a) side of meat, and early red-brick position up to the present time. The final three chapters deal with vocabularythe centre, reservation, and acceptance of verbiage. This sixth pas seul of a book Thom as Pyles wrote round cardinal years ago preserves the outline, emphasis, and aims of the original, as all to begin with editions flummox. The entire book has, however, been revise for utileness to students and ease of bringing.The study improvements of the fifth edition catch been retained. A large number of fresh multi distantiousnesss fool as strong been made, especially to nonplus the presentation easier to espo practice session. The historical information has been updated in chemical reaction to evolving scholarship, new examples necessitate been added (although effective older champion(a)s prolong been kept), the bibliography has been revised (including al around new electronic resources in addition to print media), and the glossary has been revised for clarity and accuracy. The prose style throughout has been made much(prenominal) than than contemporary and accessible.The antecedent hopes that much(prenominal) switchs allow help to make the book m uch(prenominal) reclaimable for students and instructors resembling. v all of the debts ac completeledged in earlier editions ar hitherto gratefully acknowledged for this superstar. This edition has especially benefited from the critiques of the following reviewers, whose actually helpful suggestions lose been followed wherever feasible. James E. Doan, Nova southwesterlyeastern University Mark Alan Vinson, Crichton College Jay Ruud, University of Central argon Elena Tapia, eastern hemisphereern Connecticut State University J. Mark Baggett, Samford UniversityMy former doctoral student and now an admired teacher and Scholar-in-Residence at Shorter College, Carmen Acevedo simplycher, made a major contri barelyion by suggesting improvements in the style and accuracy of the work, by providing new references for the bibliography (including electronic sources), and by reviewing the entire manuscript. My wife, Adele S. Algeo, who works with me on e realthing I do, has aided at every step of the revision. Her editorial core is nonpareil, and her support makes all work possibleand a pleasure. John Algeo vi PREFACE contents PREFACE v chapter 1 dustup and the side wrangleAn in feeler 1 A Definition of bawl outing to 2 vocabulary as System 2 Grammatical fall guyals 3 lyric as Signs 5 lecture as Vocal 6 Writing and linguistic talk 6 Gestures and de spankingry 8 Language as Conventional 8 Language mixed bag 10 The Notion of linguistic Corruption 10 Language variation 11 Correctness and Accept capacity 12 Language as Human 13 Theories of the Origin of Language 13 Innate Language cogency 14 Do Birds and Beasts Really Talk? 14 Language as Communication 15 Other Characteristics of Language 16 wherefore Study the taradiddle of incline? 17 For neerthe little drill 18 vii chapter 2 The hales of Current slope 20 The Organs of Speech 20 harmonicals of Current side of meat 21 Vowels of Current English 25 Vowels so unmatchedr r 28 Stress 28 un strained Vowels 29 Kinds of hearty Change 29 Assimilation Sounds Become More A same(p) 29 destructive metabolism Sounds Become Less A bid 30 Elision Sounds Are Omitted 30 Intrusion Sounds Are Added 31 Metathesis Sounds Are Reordered 31 Ca wasting diseases of Sound Change 31 The Phoneme 32 Differing Transcriptions 33 For Further information 34 chapter 3 Letters and Sounds A Brief History of Writing 35 Ideographic and Syllabic Writing 35 From Semitic Writing to the Greek Alphabet 36 The Greek Vowel and Consonant Symbols 36 The Romans follow the Greek Alphabet 37 posterior Developments of the Roman and Greek Alphabets 38 The Use of Digraphs 39 Additional Symbols 39 The History of English Writing 40 The Germanic Runes 40 The Anglo-Saxon Roman Alphabet 40 The recite of English Consonant Sounds 41 Stops 42 Fricatives 42 Affricates 43 Nasals 43 Liquids 43 Semivowels 43 The spell of English Vowel Sounds 43 breast Vowels 43 Central Vowel 44 Back Vowels 44 Diphthongs 45 Vowels plus r 45 viii table of contents Unstressed Vowels 45 spell out orthoepys and Pronunciation Spellings 46 Writing and History 47 For Further Reading 48 chapter 4 The Backgrounds of English 49 Indo-European Origins 50Indo-European Culture 50 The Indo-European Homeland 50 How Indo-European Was Discovered 51 Language Typology and Language Families 52 Non-Indo-European Languages 53 Main Divisions of the Indo-European Group 55 Indo-Iranian 55 Armenian and Albanian 58 Tocharian 58 Anatolian 59 Balto-Slavic 59 Hellenic 60 Italic 60 Celtic 61 Germanic 62 Cognate intelligence of honor of honors in the Indo-European Languages 63 rhythmic pattern in the Indo-European Languages 64 nigh Verb flections 65 any(prenominal) Noun Inflections 66 rallying cry Order in the Indo-European Languages 67 Major Changes From Indo-European to Germanic 69 First Sound switching 71 Grimms Law 71 Verners Law 73The Sequence of the First Sound Shift 74 West Germanic Languages 74 For Further Reading 76 chapter 5 The Old English flow rate (4491100) 78 Some tombstone Events in the Old English point 78 History of the Anglo-Saxons 79 Britain before the English 79 The Coming of the English 79 The English in Britain 81 CONTENTS ix The First Viking conquering 82 The Second Viking Conquest 83 The S open firedinavians Become English 84 The Golden Age of Old English 84 Dialects of Old English 85 Pronunciation and Spelling 86 Vowels 86 Consonants 87 script 89 Stress 90 style 90 The Germanic Word Stock 90 G stamp outer in Old English 91Grammar, Concord, and Inflection 92 Inflection 92 Nouns 93 i-Umlaut 95 ripe Survivals of sheath and Number 96 Modifiers 96 Demonstratives 96 Adjectives 97 Adverbs 98 Pronouns 99 Personal Pronouns 99 inquiry and congeneric Pronouns 100 Verbs 101 suggestive Forms of Verbs 102 Subjunctive and Imperative Forms 102 Nonfinite Forms 102 Weak Verbs 103 Strong Verbs 103 Preterit-Present Verbs 104 Suppletive Verbs one hundred vanadium Syntax 105 Old English Illustrated 1 08 For Further Reading 111 chapter 6 The center(a) English Period (11001500) 112 Some Key Events in the shopping center English Period 112 The Background of the Norman Conquest 113The Reascendancy of English 114 Foreign Influences on Vocabulary 115 Middle English Spelling 116 x CONTENTS Consonants 116 Vowels 118 The put on of a Lon fool Standard 119 Changes in Pronunciation 122 Principal Consonant Changes 122 Middle English Vowels 123 Changes in Diphthongs 124 Lengthening and bring down of Vowels 126 Leveling of Unstressed Vowels 127 divergence of Schwa in Final Syllables 127 Changes in Grammar 128 Reduction of Inflections 128 Loss of Grammatical Gender 129 Nouns, Pronouns, and Adjectives 129 The Inflection of Nouns 129 Personal Pronouns 130 Demonstrative Pronouns 132 Interrogative and Relative Pronouns 133Comparative and Superlative Adjectives 133 Verbs 133 Personal Endings 134 breachiciples cxxxv Word Order 135 Middle English Illustrated 136 For Further Reading 138 chapter 7 The Early fresh English Period (15001800) Society, Spellings, and Sounds 139 Some Key Events in the Early advanced(a) Period 139 The Transition from Middle to new English 140 elaborateness of the English Vocabulary 140 Innovation of Pronunciation and Conservation of Spelling 141 The Orthography of Early Modern English 141 The Great Vowel Shift 144 Other Vowels 147 Stressed Short Vowels 147 Diphthongs 148 Quantitative Vowel Changes 149Early Modern English Consonants 149 Evidence for Early Modern Pronunciation 151 Stress 151 studious Studies 151 CONTENTS xi Early Modern English Illustrated 152 Spelling 152 Pronunciation 153 For Further Reading 155 chapter 8 The Early Modern English Period (15001800) Forms, Syntax, and Usage 156 The Study of Language 157 Early Dictionaries 157 Eighteenth-Century Attitudes toward Grammar and Usage 158 Nouns clx Irregular Plurals 161 His-Genitive 161 Group Genitive 162 Uninflected Genitive 163 Adjectives and Adverbs 163 Pronouns 164 Personal Pronou ns 164 Relative and Interrogative Pronouns 168Case Forms of the Pronouns 169 Verbs 170 Classes of Strong Verbs 170 Endings for Person and Number 176 assure Forms 177 Expanded Verb Forms 178 Other Verbal Constructions 179 Prepositions 179 Early Modern English Further Illustrated 180 chapter 9 Late Modern English (1800Present) 181 Some Key Events in the Late Modern Period 181 The National Varieties of English 182 conservatism and Innovation in Ameri depose English 183 National Differences in Word Choice 185 Ameri elicit Infiltration of the British Word Stock 186 syntactical and Morphological Differences 187 British and Ameri dejection Purism 188 Dictionaries and the Facts 189National Differences in Pronunciation 190 British and American Spelling 193 Variation within National Varieties 194 xii CONTENTS Kinds of Variation 194 Regional Dialects 195 Ethnic and Social Dialects 196 Stylistic Variation 198 Variation within British English 198 World English 199 Irish English 199 Indian Engl ish 201 The Essential starness of All English 202 For Further Reading 202 chapter 10 linguistic dish and Meanings 206 Semantics and Change of Meaning 207 Variable and swooning Meanings 208 Etymology and Meaning 208 How Meaning Changes 209 Generalization and Specialization 210 Transfer of Meaning 211 connection of Ideas 212Transfer from Other Languages 212 Sound Associations 213 Pejoration and Amelioration 213 Taboo and Euphemism 214 The Fate of Intensifying talking to 217 Some Circumstances of Semantic Change 218 Vogue for Words of mark off Origin 219 Language and Semantic Marking 220 Semantic Change is undeniable 222 For Further Reading 223 chapter 11 recent Words from Old 224 Creating Words 224 Root Creations 224 Echoic Words 225 Ejaculations 225 Combining Words Compounding 227 Spelling and Pronunciation of Compounds 227 Amalgamated Compounds 229 Function and Form of Compounds 230 Combining Word split Affixing 230 Affixes from Old English 230Affixes from Other Languages 232 CONTENTS xiii Voguish Affixes 233 Shortening Words 235 Clipped Forms 235 Initialisms Alphabetisms and Acronyms 236 Apheretic and Aphetic Forms 237 Back-Formations 238 Bl death Words 239 upstart Morphemes from Blending 239 Folk Etymology 241 Shifting Words to New Uses 242 One Part of Speech to An signalize 242 Common Words from Proper Names 243 Sources of New Words 245 Distri entirelyion of New Words 245 For Further Reading 246 chapter 12 Foreign Elements in the English Word Stock 247 Popular and wise to(p) Loan dustup 248 Latin and Greek Loan talking to 248 Latin Influence in the Germanic Period 248Latin Words in Old English 249 Latin Words Borrowed in Middle English Times 250 Latin Words Borrowed in Modern English Times 251 Greek Loan communicate phraseology 251 Celtic Loanwords 252 Scandinavian Loanwords 253 Old and Middle English Borrowings 253 Modern English Borrowings 254 French Loanwords 254 Middle English Borrowings 254 Later French Loanwords 256 Spanish and Portugu ese Loanwords 258 Italian Loanwords 259 Germanic Loanwords 260 Loanwords from Low German 260 Loanwords from High German 261 Loanwords from the East 262 Near East 262 Iran and India 263 Far East and Australasia 264 Other Sources 265 Loanwords from African Languages 265Slavic, Hungarian, Turkish, and American Indian 266 xiv CONTENTS The Sources of modern Loanwords 266 English Remains English 267 For Further Reading 268 Selected Bibliography 269 Glossary 281 great power of Modern English Words and Affixes 301 Index of Persons, Places, and Topics 329 CONTENTS xv This page intentionally left blank CHAPTER Language and the 1 English Language An Introduction The English wrangle has had a remarkable history. When we head start make prisoner sight of it in historical records, it is the patois of few none-too-civilized tribes on the perfect of Europe along the North Sea.Of course, it had a still earlier history, passing sand perhaps to somewhere in eastern Europe or western Asia, a nd long before that to origins we can still specu later(a) about. From those cloudy and un lie withed showtimes, English has scram the virtually widespread expression in the world, utilise by more tidy sums for more purposes than any separate quarrel on Earth. How the English talking to multifariousnessd from macrocosm the patois of a few small tribes to becoming the major diction of the Earthand in the process itself revisiond radi pressy is the subject of this book.Whatever language we speakEnglish, Chinese, Hindi, Swahili, or Arapaho helps to define us personally and identify the community we belong to. save the fact that we can talk at all, the fact that we hurl a language, is inextricably throttle up with our forgivingity. To be piece is to example language, and to talk is to be a person. As the biologist and author Lewis Thomas wrote The gift of language is the hit compassionate trait that mark us all geneti betokeny, setting us a image from the rest o f life. Language is, like nest-building or hive-making, the planetary and biologically specific activity of charitable beings.We engage in it communally, compulsively, and automatically. We can non be human without it if we were to be separated from it our sagaciousnesss would die, as surely as bees lost from the hive. (Lives of a Cell 89) The language gift that is innate in us is non English or indeed any specific language. It is instead the competency to hit the books and to employ a human language. When we utter, Bread is the staff of life, we do non mean any varianceicular pleasant of bread totally wheat, rye, pumpernickel, French, matzo, pita, or whatever manikin. We are talking instead about the kind of thing bread is, what all bread has in common.So as well, when we say that language is the basis of our humanity, we do non mean any particular languageEnglish, Spanish, Japanese, Tagalog, Hopi, or ASL (American Sign Language of the deaf). Rather we mean the abili ty to agree and 1 part any much(prenominal) particular language brass, an ability that all human beings naturally down over. This ability is language in the abstract, as distinct from any individual language musical arrangement. A DEFINITION OF linguistic communication A language is a system of effected vocal signs by means of which human beings communicate. This definition has some(prenominal)(prenominal) important foothold, each of which is examined in some detail in the following sections.Those terms are system, signs, vocal, conventional, human, and communicate. phraseology AS SYSTEM Perhaps the well-nigh important word in the definition of language is system. We speak in patterns. A language is non bonny a collection of words, much(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) as we find in a dictionary. It is besides the rules or patterns that relate our words to one an early(a). any language has two levels to its systema characteristic that is called duality of pa tterning. One of these levels consists of meaty unitsfor example, the words and word parts such(prenominal) as Adam, like, -d, orchard apple tree, and -s in the reprove Adam liked apples. The former(a) level consists of units that induce no meaning in themselves, although they serve as components of the important unitsfor example, the sounds submited by the letters a, d, and m in the word Adam. The distinction mingled with a meaningful word (Adam) and its meaning little parts (a, d, and m) is important. Without that distinction, language as we know it would be impossible. If every meaning had to be dallyed by a unique, unanalyzable sound, exactly a few such meanings could be expressed. We gift only about 35 basic sounds in English we have hundreds of thousands of words.Duality of patterning lets us build an immensely large number of meaningful words out of only a handful of meaning slight sounds. It is perhaps the head route characteristic that distinguishes true human l anguage from the simpler communication systems of all unhuman beasts. The meaning slight components of a language are its sound system, or phonology. The meaningful units are its lexis, or vocabulary, and its well-formed system, or morphosyntax. All have patterning. Thus, correspond to the sound system of Modern English, the consonant combination mb never occurs at the beginning or at the end of any word.As a matter of fact, it did occur in final position in earlier stages of our language, which is why it was necessary in the preceding statement to specify Modern English. Despite the complete absence of the sounds mb at the ends of English words for at least 600 years, we still insist on physical compositionsuch is the conservatism of report habitsthe b in lamb, climb, tomb, dumb, and a number of other words. But this same combination, which now occurs only medially in English (as in tremble), may well occur finally or take down initially in other languages.Initial mb is ind eed a part of the systems of real African languages, as in Efik and Ibibio mbakara white man, which became buckra in the public lecture of the Gullahsblack Americans living along the coastal region of Georgia and South Carolina who have preserved a number of words and structural features that their ancestors brought from Africa. It is guiding light that the Gullahs simplified the initial 2 chapter 1 consonant combination of this African word to conform to the pattern of English destination. The lexis or vocabulary of a language is its least systematic aspect.Grammar is sometimes defined as everything in a language that can be stated in general rules, and lexis as everything that is un sure. But that is not quite an true. Certain combinations of words, called collocations, are more or less predictable. Mild and blueish are words of very similar meaning, hardly they go with different nouns cracked weather and gentle breeze are slimly more credibly than the opposite combinati ons (mild breeze and gentle weather). A causal agent of the flu may be severe or mild a judgment is likely to be severe or lenient.A mild judgment would be a bit odd, and a lenient case of the flu sounds like a joke. Some collocations are so regular that they are easily predictable. In the following sentence, one word is more probable than any other in the blank In its narrow cage, the lion paced back and . Although several(prenominal) words are possible in the blank (for example, forward or all the same ahead), forth is the near likely. Some combinations are exclusively predictable They ran fro. Fro is normal in present-day English only in the mien to and fro. The tendency of certain words to collocate or go together is an instance of system in the vocabulary.In the grammatical system of English, a very large number of words take a suffix compose as -s to indicate plurality or possession. In the latter(prenominal) case, it is a relatively recent convention of piece of wr iting to add an apostrophe. Words that can be frankincense transmute are nouns. They fit into certain patterns in English comments. Alcoholic, for instance, fits into the system of English in the same way as duck, dog, and horse Alcoholics motivation understanding (compare Ducks need water), An alcoholics perceptions are faulty (compare A dogs perceptions are express emotion), and the like.But that word can too modify a noun and be modified by an adverb an alcoholic drink, somewhat alcoholic, and the like and words that operate in the latter way are called adjectives. Alcoholic is thus either an adjective or a noun, depending on the way it chromosome mappings in the system of English. The utterance Alcoholic worries is ambiguous because our system, like all linguistic systems, is not completely foolproof. It major power be either a noun followed by a verb (in a newspaper headline) or an adjective followed by a noun.To know which meter reading is correct, we need a context for the expression. That is, we need to relate it to a bigger structure. Grammatical Signals The grammatical system of any language has various techniques for relating words to one other within the structure of a sentence. The following kinds of signals are especially important. Parts of row are grammatical categories into which we can straighten out words. The four major ones are noun, verb, adjective, and adverb. Some words elong primarily or solely to one part of dialect child is a noun, anticipate is a verb, tall is an adjective, and rapidly is an adverb. Other words can engage as more than one part of speech in various meanings, last can be any of the four major parts. English speakers move words about pretty emptyly from one part of speech to another(prenominal), as when we call a book that is enjoyable to read a safe read, language and the english language 3 making a noun out of a verb. Part of discerning English is knowing how words can be shifted in that way and w hat the limits are to such shifting. Affixes are one or more added sounds or letters that change a words meaning and sometimes alter its part of speech. When an affix comes at the front of a word, it is a prefix, such as the en- in encipher, enrage, enthrone, entomb, entwine, and enwrap, which marks those words as verbs. When an affix comes at the back of a word, it is a suffix, such as the -ist in dentist, geologist, motorist, and violinist, which marks those words as nouns. English has a small number of inflectional suffixes (endings that mark distinctions of number, case, person, tense, mood, and similarity).They include the plural -s and the possessive s employ with nouns (boys, boys) the ordinal person singular present tense -s, the past tense tense and past participle -ed, and the present participle -ing apply with verbs (aids, aided, aiding) and the comparative -er and superlative -est utilize with some adjectives and adverbs (slower, slowest). Inflection (the change in form of a word to mark such distinctions) may also involve internal change, as in the singular and plural noun forms man and men or the present and past verb forms sing and sang.A language that depends intemperately on the use of inflections, either internal or affixed, is said to be synthetic English used to be far more synthetic than it now is. Concord, or fit inment, is an interconnectedness between words, especially marked by their inflections. Thus, The bird sings and The birds sing dilate subject-verb concord. (It is just a coincidence that the singular ending of some verbs is undistinguishable in form with the plural ending of some nouns. Similarly, in this day both words are singular, and in these days both are plural some languages, such as Spanish, require that all modifiers agree with the nouns they modify in number, but in English only this and that change their form to order such agreement. Highly synthetic languages, such as Latin, usually have a great deal of co ncord thus Latin adjectives agree with the nouns they modify in number (bonus vir good man, boni viri good men), in gender (bona femina good woman), and in case (bonae feminae good womans).English once used concord more than it now does. Word order is a grammatical signal in all languages, though some languages, like English, depend more heavily on it than others do. The man finished the job and The job finished the man are sharply different in meaning, as are He died gayly and Happily he died. Function words are pip-squeak parts of speech (for example, articles, auxiliaries, conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, and certain adverbial particles) that serve as grammatical signals used with word order to serve some of the same functions as inflections.For example, in English the indirect object of a verb can be shown by either word order (I gave the dog a bone) or a function word (I gave a bone to the dog) in Latin it is shown by inflection (canis the dog, Cani os dedi To-the-dog a-bone I-gave). A language like English whose grammar depends heavily on the use of word order and function words is said to be analytic. prosodic signals, such as pitch, stress, and tempo, can indicate grammatical meaning. The remnant between the statement Hes here and the question 4 chapter 1 Hes here? is the pitch used at the end of the sentence.The chief difference between the verb conduct and the noun conduct is that the verb has a stronger stress on its second syllable and the noun on its first syllable. In He died happily and He died, happily, the tempo of the last two words makes an important difference of meaning. All languages have these kinds of grammatical signals available to them, but languages differ greatly in the use they make of the various signals. And even a hotshot language may change its use over time, as English has. LANGUAGE AS SIGNS In language, signs are what the system organizes.A sign is something that stands for something elsefor example, a word lik e apple, which stands for the familiar fruit. But linguistic signs are not words alone they may also be either smaller or larger than whole words. The smallest linguistic sign is the morpheme, a meaningful form that cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts. The word apple is a single morpheme applejack consists of two morphemes, each of which can also function autarkicly as a word. Apples also has two morphemes, but one (-s) can occur only as part of a word. Morphemes that can be used alone as words (such as apple and jack) are called free morphemes.Those that must be combined with other morphemes to make a word (such as -s) are hold morphemes. The word reactivation has five morphemes in it (one free and four bound), as a stepby- step synopsis shows re-activation activate-ion active-ate act-ive Thus reactivation has one free morpheme (act) and four bound morphemes (re-, -ive, -ate, and -ion). A word cannot be divided into morphemes just by sounding out its syllables. Som e morphemes, like apple, have more than one syllable others, like -s, are less than a syllable. A morpheme is a form (a sequence of sounds) with a recognisable meaning.Knowing a words early history, or etymology, may be useful in dividing it into morphemes, but the decisive factor is the form-meaning link. A morpheme may, however, have more than one pronunciation or spelling. For example, the regular noun plural ending has two spellings (-s and -es) and three pronunciations (an s-sound as in backs, a z-sound as in bags, and a vowel plus z-sound as in batches). Each spoken variation is called an allomorph of the plural morpheme. Similarly, when the morpheme -ate is followed by -ion (as in activateion), the t of -ate combines with the i of -ion as the sound sh (so we cogency spell the word activashon).such(prenominal) allomorphic variation is true of the morphemes of English, even though the spelling does not represent it. Morphemes can also be classified as base morphemes and affix es. An affix is a bound morpheme that is added to a base morpheme, either a prefix (such as re-) or a suffix (such as -s, -ive, -ate, and -ion). Most base morphemes are free (such as language and the english language 5 apple and act), but some are bound (such as the insul- of insulate). A word that has two or more bases (such as applejack) is called a compound. A linguistic sign may be word-sized or smallera free or a bound morpheme.But it may also be larger than a word. An idiom is a combination of words whose meaning cannot be predicted from its cistron parts. One kind of idiom is the combination of a verb with an adverb, a preposition, or bothfor instance, turn on (a light), call up (on the telephone), take over (a business), ask for (a job), come down with (an illness), and go back on (a promise). Such an expression is a single semantic unit to go back on is to abandon a promise. But from the standpoint of grammar, several independent words are involved. LANGUAGE AS VOCALLangua ge is a system that can be expressed in umpteen waysby the marks on paper or a computer screen that we call writing, by hand signals and gestures as in sign language, by sour lights or moving flags as in semaphore, and by electronic clicks as in old-fashioned telegraphy. However, the signs of languageits words and morphemesare basically vocal, or oral-aural, being sounds produced by the mouth and received by the ear. If human communication had developed primarily as a system of gestures (like the sign language of the deaf), it would have been quite different from what it is.Because sounds follow one another consecutive in time, language has a one-dimensional attribute (like the letters we use to represent it in writing), whereas gestures can fill the three dimensions of space as well as the fourth dimension of time. The ears can hear sounds coming from any direction, but the eyes can see gestures made only in front of them. The ears can hear through physical barriers, such as wa lls, which the eyes cannot see through. Speech has both advantages and disadvantages in comparison with gestures but on the whole, it is undoubtedly superior, as its evolutionary survival demonstrates.Writing and Speech Because writing has stupefy so important in our culture, we sometimes deal of it as more real than speech. A little thought, however, entrusting show why speech is primary and writing secondary to language. Human beings have been writing (as far as we can tell from the surviving evidence) for at least 5000 years but they have been talking for much longer, doubtless ever since they were fully human. When writing developed, it was derived from and represented speech, albeit im utterly (see Chapter 3). Even at present in that respect are spoken languages that have no written form.Furthermore, we see to talk long before we learn to save up any human child without physical or mental limitations will learn to talk, and most human beings cannot be prevented from do ing so. It is as though we were programmed to sustain language in the form of speech. On the other hand, it takes a special effort to learn to write. In the past, many another(prenominal) intelligent and useful members of society did not acquire that skill, and even right away many who speak languages with writing systems never learn to read or write, while some who learn the rudiments of those skills do so only imperfectly.To affirm the primacy of speech over writing is not, however, to victimize the latter. If communicate makes us human, writing makes us civilized. Writing has some 6 chapter 1 advantages over speech. For example, it is more permanent, thus making possible the records that any civilization must have. Writing is also capable of easily making some distinctions that speech can make only with difficulty. We can, for example, indicate certain types of pauses more tidyly by the spaces that we leave between words when we write than we ordinarily are able to do when we speak.Grade A may well be heard as gray day, but there is no mistaking the one phrase for the other in writing. Similarly, the comma distinguishes a pretty, hot day from a pretty hot day more clearly than these phrases are a lot distinguished in actual speech. But the question mark does not distinguish between Why did you do it? (I didnt hear you the first time you told me), with rising pitch at the end, and Why did you do it? (You didnt tell me), with falling terminal pitch. Nor can we show in writing the difference between sound persona tone (as in The sound quality of the recording was excellent) nd sound quality good tick (as in The materials were of sound quality)a difference that we signal very easily in speech by strongly stressing sound in the first sentence and the first syllable of quality in the second. Incense enrage and incense aromatic sum for burning are likewise sharply differentiated in speech by the position of the stress, as sewer conduit and sewer one wh o sews are differentiated by vowel quality. In writing we can distinguish those words only in context. Words that are enounce alike are called homophones.They may be spelled the same, such as bear operate and bear animal, or they may be distinguished in spelling, such as bare naked and either of the bear words. Words that are written alike are called homographs. They may also be pronounced the same, such as the two bear words or sprout to rip and tear spree (as in He went on a tear), or they may be distinguished in pronunciation, such as tear a drop from the eye and either of the other two tear words. Homonym is a term that covers either homophones or homographs, that is, a word either pronounced or spelled like another, such as all bear/bare and tear words.Homophones are the basis of puns, as in childish jokes about a bear behind and septenary days without chocolate make one weak, whose written forms resolve the ambiguity of their spoken forms. But William Shakespeare was by no means averse to this sort of thing puns involving tale and tail, whole and hole, hoar and whore, and a good many other homophones (some, like stale and steal, no longer homophonous) occur alternatively frequently in the writings of our greatest poet. The conventions of writing differ somewhat from those of ordinary speech.For instance, we ordinarily write was not, do not, and would not, although we usually say wasnt, dont, and wouldnt. Furthermore, our choice of words is likely to be different in writing and in everyday speech. But these are stylistic matters, as is also the fact that writing tends to be somewhat more conservative than speech. Representing the spellings of one language by those of another is transliteration, which must not be at sea with translation, the interpretation of one language by another. Greek an be transliterated pyr, as in pyromaniac, or translated fire, as in firebug. One language can be written in several orthographies (or writing systems). When the president of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal pacha (later called Kemal Ataturk), in 1928 substituted the Roman alphabet for the Arabic in writing Turkish, the Turkish language and the english language 7 language changed no more than time changed when he introduced the Gregorian calendar in his country to interchange the Islamic lunar one used earlier. Gestures and SpeechSuch specialized gestures as the absent-minded shrug of the shoulders, the admonitory shaking of the finger, the lifting up of the hand in recognise and the waving of it in parting, the widening of the eyes in astonishment, the scornful lifting of the brows, the approving nod, and the disapproving sideways shaking of the headall these need not accompany speech at all they themselves communicate. Indeed, there is some intellect to think that gestures are older than spoken language and are the hyaloplasm out of which it developed. Like language itself, such gestures vary in use and meaning from one culture to another.In I ndia, a sideways wagging of the head indicates that the head-wagger understands what another person is saying. When gestures accompany speech, they may be more or less unconscious, like the crossed arms of a person talking with another, indicating a lack of openness to the others ideas. The study of such communicative body movements is known as kinesics. Our various tones of give tongue tothe drawl, the sneer, the shout, the whimper, the simper, and the likealso play a part in communication (which we recognize when we say, I didnt mind what he said, I just didnt like the way he said it).The tones and gestures that accompany speech are not language, but rather parallel systems of communication called paralanguage. Other vocalizations that are communicative, like laughing, crying, groaning, and yelping, usually do not accompany speech as tones of voice do, though they may come before or afterward it. LANGUAGE AS CONVENTIONAL Writing is obviously conventional because we can represen t the same language by more than one writing system.Japanese, for example, is written with kanji (ideographs representing whole words), with either of two syllabaries (writing systems that present each syllable with a separate symbol), or with the letters of the Roman alphabet. Similarly, we could by general agreement renew English spelling (soe dhat, for egzammpul, wee spelt it liek dhis). We can change the conventions of our writing system just by agreeing to do so. Although it is not so obvious, speech is also conventional. To be sure, all languages share certain natural, inherent, or universal features.The human vocal apparatus (lips, teeth, tongue, and so forth) makes it inevitable that human languages have only a limited range of sounds. Likewise, since all of us live in the same universe and perceive our universe through the same senses with more or less the same basic mental equipment, it is just now surprising that we should find it necessary to talk about more or less t he same things in more or less similar ways. Nevertheless, the worlds many languages are conventional and generally imperative that is to say, there is usually no connection between the sounds we make and the phenomena of life.A comparatively small number of echoic words imitate, more or less closely, other sounds. Bow-wow come alongs to English speakers to 8 chapter 1 be a fairly accurate imitation of the sound made by a dog and therefore not to be wholly arbitrary, but it is passing doubtful that a dog would agree, particularly a French dog, which says gnaf-gnaf, or a German one, which says wau-wau, or a Japanese one, which says wung-wung. In Norway oxen do not say moo but mmmooo, sheep do not say baa but m? , and pigs do not say oink but noffnoff. Norwegian hens very sensibly say klukk-klukk, though doubtless with a heavy Norwegian accent.The process of echoing such sounds (also called onomatopoeia) is conventional. Most good deal assume that their language is the bestand so it is for them, because they know it well enough for their own purposes so long ago that they cannot call up when or how. It seems to them more logical and sensible, more natural, than the way others talk. But there is nobody really natural about any language, since all these super systematized and conventionalized methods of human communication must be acquired. There is, for instance, nothing natural in our use of is in such a sentence as The woman is busy. The utterance can be made just as effectively without that verb, and some languages do get along perfectly well without it. This use of the verb to be was, as a matter of fact, late in developing and never developed in Russian. To the speaker of Russian it is more natural to say Zhenshchina zanyata literally, Woman busywhich sounds to our ears so much like baby talk that the unsophisticated speaker of English might well (though quite wrongly) conclude that Russian is a childish tongue. The system of Russian also manages to struggle along without the definite article the.As a matter of fact, the speaker of Russian never misses itnor should we if it had not become conventional with us. To a naive speaker of English, calling the organ of sight eye may seem perfectly natural, and those who call it anything elselike the Germans, who call it Auge, the Russians, who call it glaz, or the Japanese, who call it meare likely to be regarded as black because they do not speak languages in which things are properly named. The fact is, however, that eye, which we pronounce exactly like I (a fact that might be cited against it by a foreign speaker), is the name of the organ only in present-day English.It has not always been so. Londoners of the fourteenth century pronounced the word with two syllables, something like ee-eh. If we chose to go back to King Alfreds day in the late ninth century, we would find yet another form of the word from which Modern English eye developed. The Scots are not being quaint or perver se when they say ee for eye, as in Robert Burnss poem To a Mouse tranquilize thou art blest, compared wi me The present only toucheth thee But och I loath cast my ee, On prospects drearThe Scots form is merely a variant of the worda perfectly legitimate pronunciation that happens not to occur in standard Modern English. Knowledge of such changes within a single language should dissipate the notion that any word is more appropriate than any other word, except in a sheer(a)ly chronological and social sense. language and the english language 9 Language Change Change is normal in language. either language is constantly turning into something different, and when we hear a new word or a new pronunciation or use of an old word, we may be catching the early stages of a change.Change is natural because a language system is culturally transmitted. Like other conventional matterssuch as fashions in clothing, hairstyles, cooking, entertainment, and governmentlanguage is constantly being rev ised. Language evolves more slowly than do some other cultural activities, but its change is continuous and inevitable. There are three general causes of language change. First, words and sounds may venture neighboring words and sounds. For example, sandwich is often pronounced, not as the spelling suggests, but in ways that might be represented as sanwich, sanwidge, samwidge, or even sammidge. Such spellings tactual sensation illiterate, but they represent perfectly normal, though informal, pronunciations that result from the position of a sound within the word. When nearby elements thus influence one another within the flow of speech, the result is called syntagmatic change. Second, words and sounds may be affected by others that are not immediately present but with which they are associated. For example, the side of a ship on which it was laden (that is, loaded) was called the ladeboard, but its opposite, starboard, influenced a change in pronunciation to larboard.Then, because larboard was likely to be upset(a) with starboard because of their similarity of sound, it was generally re put by port. Such change is called paradigmatic or associative change. Third, a language may change because of the influence of events in the world. New technologies like the World Wide Web require new forms like google to search the Internet for information and wiki (as in Wikipedia) a Website, database, or software for creating Web sites, especially collaborative ones, from the Hawaiian word for fast. New forms of human behavior, however bizarre, require new terms like suicide bomber. New concepts in science require new terms like transposon a transposable gene in DNA. In addition, new contacts with persons who use speechways different from our own may affect our pronunciation, vocabulary, and even grammar. Social change thus modifies speech. The documented history of the English language begins about A. D. 700, with the oldest written records. We can reconstruct some of the prehistory before that time, to as early as about 4000 B. C. but the farther back in time we go, the less certain we can be about what the language was like. The history of our language is traditionally divided into three periods Old English, from the earliest records (or from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of England around A. D. 450) to about 1100 Middle English, approximately from 1100 to 1500 and Modern English, since about 1500. The lines dividing the three periods are base on significant changes in the language about those times, but major cultural changes around 1100 and 1500 also contribute to our sense of new beginnings.These matters are inured in detail in Chapters 5 through 8. The Notion of Linguistic Corruption A widely held notion resulting from a misunderstanding of change is that there are ideal forms of languages, thought of as pure, and that existing languages represent corruptions of earlier ideal ones. Thus, the Greek spoken today is supposed to 10 chapter 1 be a degraded form of Classical Greek rather than what it really is, a development of it. Since the Romance languages are developments of Latin, it would follow from this point of view that they also are corrupt, although this assumption is not usually made.Those who admire or profess to admire Latin literature sometimes suppose that a stage of perfection had been reached in Classical Latin and that every subsequent development in Latin was an irreparable deterioration. From this point of view, the late development of Latin spoken in the early Middle Ages (sometimes called Vulgar, or popular, Latin) is bad Latin, which, strange as it may seem, was supremely to become good Italian, French, Spanish, and so on. Because we hear so much about pure English, we might carefully examine this notion.When Captain Frederick Marryat, an English novelist, visited the United States in 18371838, he thought it remarkable how very debased the language has become in a short period in America, adding th at if their lower classes are more intelligible than ours, it is equally true that the higher classes do not speak the language so purely or so classically as it is spoken among the well-educated English. Both statements are nonsense. The first is based on the captains apparent notion that the English language had reached a stage of perfection at the time English-speaking people first settled America.After this, presumably because of the innate depravity of those English settlers who brought their language to the New World, it had taken a steadily downward course, whatever that may mean. One wonders also precisely how Marryat knew what constituted classical or pure English. It is probable that he was merely attributing certain superior qualities to that type of English that he was accustomed to hear from persons of good social standing in the land of his birth and that he himself spoke. Any divergence was debased My speech is pure thine, wherein it differs from mine, is corrupt. La nguage Variation In addition to its change through the years, at any given period of time a language exists in many varieties. Historical, or diachronic, variation is matched by contemporary, or synchronic, variation. The latter is of two kinds dialects and registers. A dialect is the variety of a language associated with a particular place (Boston or New Orleans), social level (standard or nonstandard), ethnic group (Jewish or African-American), sex (male or female), age grade (teenage or mature), and so on.Most of us have a normal way of using language that is an intersection of such dialects and that marks us as being, for example, a middle-aged, white, cultured, female Charlestonian of old family or a young, urban, working-class, male Hispanic from New York City. Some people have more than one such dialect personality national politicians, for example, may use a Washingtonian government dialect when they are doing their job and a down-home dialect when they are interacting with their voters.Ultimately, each of us has a unique, personal way of using language, an idiolect, which identifies us for those who know us. A register is the variety of a language used for a particular purpose sermon language (which may have a distinctive rhythm and sentence melody and include words like brethren and beloved), restaurant-menu language (which is full of tasty adjectives like garden-fresh and succulent), telephone-conversation language (in which the speech of the secondary participant is full of uh-huh, I see, yeah, and language and the english language 11 h), postcard language (in which the subjects of sentences are frequently omitted Having a tremendous time. Wish you were here. ), and e-mail and instant-messaging language with abbreviations like BTDT (been there, done that), CUL8ER (see you later), CYO (see you online), and LOL (laughing out loud). Everyone uses several registers, and the more varied the circumstances under which we talk and write, the more register s we use. The dialects we speak help to define who we are. They tell those who hear us where we come from, our social or ethnic identification, and other such intimate facts about us.The registers we use reflect the circumstances in which we are communicating. They indicate where we are speaking or writing, to whom, via what medium, about what subject, and for what purpose. Dialects and registers provide optionsalternative ways of using language. And those options confront us with the question of what is the right or best alternative. Correctness and agreeableness The concept of an absolute and unwavering, presumably God-given standard of linguistic correctness (sometimes confused with purity) is widespread, even among the educated.Those who subscribe to this notion become greatly exercised over such matters as split infinitives, the incorrect position of only, and prepositions at the ends of sentences. All these supposed errors have been committed time and again by uplifted wri ters and speakers, so that one wonders how those who condemn them know that they are bad. Robert Lowth, who wrote one of the most influential English grammars of the eighteenth century (A Short Introduction to English Grammar, 1762), was praised by one of his admirers for showing the grammatic inaccuracies that have escaped the pens of our most distinguished writers. One would suppose that the language of our most distinguished writers would be good usage. But Lowth and his followers knew, or thought they knew, better and their bearing survives to this day. This is not, of course, to deny that there are standards of usage, but only to suggest that standards must be based on the usage of speakers and writers of generally acknowledged worthquite a different thing from a subservience to the mandates of seriously informed authorities who are guided by their own prejudices rather than by a study of the actual usage of educated and complaisant speakers and writers.To talk about correc tness in language implies that there is some abstract, absolute standard by which words and grammar can be judged something is either correct or incorrectand thats all there is to that. But the facts of language are not so clean-cut. Instead, many students of usage today prefer to talk about acceptability, that is, the degree to which users of a language will judge an expression as OK or will let its use pass without noticing anything out of the ordinary. An acceptable expression is one that people do not object to, indeed do not even notice unless it is called to their attention.Acceptability is not absolute, but is a matter of degree one expression may be more or less acceptable than another. If I were in your shoes may be judged more acceptable than If I was in your shoes, but both are considerably more acceptable than If we was in your shoes. Moreover, acceptability is not abstract, but is related to some group of people whose response it reflects. Thus most 12 chapter 1 Americ ans pronounce the past-tense verb ate like eight and regard any other pronunciation as unacceptable. Many Britons, on the other hand, pronounce it as ett and find the American preference less acceptable.Acceptability is part of the convention of language use in talking about it, we must always support in mind How acceptable? and To whom? LANGUAGE AS HUMAN As noted at the beginning of this chapter, language is a specifically human activity. That statement, however, raises several questions. When and how did human beings acquire language? To what intent is language innate, and to what extent is it learned? How does human language differ from the communication systems of other creatures? We will look briefly at each of these questions.Theories of the Origin of Language The ultimate origin of language is a matter of speculation since we have no real information about it. The earliest languages for which we have records are already in a high stage of development, and the same is true of languages spoken by technologically primitive peoples. The problem of how language began has tantalized philosophical minds, and many theories have been advanced, to which waggish scholars have given such fanciful names as the pooh-pooh theory, the bow-wow theory, the ding-dong theory, and the yo-he-ho theory.The nicknames indicate how seriously the theories need be taken they are based, respectively, on the notions that language was in the beginning ejaculatory, or echoic (onomatopoeic), or characterized by a mystic nicety of sound to sense in contrast to being merely imitative, or made up of grunts and groans emitted in the course of group actions. According to one theory, the early prelanguage of human beings was a mixture of gestures and sounds in which the gestures carried most of the meaning and the sounds were used chiefly to punctuate or amplify the gesturesjust the opposite word of our use of speech and hand signals.Eventually human physiology and behavior changed in several related ways. The human brain, which had been expanding in size, lateralizedthat is, each half came to specialize in certain activities, and language ability was localized in the left hemisphere of most persons. As a consequence, handedness developed (right-handedness for those with left-hemisphere dominance), and there was great manual specialization. As people had more things to do with their hands, they could use them less for communication and had to rely more on sounds.Therefore, increasingly complex forms of oral signals developed, and language as we know it evolved. The fact that we human beings alone have vocal language but share with our closest animal kin (the apes) an ability to learn complex gesture systems suggests that manual signs may have preceded language as a form of communication. We cannot know how language really began we can be sure only of its immense antiquity. However human beings started to talk, they did so long ago, and it was not until much late r that they devised a system of making marks on wood, stone, or clay to represent what they said.Compared with language, writing is a newfangled reflection, although certainly not less brilliant for being so. language and the english language 13 Innate Language Ability The acquisition of language would seem to be an arduous task. But it is a task that children all over the world seem not to mind in the least. Moreover, children in daily contact with a language other than their home languagethat of their parentsreadily learn to speak the other language with a native accent. After childhood, however, perhaps in the teen years, most people find it difficult to learn a new language.Young children seem to be genetically equipped with an ability to acquire language. But after a while, that automatic ability atrophies, and learning a new language becomes a chore. To be sure, children of five or so have not acquired all of the words or grammatical constructions they will need as they grow up. But they have mastered the basics of the language they will speak for the rest of their lives. The immensity of that accomplishment can be appreciated by anyone who has learned a second language as an adult.It is clear that, although every particular language has to be learned, the ability to acquire and use language is a part of our genetic inheritance and operates most expeditiously in our younger years. Do Birds and Beasts Really Talk? Some animals are physically just about as well equipped as humans to produce speech sounds, and somecertain birds, for instancehave in fact been taught to do so. But no other species makes use of a system of sounds even remotely resembling ours. Human language and animal communication are fundamentally different.In the second half of the twentieth century, a trio of chimpanzeesSarah, Lana, and Washoegreatly modified our ideas about the linguistic abilities of our closest relatives in the animal kingdom. After several efforts to teach chimps to talk had ended in almost total failure, it was generally concluded that apes lack the cognitive ability to learn language. Some psychologists reasoned, however, that the main problem might be a simple anatomical limitation human vocal organs are so different from the corresponding ones in apes that the animals cannot produce the sounds of human speech.If they have the mental, but not the physical, ability to talk, then they should be able to learn a language using a medium other than sound. Sarah was taught to communicate by arranging plastic tokens of arbitrary color and shape. Each of the tokens, which were metal-backed and placed on a magnetized board, represented a word in the system, and groups of tokens corresponded to sentences. Sarah learned over a hundred tokens and could manage sentences of the complexity of Sarah take banana if-then bloody shame no give chocolate Sarah (that is, If Sarah takes a banana, Mary wont give Sarah any chocolate).Lana also used word symbols, but hers were on a typewriter connected to a computer. She communicated with people, and they with her via the computer. Typed-out messages appeared on a screen and had to conform exactly to the rules of word order of the system Lana had been taught, if she was to get what she asked for (food, drink, companionship, and the like). Washoe, in the most interesting of these efforts to teach animals a language, was schooled in a gesture language used by the deaf, American Sign Language. 14 chapter 1Her remarkable success in learning to communicate with this quite natural and adaptable system has resulted in its being taught to a number of other chimpanzees and gorillas. The apes learn signs, use them appropriately, combine them meaningfully, and when occasion requires even invent new signs or combinations. For example, one of the apes made up the terms candydrink and drinkfruit to talk about watermelons. The linguistic accomplishment of these apes is remarkable nevertheless, it is a far cry from the fullness of a human language.The number of signs or tokens the ape learns, the complexity of the syntax with which those signs are combined, and the breadth of ideas that they represent are all far more restricted than in any human language. Moreover, human linguistic systems have been fundamentally shaped by the fact that they are expressed in sound. Vocalness of language is no mere incidental characteristic but rather is central to the nature of language. We must still say that only human beings have language in the full sense of that term. LANGUAGE AS COMMUNICATIONThe purpose of language is to communicate, whether with others by