A Guide to Understanding Grammaticalization and Language Change
Grammaticalization
Grammaticalization is the historical process whereby lexical items, over time, acquire a new status as grammatical or morphosyntactic forms. In this process, they come to code relations that either were not coded before or were coded differently.
Examples:
- Old English (OE) hād (‘state, quality’) → Present-Day English (PdE) -hood (derivational suffix)
- OE līc (‘body’) → PdE -ly (derivational suffix)
- Latin habēre → Spanish hás (‘to have’) → (tu comprar)-ás (‘you will buy’; ‘as‘ = inflectional suffix)
Processes Involved in Grammaticalization:
Phonological Reduction: Grammaticalized items are often reduced phonologically. For example:
- let us go → let’s go → les go → sgo
- going to → gonna
Essentially, words like verbs and nouns start to function as particles and inflect tense. When a word with a previous lexical function changes to serve a grammatical function, like a verb becoming a grammatical element, that’s grammaticalization.
Example:
The English phrase “going to” is typically lexical, as in “I’m going to the supermarket.” However, it can also be used grammatically: “I’m going to brush my teeth.” In the latter case, there’s no actual “going” implied; it simply marks the near future.
Grammaticalization is a process of language change where words representing objects and actions (nouns and verbs) become grammatical markers (affixes, prepositions, etc.). It’s a powerful aspect of language, creating new function words by separating functions from their original inflectional and bound forms. This process focuses on a particular type of lexical and grammatical change.
Example:
The lexical cluster “let us” in the sentence “let us eat” can be reduced to a single word, “let’s,” as in “let’s you and me fight.” In many cases, the phrase loses its lexical meaning of “allow us” and transforms into an auxiliary to introduce a suggestion, with the pronoun ‘us’ reduced first to a suffix and then to an unanalyzed phoneme.
Language Shift vs. Language Change
Language shift and language change are distinct concepts. Language shift occurs when a speech community abandons one language in favor of another, such as when the Irish people shifted from Irish to English.
Language change, on the other hand, refers to various changes within a language, including sound changes, loanwords, and semantic changes.
Epenthesis Vowel
An epenthetic vowel is a vowel inserted into a word to facilitate pronunciation. For example, the Spanish “e” before consonant clusters with “s” (e-spero, e-spanol). When this occurs at the beginning of a word, it’s called prothesis.
Example:
In Russian, the word for “cat” is “koshka.” The genitive plural form deletes the final “a,” resulting in “koshk,” which is difficult to pronounce. Therefore, the genitive plural is actually “koshek,” with the “e” serving as the epenthetic vowel.
Vowel epenthesis is often motivated by the need to make consonant contrasts more distinct. In certain varieties, a vowel breaks up a consonant cluster.
Examples:
- The development of Old English aemtig into empty, with epenthetic “p”
- The development of Old English þunor into thunder, with epenthetic “d”
Non-standard pronunciations like “athalete” for athlete and “fillum” for film also feature epenthetic vowels.
Epenthetic sounds aren’t always vowels. Consider the indefinite articles “a” and “an.” The “n” in “an” can be seen as an epenthetic sound that prevents two vowels from occurring together: a apple vs. an apple.
Folk Etymology
Folk etymology, a case of reanalysis, refers to a change in a word’s form due to erroneous popular beliefs about its derivation. This often results in a non-transparent form and can affect pronunciation.
Examples:
- Sparrow-grass was a dialectal form of asparagus.
- Cockroach, borrowed from Spanish cucaracha, was folk-etymologized as cock + roach.
- Estonian Aula (‘place of honor’) < au-la < au (‘honor’) + la (place name)
Causes of Language Change
Language change is a complex phenomenon driven by various factors, including:
- Popular new pronunciations: These can originate from influential figures or even children’s playful use of language.
- Imperfect transmission: Like a game of telephone, language is constantly being reinterpreted and reshaped as it’s passed from one speaker to another.
- Children: As language learners, children play a significant role in driving language change.
- Micro-variation: Differences in speech patterns within a community can lead to larger-scale changes over time.
- Language contact: Interaction with other languages can introduce new words and constructions.
- Speaker creativity: Novel uses of language can become adopted by others and eventually become standard.
- Language economy: Simpler forms of expression tend to prevail over more complex ones.
- Fashion: The desire for novelty and change can influence language trends.
In essence, language changes because everything else changes.
Sound Law
A sound law is an assumption that a sound change occurring in a specific environment at a specific time will always occur under the same conditions. This concept was introduced by the Neogrammarian school in the 19th century.
Examples:
- Proto-Indo-European (PIE) *b d g becoming Proto-Germanic p t k
- Final devoicing in German: voiced plosives and fricatives become voiceless at the end of a syllable
While real-world sound changes often have exceptions, the expectation of regularity is valuable for historical linguists in establishing regular correspondences.
Each sound change is limited in space and time, operating within a specific area and period.
Examples:
- PIE *b d g becoming Proto-Germanic p t k
- Final devoicing in German
The concept of a sound law is somewhat problematic, as it assumes exceptionlessness while acknowledging that every word has its own history.
Assimilation
Assimilation is a sound change process where one sound is influenced or modified by neighboring sounds. There are two main types:
Regressive Assimilation:
The following sound influences the preceding sound.
Examples:
- Inmobile → immobile
- Incorrect (inkorrect)
- In + polite → impolite
- In + rational → irrational
- In + logical → illogical
Progressive Assimilation:
The preceding sound influences the following sound.
Example:
seven → sevm (instead of [seven] where [en] changes to syllabic [m])Assimilation can be partial or total, and it can occur between adjacent or non-adjacent segments.
Questions of Etymology and Reconstruction
Etymology and reconstruction are crucial aspects of historical linguistics. Examining how words have evolved and changed over time helps us understand the relationships between languages and their origins.
Examples:
- Proto-Finno-Ugric *puna (‘hair’) > Mansi *pun (‘hair, feather’), Finnish *puna (‘redness’) – a semantic shift from ‘hair’ to ‘red’
- Proto-Uralic *kele (‘tongue’) > Erzya *kel’, Selkup *šē – illustrating sound changes
These examples demonstrate the complexities of language change and the importance of careful analysis in tracing the evolution of words and sounds.