Linguistic Change: Analogy, Scandinavian Influence, and More
Analogy in Linguistic Change
Analogy prevents sound changes that solely respond to regular phonological rules. For example, the change in English that led to the disappearance of /w/ after /o:/ and before /s/, as seen in sword (pronounced /so:d/). The presence of related forms like swear and swell, where /w/ was always pronounced, prevented its loss in their past forms. Analogical maintenance blocks this development.
Strong verbs in Middle English formed their past tense through vocalic change. The verb help would have become holp, but this form didn’t survive. By analogy, we find helped. Such changes simplify language use.
Analogical developments can also create new terms. Bynon uses the example of hamburger. Its etymology comes from Hamburg, so ham- doesn’t refer to the main ingredient. However, new forms like beef burger and cheeseburger have emerged.
The permanence of analogical developments isn’t guaranteed. For example, the Latin prefix in-, indicating the opposite of the stem, disappeared but later returned through reanalogization.
An example of analogical change in English leading to morphological variation involves Latin loans with irregular plurals, like cactus/cacti. This regular pluralization was applied to non-Latin words like octopus (Greek), resulting in octopi instead of octopodes.
Analogical Leveling
Analogical leveling involves replacing less frequent forms with more common ones, leading to a regular model in modern French.
Contamination
Contamination is an irregular change in a word’s form due to the influence of an associated word. For example, the Latin number nine should have been *noven but was contaminated by decem (ten), resulting in novem.
Hypercorrection
Hypercorrection occurs when speakers intentionally try to normalize a form by following prestigious patterns, even if the correction is incorrect. For example, British speakers trying to sound American might insert /r/ into words like court and incorrectly into words like avocado (avoca(r)do).
Scandinavian Invasions and Influence Upon English
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Scandinavian attacks on England began in 787. Initially, many invaders came to pillage, but some settled permanently. The extent of Scandinavian settlement is evident in the numerous place names with the -by ending, meaning “farm” or “town” in Danish.
While the invasions brought suffering, many invaders married locals and adopted their customs. English and Danish interacted extensively, as seen in the many Scandinavian words in English.
Phonetics helps identify Scandinavian loanwords. For example, the Danish sound /sk/ became /ʃ/ (sh) in English, indicating that words like sky, skirt, skill, and skin are from Old Norse.
Early borrowings relate to seafaring and raiding, like ship (from Old Norse scegp). Later borrowings relate to law and administration in the Danelaw, like outlaw and law.
Scandinavian and English people had close contact. Borrowed words reflect everyday life, including sister, root, reindeer, window, and seat. Scandinavians also contributed pronouns, adverbs, prepositions, and even the plural forms of “to be”: their, them, are, they.
Certain syntactic elements in the Northumbrian dialect, like the -s in the 3rd person singular present indicative, are attributed to Scandinavian influence.
The simplification and loss of inflections were significant grammatical changes, accelerated in the Danelaw due to Scandinavian influence.