Understanding Sound and Semantic Changes in Language

Posted on Apr 3, 2025 in History

Sound Changes in Language

Sound change tends to be regular and aims for easier pronunciation, although simplification is relative. There are two main types:

  • Isolative (Unconditional) Change: A phoneme changes in all contexts.
  • Conditional Sound Change: Occurs in a specific phonetic environment, such as umlaut.

Assimilation

Assimilation is when a sound becomes more similar to an adjacent sound, affecting voicing, manner of articulation, and place of articulation. It’s often motivated by ease of articulation.

Types of Assimilation:

  • By Direction:
    • Regressive: e.g., Old English wifman > wimman.
    • Progressive: e.g., Germanic *wulno > wullo > Old English wull.
  • By Extent:
    • Total: e.g., Old English wifman > wimman.
    • Partial: e.g., Latin in + premere > imprimere.
  • By Relation with Environment:
    • Immediate: e.g., English attain, annihilate.

Palatalization

Palatalization, a major change from Germanic to Old English, is a process where a front vowel causes a sound to move forward or backward to become more palatal in articulation. Examples include:

  • /k/ to /tʃ/: kaester > caester > ceaster (“chester”)
  • /g/ to /j/
  • /sk/ to /ʃ/: Old English scip (“ship”) or fisc (“fish”)

Assimilation Affecting Vowels

Vowel Harmony: An assimilation process involving vowels of different syllables. Some languages, like Turkish, have restrictions.

Umlaut (Mutation): A crucial change affecting vowels as Old English grew out of Germanic, impacting all Germanic languages except Gothic. In Old English, i-umlaut involves a vowel undergoing fronting or raising when followed by /i, i:, j/ in the following syllable (e.g., Germanic fulljan > Old English fyllan). This has left a legacy in Modern English irregular plurals like tooth > teeth or comparatives like old > elder.

Dissimilation

Dissimilation is when a sound becomes different from an adjacent sound. It’s less common than assimilation and generally occurs with liquids /l, r/ and nasals. Examples:

  • l > r: Italian colonello > Spanish coronel (regressive)
  • n > r: Latin sanguine > Spanish sangre

Weakening or Lenition

Weakening or lenition is the process of reducing muscular tension in articulation, changing a sound considered “stronger” (fortis) to “weaker” (lenis). Examples:

  • Sonorization: e.g., Latin cupa > Spanish cuba.
  • Vocalization: e.g., Latin alteru > autero > Spanish otro.
  • Rhotacism: e.g., Latin genesis > generis.

Loss of a Sound

  • Aphaeresis: Loss of an initial sound (e.g., Knight).
  • Syncope: Loss of a medial sound (e.g., Old English strangara > strangra).
  • Apocope: Loss of a final sound (e.g., Old English nama > Modern English name).
  • Consonant Cluster Reduction: Reduction of consonant groups at the beginning or end of a syllable (e.g., Old English betst > Modern English best).
  • Haplology: Loss of an entire syllable (e.g., Old English Anglaland > Modern English England).

Insertion of Sounds

  • Prothesis: Insertion at the initial position (e.g., Latin spiritus > Spanish espiritu).
  • Epenthesis: Insertion at the medial position (e.g., Old English glimsen > Modern English glimpse).
  • Vowel Breaking: e.g., Old English herte > Old English heorte (“heart”).

Metathesis

Metathesis is the reversal of two sounds, especially common with liquids and vowels (e.g., Spanish tronada > Modern English tornado; Old English frist > Modern English first).

Semantic Change

Semantic change is an alteration in the lexical meaning of a word or morpheme. It’s highly susceptible to change because the connection between a word and its meaning is arbitrary and conventional. Meaning is flexible because words can be used in different contexts with different meanings, and meaning is subjective.

Types of Semantic Change:

  • Generalization (Broadening): Widening in the scope of a word’s meaning.
  • Specialization (Narrowing): Narrowing in the scope of a word’s meaning.
  • Elevation (Amelioration): A word acquires a more favorable meaning (e.g., Old English cniht “boy” > Modern English knight).
  • Degeneration (Pejoration): The opposite of elevation (e.g., Old English sely “blessed” > Modern English silly).
  • Weakening (Attenuation): Use of words that are stronger than required by the circumstances (e.g., “awfully” has become weakened to “very”).
  • Strengthening (Intensification): The opposite of weakening, also called euphemism (e.g., semantic shift of “to sleep with somebody” or phonetic distortion of “darn” for “damn”).
  • Metaphoric Transfer: e.g., “The dollar has gone down.”
  • Metonymic Transfer: An object/idea is described through the name of some closely related entity (e.g., Old English cease “jaw” > Modern English cheek).
  • Synecdoche: A type of metonymic transfer where the meanings are related as whole and part (e.g., Pre-English stobo > stove).
  • False Friends: Words with similar forms but different meanings (e.g., Spanish/English actual).