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WEEK 1 - ENGLISH AS A GERMANIC LANGUAGE
Traditional classification of languages: Languages can be classified in two different ways:
- Typologically
- Genealogically Languages can be subdivided in two main categorizes: 1. synthetic or inflectional languages – > are those languages whose grammatical categories, relations and verb inflections (i.e. person, number, tense, mood) are expressed through case markers (a.k.a inflections or endings) 2. analytic languages – > grammatical and syntactic relations are expressed through words order and function/grammatical words (e.g. prepositions and auxiliaries) Throughout his history, English has moved from being a highly inflected language (in Old English) to being predominantly an analytic language in Present day English. The genealogical principle classifies languages according to their origins (historical parentage). Genetically, English belongs to the Germanic family à one of the major group of the Indo-European linguistic family. Indo-European languages à an extended group of languages, which spread from Asia up to Northern Europe. Subfamiliesà Celtic – Germanic – Romance – Slavic– Baltic – Albanian – Greek – Armenian In particular Germanic sub-family is divided in:
- North Germanic à Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish
- East Germanic à Modern High German, Yiddish
- West Germanic à Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Modern Low German
English is a Germanic Language à what does that mean?
Germanic and German mean different things à German is a language whereas Germanic is used to refer to the Language family that includes the German language. All languages that belong to the Germanic subfamily share a common ancestor or originà^ the Proto- Germanic à an entirely pre-historical language (is a reconstructed language and there is no evidence of it in any written form). Proto- Germanic was reconstructed in the 19 th^ Century^ by methods of comparative linguistics from written evidence in descendant languages. By simply comparing for example English and German to Swedish, Norwegian linguists realized several correspondences (in grammar, sounds, syntax, vocabulary) between these languages. They theorize the fact that all these languages descends form a parent language, which is the Proto- Germainc. (The languages that belongs to the same family share some features f.e grammar, syntax)
Common features among Germanic Languages:
- Sound correspondences à there is a close relationship between f.e Mutter and Mother à when you have a D in English – T in German
- Grammatical evidence à Good morning and Guten Morgen
- Basic vocabulary à is the least reliable form of evidence à WHY? Because of the Norman invasion
of 1066 à the Vikings brought with them many words that entered in the language and most of
these words are still used. So we can say that an historical event can produce effects on the languages. Vocabulary in PDE is a mix of Germanic, Spanish, Italian and French words All Old Germanic languages were synthetic languages. VERBS All Germanic languages had a well-developed system of strong and weak verbs. Strong verbs à correspond in PDE to irregular verbs (un verbo che è irregolare in PDE, in OE era strong) Weak verbs à correspond in PDE to regular verbs (all the new verbs are regular) So in PDE we do not distinguish between weak and strong verbs; we distinguish between REGULAR AND IRREGULAR VERBS. Old English was very complex because it had 7 classes of strong verbs while 4 different classes of weak verbs. In Present Day English whenever a verb is coined or created, it follows the regular inflections (i nuovi verbi seguono la flessione verbale REGOLARE) In Old Germanic (Old English as well) verbs were inflected for:
- Person à 1 st,2nd. 3rd
- Number à singular, plural
- Tense à present, past The much of this complexity of old English is lost in PDE à in PDE the only verb that is still inflected is TO BE I was, you were à remanence of verbs inflection The other verbs 1st^ and 2nd^ person lost (3rd^ only in present tense) à this complexity is maintained in German NOUNS (PRONOUNS) All Germanic languages and Old English were inflected for case:
- Nominative (subject)
- Genitive (possessive)
- Dative (indirect object and other cases)
- Accusative (direct object) In PDE only the genitive is maintained and the other cases are lost.
- Verb in final position in main clauses if an auxiliary is in 2nd^ position (after a subject or time adverb) PRESENT DAY GERMAN à Wir haben uns in Berlin kennengelernt IF ENGLISH HAD MAINTAINED FLEXIBILITY IN TERMS OF WORD ORDERà We have in Berlin met PRESENT DAY ENGLISHà We me t in Berlin
- Verb in final position in subordinate clauses PRESENT DAY GERMAN à Ich wusste nicht, dass du so klug bist IF ENGLISH HAD MAINTAINED FLEXIBILITY IN TERMS OF WORD ORDER à I didn’t know that you so smart were PRESENT DAY ENGLISH à I didn’t know that you were so smart
- Auxiliary in final position in subordinate clauses
PRESENT DAY GERMAN à Hast du die Lampe, die du gestern gesehen hast , gekauft?
IF ENGLISH HAD MAINTAINED FLEXIBILITY IN TERMS OF WORD ORDER à Have you the lamp, that you yesterday seen have, bought? PRESENT DAY ENGLISH à Did you buy the lamp that you saw yesterday? So you can easily realize that in terms of syntax and particularly in terms of word order English has lost a lot comparing to other languages in the Germanic family, especially comparing it to German. Is word order flexible or fixed in Present Day German? The answer is FLEXIBLE Is word order flexible or fixed in Present Day English? The answer is FIXED (even if there are some exceptions to this rule)
All Germanic languages and Old English too, had the past participle forms formed with this articleà ge- in
front of them
PRESENT DAY GERMANà gekauft, kennen-gelernt, gekommen
OLD ENGLISHàgebought, gegone (il ge si leggeva /ie/)
PRESENT DAY ENGLISHà bought, gone
- Prefixation of particles to verbs PRESENT DAY GERMANà more frequent than English
PRESENT DAY ENGLISHà intake, upload, download, etc BASIC VOCABULARY: When we talk about the history of a language, we distinguish between external and internal history EXTERNAL HISTORY à we refer to the historical events (f.e. invasions) INTERNAL HISTORY à we talk about the language events that have changed a language (f.e language phenomena) Invasions influenced mostly the area of vocabulary. In PDE we can say that several layers are at play in the sense that, even though the basic vocabulary is kind of Germanic, lots of words that we use daily have not Germanic origins. They were borrowed or inborrowed by English from a variety of foreign languages. Examples of loan words that are not English and that we use anyway:
- City à was borrowed by Anglo-Norman (The Northern French variety) à cite
While the Old English word was tūn à PDE town
- They à was borrowed from Old Norman peir
While the Old English word was hī The interplay between Anglo-Saxon, French and Latin/Greek is particularly evident in kinship terms : i) Anglo-Saxon origin à the basic kinship terms, e.g father, mother, husband, wife, son ii) Hybrid formations à Old English + foreign language: grandmother/-father iii) French/Latin origin à other kinship terms: e.g Aunt, uncle, nice, nephew, family
At the level of vocabulary, foreign influence shows in two major categories of words:
- Loan words (prestiti) = a word, which has been adopted from a foreign language, and then it’s incorporated into another language without translation. Loan words examples : city < A.N. citee (O.E. tūn / bur(u)g/burh) they < O.N. þeir (O.E. hī) take < O.N. taka (O.E. nīman) beef datum/data Alcohol Arabic Pizza Maquiladora Vuvuzela Whenever a language borrows a word from a donor source language, the 1st^ step consists in adopting the new word and then adapting the foreign material to the target language, particularly to the phonological, orthographic and morphological features of the target language. Sometimes the words borrowed didn’t go through any process of adaptation à no adaptation OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY à monumental tool which consists of many volumes and it contains the entire history of the English language from the Old English period up to the present time.
- Loan translations/shift/calques = a word or a phrase whose meaning is adopted from another language by word-for-word translation into existing words of recipient language. (f.e fine settimana – weekend) In the loan translation, there is a donor language and a recipient language. Loan translations/shift/calques examples: Flea market < Fr. Marché aux puces masterpiece < Dutch Meesterstuk/German Meisterstück forgive < Lat. perdōnare (Latin from the Christianization via Norman French borrowing) almighty < Lat. Omnipotens Holy Ghost/Spirit < Lat. Spiritus San(c)tus it goes without saying < Fr. ça va sans dire Over 120 languages all over the world are recorded as sources of the vocabulary of PDE. They involve the whole history of the language. The composition of the lexicon (Scheler 1977à still a true representation nowadays) Þ Romance Languages 30,2% (di cui French 28,4%, others 1,8%, Latin 28,3%)
More than 50% of PDE vocabulary is not actually of English (not Anglo-Saxon) origins. That means that romance languages such as French and Latin have always played a major role in the development of English vocabulary. Interplay between Anglo-Saxon, French and Latin is evident in KINSHIP TERMS : a) Anglo-saxon origin à the basic kinship terms à e.g. father, mother, husband, wife, son, daughter, sister, brother b) French/Latin origin à other kinship terms à e.g. aunt, uncle, nice, nephew, family c) Hybrid formations à Old English word + a word of a foreign language à e.g. grandmother, grandfather At the time of the Norman conquest there were 2 different varieties of French:
- Norman French (spoken in Northern France)
- Central/Parisian French (is the variety that continues in Modern French). French had a huge impact on PDE vocabulary. At the beginning of French dominance on the British isle, it was Norman French that represented the language of prestige in England (from the Norman conquest up to the beginning of the 13th^ Century). After the early 13th^ Century there was a shift from Norman French to Parisian and Central French.
CATCH (NF)à the initial C is red /k/ in Norman French – CHASE (CF)à the initial CH is red “/tʃ/”. cattle (NF) – chattel (CF) (< Late L. captale ‘property’) à both words exist in PDE, slat differences in meaning both words came from Latin. CATTLE (NF)à the initial C is red /k/ in Norman French – CHATTLE (CF)à the initial CH is red “/tʃ/”. **_Latin /tʃ/, /tz/ > /s/ (Centr. French)
/tʃ/ Norman French)_** LAUNCH (NF) à the final CH is red “/tʃ/” - LANCE (CF) à the final CE is red “/s/” A very interesting example is represented by W ARRANTY vs G UARANTEE à different realizations of the same word. Unlike the other words given before, the word “warranty” has Germanic origin (not Latin), it entered in English via French. Again, warranty entered English via Norman Franch whereas guarantee entered English via Central French. This example represents the French treatment of initial /w/ in words of Germanic origin à non è un esempio di una parola latina che entra in inglese attraverso la mediazione francese, ma è una parola che appartiene al gruppo delle lingue germaniche, che però l’inglese non aveva, ed entra in inglese attraverso il francese. Warranty entra in inglese nel 14esimo secolo (Norman French) e Guarantee entra in inglese nel 17esimo secolo (Central French)à older borrowing vs later borrowing In the PDE vocabularyàthe words, which have been derived from Anglo-Saxon/Germanic languages generally tend to be used in low context, they are less formal than those which have been derived either from French or Latin. ANGLO-SAXON/GERMANIC à low register FRENCH/LATIN à high register, more prestigious (Infatti i phrasal verbs sono tutti di origine germanica e sono usati in contesti meno formali)
LEXICAL DOUBLETS / LEXICAL TRIPLETS
Unlike lexical doublets, most of lexical triplex do not share the same root or the same origin. Lexical triplex have entered the language trough different languages at different stages of the English history (but they all share more or less the same meaning).
For example the word s climb/rise à mount à ascend are totally unrelated under the morphological,
phonological aspects but they have more or less the same meaning. You can easily realise that: while the words “ climb” and “ rise” (that have Anglo-Saxon origin) are used in an ordinary contexts (low register), the words “mount ” and “ ascend” are much more formal. Three different pairs of words: what is the difference between each pair of words? beef - cowà beef refers to the meat whereas cow is the animal veal - calf mutton - sheep
à Borrowed from French
à Anglo-Saxon origin Originally, the words shared exactly the same meaning (they were synonyms). When the French word entered in English had the same meaning as the Anglo-Saxon one. When for example the word “beef” entered the English language, it was used to reference the animal (as cow) but subsequently it specialized to refer to the edible flesh of the animal. A pattern which is quite widespread in European languages à a loan-word synonym of an indigenous expression typically develops some semantic difference from the native word. English borrowed entire words or expressions from foreign languages and it borrowed also prefixes and suffixes. In PDE we’ve got some words which contain some suffixes/prefixes of Anglo-Saxon origin and others which contains suffixes/prefixes of foreign origins.
o Narrowing is the opposite of wideningà a word, which has a more inclusive concept is
narrowed to mean something more specific. An original word narrows its meaning because a different word with similar word comes along and takes over the meaning of the original. An original word is limited in its meaning to reference something more specific.
- Deer ‘animal’ (old English) VS deer ‘large four-legged wild animal which eat grass and leaves’ (Middle English and PDE). à in the case of “deer” the narrowing is the result of the influence of the French word Amelioration and pejoration have to do with new meanings that words get because they simply move either up words or down words from a social or emotional prospective. AMELIORATION àthe meaning of a word is ameliorated because the word changes its register à movement up either socially or emotionally PEJORATION à down movement either socially or emotionally Register can change over time à what is to be a slang word can become a polite expression or from casual can become high status à amelioration
• nice ‘stupid, simple’ (old English)à ‘nice’ (PDE)à nice today has a positive connotation
- fond ‘foolish, crazy, dazed’> dazed with love’> ‘in love with’> ‘affectionate towards’ An original word that was high and polite becomes low and rudeà pejoration à higher to lower register
- bully ‘lover, sweetheart’> ’abusive person’
- ‘lover’> ‘pimp’> ‘abusive person’à the processes responsible of pejoration of meaning are widening+pejoration. Also terms for female roles have undergone pejoration: Mistress vs master (atteggiamento verso i ruoli femminili si sono riflessi anche nella lingua) Spinster vs bachelor Princess vs prince (usiamo princess per parlare di una persona che è very peaky) But are these words really new? NO
WEEK 3 – AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH MORPHOLOGY
Morphology is a branch of linguistic devoted to the study of internal structure of words. It deals with the correlation of form and meaning within the word. What counts as a morphological relationship in English? Column 1:
- They all mean ‘person’ of some kind (relationship in meaning)
- This semantic relationship is not reflected in any shared form à Man/woman (they’re pronounced differently) à Beggar/mother (same pronunciation – schwa but the sound is spelled differently) Even though words of column 1 share some semantic features, they don’t share any morphological structure Þ Semantic relatedness but no shared morphological structure
Morphology can be distinguished in 2 sub-branches:
- INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY à deals with the correlation of form and meaning within the inflected words of a same lexime (or within word-forms of a lexeme) Ø Noun inflection ( dog, dog’s ) Ø Verb inflection ( write, wrote, is writing , …) Ø Adjective and adverb inflection ( high, higher, more likely ,…) Ø Pronoun inflection ( I, me, mine ) Ø Determiner inflection (this, these, those)
- DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY à deals with the correlation of form and meaning within words which are derived by original words à new lexemes created from existing ones by word-formation processes ( derivation, compounding, zero-derivation, shortening …). Derivational morphology is word-formation that is responsible of LEXICAL INNOVATION within a language. THE INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF WORDS: MORPHS
- Deforestation (also conversation, manifestation, transformation, etc.)
- Dogs (also cats, hats, books, etc.)
- Parliamentarian (also humanitarian, etc.)
- Inexpensive (also inactive, etc.)
- Laughed (also played, worked, etc.) There are 2 words on this list which represent the inflected form of another wordà the object of study of inflectional morphologyà dogs and laughed à these two words are the inflected forms à “ dogs” is the plural of the word “ dog” and “ laughed” is the past participle/or past simple of the verb “laugh”.
Whereas the words “deforestation, parliamentarian and inexpensive” à are the derivational forms because a
suffix is addedà they come from respectively “forest, parliament and expensive”. If we focus on the morphology of the word “ deforestation”, you can easily realize that there is a correlation in form for example with the words “conversation, manifestation and transformation” (Relationship in form in words, which either begin or end with the same class of letters or sounds, no relationship in form or meaning) As we’ve just said, there is no relationship in meaning. Despite this, if we focus on their internal structure we can easily realize that each word can be further subdivided into different segments (each of these words can be segmented into its constituent elements) These words can be segmented in a minimum of 2 morphs to a maximum of 3 morphs.
Each constituent element into which a word can be segmented is termed “a morph” à the smallest unit in morphological structure Examples deforestation à de-forest-ation à 3 morphs dogs à dog-s à 2 morphs parliamentarian à parliament-ari-an à 3 morphs inexpensive à in-expens(e)-ive à 3 morphs laughed à laugh-ed à 2 morphs Green colourà free morphs à roots of the wordsà roots express the original meaning of a word/they refer to the original word (roots cannot be segmented any further because they represent the core meaning of the word) Red colourà bound morphs In terms of their distribution, what is the difference between the morphs in green compared to those in red colour? The morphs in green can stand on their own/can stand as independent wordsà free morphs The morphs in red cannot stand on their own/cannot stand as independent words but they need to be added to a free morph in order to occourà bound morphs FREE MORPH Ø Is an independent word on its own Ø It includes content words (words that have a dictionary meaning) like nouns, adjectives, lexical verbs (not auxiliaries), adverbs à dog, forest, expense, parliament, laugh , etc Ø It includes function words like prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliaries: for, at, in, and, do/did, have/has/had (aux), be/was/were (aux), etc. BOUND MORPH Cannot be independent word on its own Ø It can only be added to free morphs Which words qualify as bound morphs in English?
- derivational affixes à prefixes (re- / un- / in-) and suffixes ( – ish, - ive,-an, - ation, - ly)
- inflectional suffixes / endings à - s, - ed, - ing, - er, - est,
- ( en)clitics à contracted auxiliaries and contracted negatives à ˈ s, ˈm, ˈre, ‘ ve, Vn’t
- Bound roots à most roots in English are free roots, but there is a also a limited number of bound morphs/roots Bound roots à roots which are often contained in borrowings from foreign languages.
Inflectional affixes à one function à to indicate the grammatical meaning of a word ( number, tense, case ) Derivational affixes à two functions à convert one part of a speech to another + change the meaning of original word There are specific roules for prefixes or suffixes attaching:
- c’è una tendenza per il suffisso - ness ad essere aggiunto ad aggettivi di origine latina che terminano in - able
• prefissi in-/un - à revert the meaning of the free morph to which it is added
In- is of Latinate originà tends to be added to words of Latinate origin Un- is of Germanic originà it tends to combine mostly with words of Germanic origin but also with a limited number of free roots of Latinate origin Diversamente dai prefissi e suffissi (dove c’è una disciplina della morfologia che studia quali sono le restrizioni per prevedere con quali morfi liberi si legano) le desinenze si applicano a tutti i membri di una stessa categoria a parte i plurali irregolari che sono dei fossili linguistici. Per tutto ciò che entra nella lingua ora segue le flessioni regolari se è un aggettivo. The notion of productivity is associated with the extent which (nella misura in cui) a specific affix is used to inflect words (in the case of inflectional affixes)or to coin new words (in the case of derivational affixes). Ex: child à childr en but the inflectional affix – en is no longer productive in PDE as an inflectional affix to turn nouns into the plural. Productive means that they are still used to coin new inflected forms of a lexeme. However, the only productive inflectional suffix to turn English nouns into the plural form is – s If a plural is represented by an inflectional suffix different from – s, that means that the word is entered the language as a borrowing in an earlier stage of the history of English. Quindi tutti gli aggettivi, gli avverbi, i sostantivi e i verbi che in inglese moderno hanno una coniugazione/flessione diversa espressa da affissi flessivi e suffissi flessivi a desinenze diverse da quelle dalla tabella sopra à o sono fossili linguistici oppure sono stati presi così tali e quali da una lingua straniera e ancora non si sono integrati nella lingua inglese à hanno ancora le caratteristiche formali della lingua da cui sono stati presi in prestito e continuano ad essere percepiti come elementi stranieri alla lingua inglese.
Irregular verbs are what remains of the verb inflection of the Old English verb inflection. So whenever a new verb is coined in PDE or enters the language through a source language (via borrowing) it is only inflected according to the regular system of verb inflection in PDE. Hood à “head covering” Ship à “seagoing vessel” In PDE we also use this words as suffixes: àmotherhood à hardship Quindi ricapitolando à hood and ship exist in PDE both as independent lexemes but also as suffixes. Even though they have a relationship in form they do not share any meaning at all. The fact that they’re spelled in the same way is simply accidental. The suffixes – hood and – ship were originally (in Old English) independent words à - hood indicava uno stato à – ship indicava una forma Quindi in OE non avevano nulla a che vedere con “head covering” or “seagoing vessel” à but they had come through a process known as GRAMMATICALIZATION so that in PDE they’re no longer used as independent words but they’re used as suffixes. Il fatto che in inglese ci siano parole che esistono sia come free morphs che come suffixes è semplicemente accidentale! à è un risultato della storia della lingua How many morphs can there be? English has an upper normal limit of 6 morphs. The longest word in English consists of an upper limit of 6 morphs: “ anti dis establish ment arian ism”
