How a Language Changes Over Time Term Paper

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Language change refers to the process in which a particular language varies in its linguistic levels of analysis by developing or assimilating new forms and/or eliminating and/or totally modifying some of the existing forms (Schukla & Conner-Linton, 2014). Every natural language is subject to change over time even if these changes and alterations do not receive recognition by the individuals that use them. The process of change can be a slow and sure process or certain catch phrases may be incorporated very quickly (Kroch, 1989). Thus, the changes may not always be obvious but by comparing different the same language at different times, comparing different dialects, or how different languages interact, it becomes clear that languages change in all of their qualities including their grammar, syntax, semantics, lexicon, morphology, and phonology (Algeo & Butcher, 2013).

The process of language change is studied both by historical linguists and sociolinguists.

Historical linguists study the changes occurring in languages over time (diachronic change), examine how languages/dialects were used in the past, and these relate to one another (Kroch, 1989). Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of all aspects of society on languages and how language changes over time (Algeo & Butcher, 2013) by focusing on how varieties of language differ between demographics (e.g., groups defined by social variables such as age, ethnicity, religion, level of education, and so forth) as well as how the creation and adherence language rules can be used to categorize individuals in terms of social or socioeconomic classes. Thus, these disciplines assume that the phonetic, morphological, semantic, syntactic, features of language will vary and change over time.

Mechanisms of Change

Based on the findings of the aforementioned disciplines three basic principles that act as causal mechanisms for language change have been identified (Schukla & Conner-Linton, 2014):

1. Economy: The least effort principle of language change remains one of the basic and most often cited explanations for language changes over time (e.

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g., she is she's).

2. Analogy: This is a process that reduces words perceived as bring to similar to other regular forms of words. It involves the influence of one form or group of forms of a word on another word causing one group of forms to become more like the other.

a. Mostly due to morphological change. For instance the original past tense of the verbal verb help was holp; however, because many English verbs form their past tense by using the general and the regular morpheme ed so holp gave way to helped as the regular past tense form (Schukla & Conner-Linton, 2014).

b. There is also a semantic process involved with some words. For instance the word livid originally meant pale; however, its semantic similarity to the word vivid has resulted in a semantic change in its meaning (Hock & Joseph, 2009).

3. Contact with Other Languages: Different languages frequently come into contact with one another. Perhaps the most common way that languages influence each other occurs through the exchange of words. This is particularly true if there is lexical a gap in the language. An example would be the incorporation of the Japanese words sushi or karate into the English language (Beckner, Blythe, Bybee, Christiansen, Croft, et al., 2009).

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