TS 13 Semantics - History PDF

8 Semantics Introduction to English Linguistics – Schleburg 8 Semantics Paradigmatic semantics – Look, matey, this parrot wouldnʼt ›voom‹ if I put four thousands volts through it! Itʼs bleedinʼ...

8 Semantics Introduction to English Linguistics – Schleburg 8 Semantics Paradigmatic semantics – Look, matey, this parrot wouldnʼt ›voom‹ if I put four thousands volts through it! Itʼs bleedinʼ demised! – It’s not! Itʼs pininʼ! – Itʼs not pininʼ! Itʼs passed on! This parrot is no more! It has ceased to be! Itʼs expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late parrot! Itʼs a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadnʼt nailed it to the perch itʼd be pushing up the daisies! It’s run down the curtain and joined the choir invisibile! This is an ex-parrot! 8 Semantics Paradigmatic semantics Synonymy: (near-)sameness of meaning mist, fog to dive, to plunge to die, to pass away, to expire, to pay the debt of nature, to go the way of all flesh, to kick the bucket, to snuff it, to bite the dust, to turn up one’s toes, to cash in one’s chips … I am firm; you are obstinate; he is a pig-headed fool. (B. RUSSELL) They live in a big (= large) house. – I will tell my big (≠ large) sister! 8 Semantics Paradigmatic semantics Antonymy: oppositeness of meaning small – large gradable a. alive – dead complementary a. teacher – pupil converse a. to open – to shut directional a. Hyponymy: class inclusion duckbilled platypus – mammal – animal hyperonym hyponym 8 Semantics diachronic Semantic change Important types: metaphor: Old English weorpan ‘throw’ (cf. German werfen) > warp ‘twist’ metonymy: Old English sǣlig ‘blissful’ (cf. German selig) > ‘pious’ > ‘innocent’ > ‘pitiable’ > ‘weak’ > ‘ignorant’ > silly ‘foolish’ specialisation: Old English steorfan ‘die’ (cf. German sterben) > starve ‘die from lack of food’ generalisation: Middle English unkembed ‘not combed’ > unkempt ‘untidy’ Some reasons: change in extralinguistic reality (e.g. book) or world-view (e.g. star) language contact (folk, pushed aside by French people) folk etymology (shamefast > shamefaced) human creativity, desire for expressiveness (awefully ‘terribly’ > ‘very’) taboo, euphemism (toilet ‘dressing room’, bathroom, lavatory, restroom) contrastive Semantic change in one or both languages of a pair leads to ›false friends‹: gift – German Gift ‘poison’; journey – French journée ‘day’s work’; preservative – Spanish preservativo ‘condom’ 9 History of the English Language Introduction to English Linguistics – Schleburg 9 Historical Linguistics Language change Design features that enable human languages to change: features found in all natural languages arbitrariness: While structural diversity is restricted by universals, grammar and lexicon are not, in their details, determined by logical or biological necessity. openness: While the memory of any individual speaker is limited, there is no structural limit to the productivity of morphological patterns and the size of the vocabulary. cultural transmission: While the ability and urge to acquire some language (langage) is innate, the knowledge of a particular language (langue) is not simply copied from one speaker to another but recreated every time an individual acquires a language. 9 Comparative-Historical Linguistics Similarities across languages Comparative linguistics starts from the observation that there are lexical and structural similarities across languages: Zuni (Native American) nas ‘wet’ – German nass ‘wet’ ← coincidence Chinese bù gŭ – English cuckoo ← iconic imitation of extralinguistic sound (onomatopoeia) German Weltanschauung – English Weltanschauung ← borrowing (language contact) Spanish uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco – French un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq ← common origin (genetic relation) 9 Comparative-Historical Linguistics The ›genetic‹ relation Systematic similarities in the grammar and basic vocabulary of different languages can be explained most economically by the assumption that the languages have developed from the same ›ancestor‹. Words that have the same origin are called cognates: literary language of ancient India English Latin Anc. Greek Czech Sanskrit Turkish Chinese one ūnus (oinḗ) jeden eka- bir yī two duo dýo dva dva- iki èr three trēs treîs tři tri- üç sān four quattuor téttares čtyři catur- dört sì five quīnque pénte pět pañca- beş wǔ six sex héx šest ṣaṣ- altı liù seven septem heptá sedm sapta- yedi qī eight octō oktṓ osm aṣṭa- sekiz bā nine nouem ennéa devět nava- dokuz jiǔ ten decem déka deset daśa- on shí 9 Comparative-Historical Linguistics The family tree of the Indo-European Language Family (simplified) reconstructed ancestor Proto-Indo-European branches Balto- Indo- Celtic Germanic Italic Greek Anatolian† Slavic Iranian West North East Welsh English Danish Gothic† Latin Hittite† Latvian Sanskrit Irish German Swedish Lithuanian Hindi Gaelic Dutch Norwegian Italian Urdu French Russian Icelandic Spanish Ukrainian Farsi Catalan Polish Pashto Portuguese Czech Kurdish historically attested languages Romanian Bulgarian Serbian Croatian 9 Not yet English ~3000 BCE Break-up of Proto-Indo-European speech community 9 Never to become English 1st millennium BCE Celtic settlements on the British Isles 9 Never to become English 43 CE Roman conquest of Britain △ Hadrian’s Wall in Northern England (begun in 122) ◁◁ Emperor Claudius (reigned 41–54) 9 Finally, English Barbarians lurking at the frontiers of the Roman Empire ▷ 9 The History of English ›449‹ Migration to Britain of West Germanic Angles and Saxons Roman troops had been withdrawn Migration Period: West Germanic tribes from the continent invade Britain: German-to-be and English- to-be part company Celtic population killed, enslaved, displaced during the ensuing ›Dark Ages‹ a new Germanic language takes shape 9 The History of English 597 Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England △ Pope Gregory the Great △ Anglo-Saxon Church at Escomb (Durham) △ Lindisfarne Gospel manuscript (BL) 9 The History of English 700 – 1100 Old English West-Germanic language Large corpus of texts written in Latin alphabet: laws, charters, chronicles, medical treatises, traditional and Christian poetry, homilies, legends … Homogeneous Germanic vocabulary with a few loanwords from Latin: mann, mennisċ, mann-cynn, mann-sleġe, wǣpned-mann, wīf-mann apostol, bisċop, cyċene, pund, strǣt, wīn Christian terminology rendered by native words or loan translation: Latin spīritus → Old English gāst > ghost Greek eu-angelion ‘good news’ → Old English gōd-spell > gospel Inflexional grammar: 4 cases, 3 genders additional letter: 〈þ〉 [θ, ð] MASCULINE FEMININE NEUTER NOMINATIVE sē grǣġa wulf seo deore cwēn þæt sċeărpe sweŏrd GENITIVE þæs grǣġan wulfes þǣre deoran cwēne þæs sċeărpan sweŏrdes DATIVE þǣm grǣġan wulfe þǣre deoran cwēne þǣm sċeărpan sweŏrde ACCUSATIVE þone grǣġan wulf þā deoran cwēn þæt sċeărpe sweŏrd