SYNTACTIC AND LEXICAL CHANGE

SYNTACTIC AND LEXICAL CHANGE

Changes in W.O. Old Eng - Mod Eng

from INFL-final to INFL-medial o.

“and Seaxan þā sige geslōgan.” (final inf)

“And the Saxons won the victory” (midial inf)

“þā sendan hī hām ærenddracan” (verb fixed in second position)

“Then they sent home a messenger.” (subject-verb order)

and at

“ek HlewagastiR HoltijaR horna tawido.” OV

“I, Hlewagastir of Holt, made the horn.” VO

LEXICAL CHNGE

MERGE

SYNTACTIC CHANGE

What is that?

from verb-second to subj-verb o.

WHAT IS THAT?

WORD ORDER

the modification of the lexicon

An alteration in a language syntactic structure

COMBINING WORDS

STRUCTURE SCHEMA (3 PARTS)

sp head sp sp head

My mother + has + a beautiful house

from OV to VO

Syntactic categories

Two types: addition and loss

FIXED

FLEXIBLE

FREE

mutability

lexical and non-lexical

phrases

sentences

ADDITION

WORD FORMATION

Blends

Derivation: affixation

Prefixes: e. g. mis, pre, un

Suffixes: e. g. ful, ize, ion

-derived nouns: preview, detection

-derived adjectives: unhappy, beautyful

-derived verbs: mismatch, vaporize

* Compounding

Old English

noun + noun: sunbēan (sunbean),

adj + noun: middelniht (midnigh)

Modern English

noun + noun: 'moonlight

verb + noun: 'download'

noun + verb: 'babysit

LOSS OF LEXICAL ITEMS

nonmorphemic parts of two already existing items

e. g. brunch (breakfast + lunch); sitcom (situation + comedy); ebonics (ebony + phonics); vlog (video + log)

from changes in the culture

Conversion

Operations available by UG

Clipping

e. g.

Old English words lost

dolgbōt = compensation for wounding

þeox = hunting spear

Coinage

changing word category

e. g.

walk (noun) → walk (verb);

poor (adjective) → the poor (noun)

up (preposition) → to up -the price- (verb)

a polysyllabic word is shortened

e. g. (names) Liz, Ron, Rob, among others.

doc for doctor, prof for professor, burger for hamburger

blog from Web log

manufacture of words from the scratc

words created from names (eponymy)

e.g.

Kodak, Teflon, among others

farenheit for Gabriel Fahrenheit (18th -century scientist)

MERGE OPERATION

MOVE OPERATION

Backformation

MOVE

(Transformation)

removing a real or supposed affix from another word in the language

e. g. to resurrect (resurrection); to self-destruct (self-destruction); to edit (editor), to lase (laser).

Acronyms

Onomatopoeia

e. g. radar (radio detecting ranging), laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation), scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus).

created to sound like the thing they name.

e. g. buzz, meow, cuckoo

Cliticization

“You can swim in the lake” is transformed to

“Can you swim in the lake”

by transporting the auxiliary verb in front of the subject

morphemes that behave like words (but unable to stand alone for phonological reasons).

e. g. 'm for am, 's for is, and 're for are

BORROWINGS

the result of language contact, i. e. the coexistence of two languages in the same region

3 influences:

substratum

superstratum

adstratum

Inversion

subject-verb inversion (or full inversion):

Difficult would be to get a promotion in that job.

subject-operator inversion:

Never had I and may family been so disrespected in a hotel.

ACTIVITY TIME!

Before finsihing... make sure you

understand all the concepts presented.

...

*Identify differences in patterns

*Write down one example of your own (in any language) for each process of word formation

...

THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION!!