Students
Points for discussion
In the book you will find exercises based largely on specific pieces of data. This is one of the strongest points of Trask’s Historical Linguistics. From experience in seminars, however, I have found that students also want to discuss central features of the theory raised in the chapters and to comment on its applicability beyond the situations treated in the book. Other students have been concerned with bringing together and analysing new data on the same lines as that found in the book. With this in mind I have collected a few of the issues I have raised in seminars and which have been suggested by students, generally taken according to chapter (although some chapters have been brought together as a single unit, since they have a common theme).
Chapter 1
Is language change always a matter of decay? What would lead people to think along those lines?
To what extent do you think a language academy for English would have been successful in fixing the language? What would have been the social and linguistic results of such a foundation?
Can you think of any words which have changed meaning in your lifetime?
Chapter 2
Find six examples of words recently borrowed into English (or, indeed, any language). Was the borrowing strictly necessary?
We saw that pronouncing French borrowings into English with something approaching a ‘correct’ native pronunciation is prestigious (at least in Britain). Why is this less the case with, say, Spanish or German borrowings?
Does phone still refer by default to a landline-connected telephone?
What did highways and byways originally refer to?
To what extent can taboo-avoidance words and phrases maintain their euphemistic status?
Chapters 3 & 4
How would you define the difference between phonetic and phonological change?
Can you think of any reasons why some sequences go through total assimilation while others are only partial?
If lenition implies less effort on the part of speakers, why does fortition take place?
Is it easier to consider ‘sound change’ systematically or as a set of individual changes?
Greek vowels have gone through a considerable number of changes, apparently in the direction of ‘simplification’. Can you think of any non-linguistic reasons for these changes?
Is it possible to frame an extralinguistic explanation underlying Grimm’s Law?
Chapter 5
What processes do you think underlie ‘folk etymology’?
Why do you think that analogy is so central to the processes of linguistic change?
What processes were involved in the replacement of catched by caught? What linguistic behaviour would speakers exhibit while the change was taking place?
Why do you think that trisyllabic lengthening is gradually being lost in English?
Is it ever possible to find a language which is absolutely representative of a specific type?
Chapter 6
Why do you think the study of syntactic change doesn't have as long a history as the study of phonological change?
There is general scholarly agreement that Indo-European was an SOV language. Can you think of reasons why English is now an SVO language?
Can you suggest any reasons why ergative syntax is only found in particular regions?
Chapter 7
Which is the most distinctive dialect in your region? Thinking linguistically, how would you define its distinctiveness?
Which are more prestigious: urban or rural dialects?
Language relationships are often discussed in a way which suggests that it is straightforward to build families of this type. Why is this not the case?
Chapters 8 & 9
What are the advantages and disadvantages of the traditional comparative method?
With the Romance languages, we have written evidence of the languages' ancestor (or at least its near relative). Does that make comparative work easier or more difficult than when we have no direct evidence of an ancestral language, as is the case with Germanic?
What is the primary issue underlying the construction of Nostratic?
How do we make sure that the correspondences we see cross-linguistically are not due to chance?
Why do you think Basque attracts eccentric or ill-informed analyses so regularly?
To what extent is internal comparison a separate process from the comparative method in general?
Chapter 10
In simple terms, how is language variation related to language death?
To what extent are people conscious of linguistic variation?
In New York City, /r/ had been lost except initially and intervocalically; it has now returned to a state for most speakers where /r/ is used in all historically ‘correct’ positions. To what extent can such a ‘resurrection’ be explained linguistically?
To what extent can we transfer our understanding of, say, overt and covert prestige to past language use?
At what level can we still accept the Neogrammarian Hypothesis?
Chapter 11
Scholars dealing with language contact are occasionally described as conspiracy theorists by other linguists. Why do you think that is the case?
Why are superstratal influences easier to analyse and assess than substratal?
What social features are likely to encourage borrowing?
Why is lexical borrowing possible with relatively low levels of contact while syntactic influence from one language to another needs much more intense contact?
To what extent can (conscious) language planning and policy affect (at most semi-conscious) language change?
Choose a situation where language shift has taken place. To what extent has the shift affected the surviving language(s)?
Chapter 12
Is it important whether we know by whom and where the ancestor of a language was spoken?
What is the fundamental problem with glottochronology?
Why do you think that Greenberg's earliest essays into mass comparison were generally accepted, while his later work was roundly vilified by many?
Further Exercises
These exercises give you further practice in working out relationships between languages. The first deals with real-life relationships between languages; the rest are from invented languages (the latter having the advantage that, ignoring any ineptitude on my part, all relationships are straightforward – no ‘sub-rules’ exist).
Exercise 1
Exercise 1
A Martian historical linguist of the distant future has found what appear to him/her/it to be different translations of part of the same apparently religious variety. How would he/she/it reconstruct the relationships between the different varieties? What evidence would be used?
Please note that (1) he/she/it suspects that these excerpts represent the same variety found elsewhere in a different language family (see Chapter 7 in the book), one of which begins ‘Our Father, which/who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’; (2) he/she/it has no way of telling whether the varieties involved date from the same basic period or not.
Variety 1
Pater noster, qui es in caelis: sanctificetur Nomen Tuum; adveniat Regnum Tuum; fiat voluntas Tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra.
Variety 2
Padre nostro che sei nei cieli, sia santificato il tuo nome; venga il tuo regno, sia fatta la tua volontà, come in cielo così in terra.
Variety 3
Paire nòstre que siès dins lo cèl, que ton nom se santifique, que ton rènhe nos avenga, que ta volontat se faga sus la tèrra coma dins lo cèl.
Variety 4
Tatăl nostru, care eşti în ceruri, Sfințească-se Numele Tău, Vie Împărăția Ta, faca-se Voia Ta, Precum în cer, aşa şi pe pămănt.
Variety 5
Babbu nostru k’istas in sos kelos, sanctificadu siat su nòmene tou, benzat a nois su regnu tou e fatta siat sa voluntade tua comente in su kelu gai in sa terra.
Variety 6
Vos, nosse Pére qu’est la-hôt, qui vosse nom seuye bèni cint côps. Qui li djoû vègne qu’on v’ricnoxhe comme mêsse. Qu’on vos schoûte sul têre come å cîr.
Variety 7
Notre Père, qui es aux cieux, que ton nom soit sanctifié, que to règne vienne, que ta volonté soit faite sur la terre comme au ciel.
Variety 8
Père nost che t’ies en ciel, a sie santifiché ti inom, al vegne ti regn, sia fata tia volonté, coche en ciel enscì en tera.
Exercise 2
The following table represents cognate forms in various members of an imaginary language family – Kelo – along with the reconstructed ancestral form, proto-Kelo. What phonological developments can be posited from ancestral form to daughter forms?
Are some of these languages more closely related to some other languages shown than they are to still others? What evidence might suggest this? Give examples of parallel developments in ‘real’ languages, where relevant.
With this first example you can read my analysis by clicking below. It is a good idea if you try the exercise first.
Arguably the largest single feature (after the loss of vowel length) in this family is palatalization. /k/ followed by a front vowel has caused three of the four languages to have phonemic split (note that /k/ continues to appear in other contexts in all languages). In Chele, /k/ > /ʧ/, the /t/ representing a full fronting to the alveolar ridge or teeth. In Thele, this fronted sound is retained, but without the following palatal (which we might assume was originally there). With Shel, on the other hand, /k/ has become /ʃ/. It is possible that this change had /ʧ/ as an intermediate stage. Kelu has not had phonemic split, although the /ie/ diphthong (rather than /ɛ/) suggests that elements of the changes are ‘bubbling under’ (of which, more in a second).
In all the daughter languages /li/ or /lj/ have become fully palatalized at /ʎ/. In Kelu, this sound is long at boundary with a stressed syllable.
Two languages – Shel and Thele – have intervocalic voicing of /p/ to /b/, even across syllable boundaries. This is a classic example of lenition.
In Thele and Kelu, original /ɛ/ has diphthongized to /ie/. This may be related to palatalization. It may be that the other languages also had this development earlier in the process.
Proto-Kelo had ‘full vowels’ in unstressed final syllables. Chele and Thele have maintained these forms. Shel, on the other hand, has either reduced the original vowels to schwa (with */-a/) or to nothing (with */-o/ and /-i/). Kelu has retained these vowels, but all have risen or (in the case of /-i/) diphthongized, the latter being due to there being no further opportunity to rise.
All languages reduce unstressed initial syllables to schwa.
It’s quite difficult for me to talk about potential relationships between languages, since they were created by me and I therefore know what I intended with them. However, here is an honest attempt.
Kelu has a number of ‘peculiarities’ which make it seem less closely related to the other three (although of those three it is perhaps most like Thele). Chele, Shel and Thele seem quite closely related, although Shel seems in some ways to be more closely related to one and then closer to the other. We could assume that the three languages lie on a continuum, with Shel in the centre, although we also have to accept that Shel is far less conservative morphologically than the other two. It’s quite difficult to represent this type of relationship on a family tree.
In terms of similarities with ‘real world’ language, the varieties shown resemble (although they do not replicate) changes in the Romance languages. Changes in Chele and Shel resemble Italian and French respectively, while Thele is similar to (although not the same as) Spanish (in Spanish, /k/ > /θ/ (or in some varieties /s/), not /tj/, before front vowels, but I felt that the latter might provoke more interesting discussion). In a sense, Kelu is ‘like’ Sardinian, since the latter is far more conservative with many features than any other of the western Romance languages. I have made it more like Thele than Sardinian is like Spanish, however.The changes in the final vowels in Kele resemble the Great Vowel Shift. Needless to say, Sardinian doesn’t have this set of changes; but I wanted a chain shift to be present.
Exercise 3
The following table represents cognate forms in various members of an imaginary language family – Situ – along with the reconstructed ancestral form, proto-Situ. What phonological developments can be posited from ancestral form to daughter forms?
Are some of these languages more closely related to some other languages shown than they are to still others? What evidence might suggest this? Give examples of parallel developments in ‘real’ languages, where relevant.
Exercise 4
The following table represents cognate forms in various members of an imaginary language family – Pani – along with the reconstructed ancestral form, proto-Pani. What phonological developments can be posited from ancestral form to daughter forms?
Are some of these languages more closely related to some other languages shown than they are to still others? What evidence might suggest this? Give examples of parallel developments in 'real' languages, where relevant.