Linguistic Variation Mechanisms: Analogy, Borrowing, and Change

Linguistic Variation Mechanisms

Analogy

Analogy is a crucial linguistic variation mechanism affecting lexis and grammar. Latin plurals use the suffix “-i,” influencing Latin loanwords in English like “cactus/cacti.” This pluralization has extended to non-Latin loanwords like the Greek “octopus” (correctly “octopodes,” but often “octopi”). Analogy helps maintain original paradigm forms. Analogical leveling regularizes paradigms.

Hypercorrection

Hypercorrection is a conscious process where speakers normalize forms towards those with higher social prestige. For example, some British English speakers insert /r/ into words like “butter” to emulate American pronunciation, sometimes extending this to words like “avocado” (pronounced “avocardo”), even though Americans don’t use that pronunciation.

Contamination

Contamination involves irregular word form changes due to association with other words. The original opposite of “male” was “femelle.” Frequent co-occurrence led to “femelle” integrating with “male,” becoming “female” to emphasize opposition. Another example is Latin’s “novem” (nine), influenced by “decem” (ten), instead of the expected *”noven.”

Back-formation

Back-formation creates neologisms by removing perceived affixes. The suffix “-er” denotes agents performing actions (e.g., lover, singer).

Blending

Blending combines compounding and clipping, merging abbreviated terms (e.g., camcorder [camera+recorder], smog [smoke+fog]).

Borrowing

Borrowing assimilates foreign words, expanding morphological possibilities. English adopted the French suffix “-able” for adjective construction.

Paradigmatic Changes

Paradigmatic changes involve global phonological variation influenced by factors like borrowing.

Clipping

Clipping shortens words without changing meaning (e.g., telephone-phone, influenza-flu).

Cognates

Cognates are words with shared ancestry (e.g., decem-deca-dasa, taihum/vater-father).

Comparative Method

The Comparative Method reconstructs earlier language stages by comparing related words across languages/dialects. Developed within Comparative Linguistics and promoted by Sir William Jones, it relies on regular phonological change principles. Steps include isolating cognates and extracting phonological correspondences.

The Comparative Method contrasts with the Internal Reconstruction Method, which focuses on irregular patterns. The Comparative Method emphasizes regular phonological change, a key Neogrammarian principle.

Conditioned Changes

Conditioned changes are driven by phonetic context. Rephonologization reorganizes a language’s phonological system due to conditioning environment loss. The resulting phonemic rephonologization is called a split (e.g., chin: stage 1 [kinn]/kinn/, stage 2 [tʃinn]/kinn/, stage 3 [tʃinn]/tʃinn/).

Conversion (Zero Derivation)

Conversion shifts a word’s lexical category without affixation (e.g., drink, smoke).

Folk Etymology

Folk etymology alters word forms due to mistaken assumptions about composition or meaning (e.g., “bridegroom” associated with horses instead of the original “bride’s servant”). Another example is “starve” (originally “to die,” later specializing to “die of hunger”).

Fortition (Strengthening)

Fortition counteracts lenition, increasing consonant strength. Examples include Latin “aqua” [akwa] to Italian [akkwa] (gemination), Old Norse “þar” [θar] to Swedish “där,” and Pre-Basque *erur (“snow”) to Western Basque “edur.” Other examples include denasalization (Basque “musti” to “busti”) and devoicing (Russian “xl’eb” to “xl’ep”).

Grammaticalization

Grammaticalization is the process where lexical items acquire grammatical functions in specific contexts, developing new grammatical functions over time. The deictic “that” evolved into a complement connective. The sequence “I saw that. He was asleep.” became “I saw that he was asleep,” with “that” introducing an object clause.

Great Vowel Shift

Starting in the 15th century, long vowels shifted to higher tongue positions and closer mouth positions. Raiseable vowels were raised; others (i, u) became diphthongs. By the 16th century, most long vowels reached their current pronunciation. English spelling reflects pre-shift forms, causing discrepancies between vowel symbols and sounds compared to other modern languages.

Historical Linguistics

Historical Linguistics explains language evolution, relationships between languages, and potential parent languages through the Comparative Method. It is closely linked to Comparative Linguistics.

Initialism

Initialism reduces phrases to key letters, spoken individually (e.g., BBC, FBI). Pronounced as words, they become acronyms (e.g., NATO, radar).

Internal Reconstruction Method

This method analyzes irregular linguistic patterns, assuming they derive from earlier regular forms.

Proto-language

A proto-language is a reconstructed language without written records. Information derives from descendant languages. Old English is not a proto-language due to existing texts, but Indo-European is.

Reanalysis

Reanalysis precedes analogical development. “Bikini” (originally compared to a bomb’s impact) was reanalyzed, leading to “monokini.” “Hamburger” derives from “Hamburg,” not “ham.” Semantization imbues words with new connotations.

Shared Archaisms and Innovations

Shared archaisms are features retained from a common ancestor but lost in some descendants. Shared innovations suggest a more recent common ancestor.

Syntagmatic Change

Syntagmatic change affects pronunciation within specific words. Assimilation involves sounds becoming more similar (partial: Spanish “convertir” [kombertir]; total: Latin “nocte” to “notte”). Dissimilation involves sounds becoming less similar (e.g., Dutch “schoon” to Afrikaans “skoon”).

Lenition

Lenition weakens consonants (e.g., Latin “farina” to Spanish “harina”). Extreme lenition leads to sound loss. Trask’s lenition scale includes degemination (geminate to simplex), spirantization (stop to fricative to aspirant), stop to liquid, oral stop to glottal stop, non-nasal to nasal, and voiceless to voiced.

Unconditioned Changes

Unconditioned changes occur regardless of neighboring sounds. Merger combines phonemes (e.g., /b/ and /v/ in Spanish). Loss removes phonemes (e.g., /h/ in Spanish and French).

Velarization

Velarization involves sounds shifting towards the velum (e.g., *m to [ŋ]).

Verner’s Law

Verner’s Law explains apparent exceptions to Grimm’s Law, showing that Germanic sound changes were regular and conditioned by the phonological environment. This led to the Neogrammarian hypothesis, emphasizing the regularity of sound change.

Wave Theory

Proposed by Johannes Schmidt, Wave Theory explains linguistic change spreading from influential centers, like waves. Changes don’t always reach all areas. Isoglosses can arise due to external influences or disappear due to shared political/cultural contexts.

Word Formation

Morphology studies word structure. Inflection modifies words without changing identity (e.g., genitive, plural, past tense). Derivation creates new words with different identities through affixation (e.g., conversational). Compounding, a type of derivation, combines stems (e.g., flowerpot, screwdriver).