History of English Language CH. 1 vocab
Terms
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- Language
- systematic and conventional means of human communication by way of vocal sounds
- Phonology
- sounds of a language and the study of these sounds
- Phonetics
- study of speech sounds, whether phonetic or not
- Phonemics
- Study of Phonemes
- Phonemes
- smallest speech unit that can distinguish one word or group of words from another in a language system
- Morphology
- study of the combination of stems and affixes to form words
- Morphemes
- smallest meaningful unit of a language
- bound form morpheme
-
morpheme that occurs only as a part of a larger form ,
example = -s in lamps - affixes
- bound(not an independent word) such as a prefix or suffix, added to the base, stem or root.
- inflectional affix
- affix used to indicate an inflection
- derivational affix
- affix used to form a new word by derivation
- syntax
- way in which words are arranged to form phrases, clauses, and sentences: word order or structure of sentences
- lexicon
- total inventory (including words) of the morphemes of langugage
- semantics
- study of the meaning of language
- graphics
- in linguistics, the study of writing systems.
- grapheme
- single unit in a writing system; loosely, a letter of an alphabet
- fusion
-
process where by formerly distinct forms become "fused"
example = hw and w in whale and white - fission
- process whereby variants of a single form become independent forms in their own right
- outer history
- Non-linguistic events in the lives of speakers of a language that lead to changes in the language.
- inner history
- changes within a language that cannot be attributed directly to external forces
- reflexes
-
result of the historical development of an earlier form.
example = oak is a reflex of the germanic *aik -
OE
ME
EMnE
PDE -
Old English ( 449 - 1100)
Middle English ( 1100 - 1500)
Early Modern English ( 1500 -1800)
Present Day English ( 1800 - now) - prinicple of least effort
-
according to this principle languague changes becuase speakers are "sloppy" and simplify their speech in various ways.
example = going to changes to gonna - denotation
- basic, specific, literal meaning of a word or phrase as oppposed to its emotional meaning
- connotation
- emotional meaning of a word; its implications suggestions, or associations
- pejoration
-
semantic change for the worse/aka degeneration
example = in OE saelig menat "happy, blessed" its PDE derivative silly means "foolish" - amelioration
-
change to a more favorable meaning
example = English word croon, hum sing softly borrowed from Middle Dutch kronen, groan lament