Language Change

Question 1

what causes language changes?

Answer 1

the difference of internal language and grammar created throughout generations

Question 2

what is a proto language?

Answer 2

2 languages are related if they’ve descended from a common ancestor speech community (this is the proto language)

Question 3

what are cognates and cognate words?

Answer 3

words/languages that share common origin

Question 4

what is the comparative method?

Answer 4

allows hypotheses about properties of proto-languages even when they left no direct evidence in the written record

Question 5

whats dialect continuum?

Answer 5

gradual accumulation of differences over a geographical area

Question 6

what is change from above?

Answer 6

prestigious variants that spread downward from the upper classes

• involves substitution of one phoneme by another
• socially controlled in more complex ways than social class prestige

Question 7

what is change from below?

Answer 7

casual speech variants which spread upward

• involves allophonic, phonetically natural processes
• social conditioning of such variation is part of the general pattern of social conditioning of casual vs careful speech