This document summarizes different aspects of language change, including lexical, semantic, phonological, and syntactic changes. It provides examples of how languages borrow words from other languages and coin new words through processes like compounding, derivation, clipping, blending, and acronyms. Semantic change can occur through broadening or narrowing word meanings and shifts in meaning. Phonological changes happen through processes like loss or addition of phonemes and metathesis. Syntactic changes involve modifications to word order, reanalysis of grammatical structures, and grammaticalization where words evolve into grammatical elements.

1. Aspects of Language Change
Mariam Bedraoui
Master Student
Moroccan American Studies
Hassan II University, casablanca

2. Aspects of language Change
Lexical Semantic Phonological Syntactic

3. Outline
1. Lexical Change
 Borrowing
 Coining new words
2. Semantic Change
 Broadening
 Narrowing
 Shifts of meaning
3. Sound change
 Loss of phonemes
 Addition of phonemes
 Metathesis
4. Syntactic Change
 Word order
 Re-analysis
 Grammaticalization

4. Lexical Change: Borrowing
 Languages are avid borrowers
 Two-fifths of common words in English
are loan words
 Direct/indirect borrowing
 Phonological and morphological
treatment of loans
 Rarely borrowed words

5. Borrowing: Examples
 Kayak Raccoon

6. Borrowing: Further Examples
Examples of Loan
Words
kayak superstar
Yogurt Top model
Racoon T- shirt
Ski Check- up
kangaroo Gentlemen
Tsunami look
democracy cool
coach computer
yacht disk
algebra fan

7. Lexical Change: Coining New Words
 New words can be formed using the basic resources of
the language through a number of processes:
 Compounding: Combining two or more words to form new
words
Blackboard- girlfriend- gingerbread
shopkeeper- sky diving
laptop- ozone friendly
 Derivation: Using affixes to create new words
warmth- length- depth- wisdom- freedom-
stardom
Otherwise- clockwise- moneywise- profitwise
miniskirt- mini-budgets- mini-project- mini-wars

8. Lexical Change: Coining New
Words
 Clipping: Forming a word by extracting an arbitrary portion of a
word of an identical meaning
 phone (telephone)
 bus
 Gym (gymnasium)
 Flu (influenza)
 Ciggie (cigarette)
 Blending: Pieces of existing words are combined to form new
words
 Motel
 Smog
 Brunch
 Chunnel
 Oxbridge
 Acronyms: The reduction of long phrases to a few letters
 NATO- FBI- BBC
 TA- LA
 Laser

9. Semantic Change: Broadening and Narrowing
 Broadening: Words acquire more meanings
beside the original one
• Dog
• Holiday
• Picture
• Mouse
• Virus
 Narrowing: limiting the semantic scope that words
used to have
• Meat
• Deer
• Girl

10. Semantic Change

11. Semantic Change: Shift of Meaning
 Shift of Meaning: Words cease to mean
what they used to, and take on new
semantic representations
• Silly
• Nice
• Immoral
• With
• cheer

12. Sound Change
 Phonetic and
phonological
 Natural
 Ease of articulation

13. Sound Change: Types
Loss of phonemes
• Knot- knee- knife-know
• Make- time- dive
• Lit- gros- murs- aimer- part
• Wednesday- Choclate- camera- correct-
police
Addition of phonemes
• Latin: scala- snob- smeralda- spatha
• Spanish: escala- esnob-esmerada- espada
• Middle English: amonges- amiddes, betwix
Amongst- amidst- betwixt

14. Sound Change: Types
 Metathesis: It occurs when two sounds
switch places
• Old English: Ask- aks
• Latin: crepare- parabola- miraculu- pericula
• Spanish: quebrar- palabra- milagro- peligru

15. Syntactic Change: Types
 It occurs in the grammatical notions that govern languages
 Slow and in need for further investigation
 Word order
• Old English: SOV and SVO language
• Modern English: An SVO language
 Reanalysis: a process whereby grammatical notions which has one
particular function comes to be perceived by the speakers of a language as
having a second.
 The perfect tense in English
 I have finished my dinner
 I have a copy of her new book
 She have my hair cut
 She has her daughter trapped in war
 Old English: Your faith has you healed
 Your faith healed you

16. Syntactic Change: Types
 Grammaticalization: The process whereby
lexical items are reduced to grammatical items
without entirely losing their function as words.
• Verbs meaning ‘go’, ‘come,’ want very often
develop into grammatical markers of futurity
• Going to
• Will

17. Thanks for your attention