"Language change is too diverse to be susceptible to generalised analysis." Discuss.

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“Language change is too diverse to be susceptible to generalised analysis.” Discuss

Change affects all aspects of language and can occur in a variety of ways. Meaningful analysis must depend on detecting patterns in these changes; some of these aspects can be easier to measure and therefore submit to analysis more easily than others. It must also be noted that language change can only be truly assessed retrospectively, and therefore in this essay I will make a distinction between the study of the historical facts of language change, which can be viewed in context, and that of recent and ongoing changes in language, a more precise science, relying on prediction and making patterns difficult to discern.

An area in which it is at least partly possible to attempt analysis of language change is in the clear patterns that govern the differences and similarities in the vocabulary, grammar and sound changes in the descendants of Proto-Indo-European. These regularly occurring similarities can be most easily discerned between Latin and its descendants, the Romance languages:

Latin                 Spanish         French        Portuguese

 pater                    padre                    père                   pai          

                       candela        chandelle      candeia

It was however from the Latin of the common people and not classical Latin that these Romance languages developed. Such similarities are not confined to the Romance languages; Jacob Grimm discovered a rule that links Germanic languages to their parent language; ‘p’ and ‘t’ in Proto-Indo-European change to ‘f’ and ‘th’ in Germanic languages

Descendents of Proto-Indo-European:         Latin   (Sanskrit)    English   

pater   (piter)                 father      

                                                ped                        foot

                                                pisces                    fish  

This rule is one example of an early Germanic sound shift. A major but regulated change in the English language was The Great Vowel shift that took place between 1400 and 1600. The changes that took place are reflected today in the different forms of morphemes, which don’t take these phonological variations into account. Pronunciation of the word please has been affected by the vowel affected by the shift, yet pleasant has not. These differences which also affect the words crime and criminality as well as sign and signal, show that the second word of each pair still reflects the way in which they were pronounced in Middle English.  

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Although little is known about the true origin of Proto-Indo-European and its forms can only be deduced, written evidence of Latin is relatively common and is shown to be a highly inflected language. However most modern European languages are not. Therefore a generalised language change that is common to these languages has arisen out of the necessity to show meaning. In English, French and Spanish, amongst others, word order has become all-important to accurately convey meaning and prevent ambiguity, while German retains a higher degree of inflection and rigid word order rules. The use of prepositions are also crucial ...

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