Chapter

Language Change
and Variation

W
hen we talk about .. the English language," we might give the impres­
sion that it is more uniform than it really is. We have alluded to the
fact that there is variation in English, but we have not yet said
enough about it for you to appreciate fully the extent of it, the forms it takes,
and the reasons behind it. Those are the issues we intend to explore in this
chapter. What we will find is that talking about how people speak is similar
in many ways to talking about how people dress. Suppose, for example, that
you got a letter from a stranger who was told that you were a particularly
good source of information about American culture. The stranger tells you
that he/she (you cannot tell from the unfamiliar foreign name) is planning to
take a trip to the United States and wants advice about what kinds of clothes
to bring. You sit down all prepared to respond in the most helpful way possi­
ble but quickly realize that yqu c�not answer the question in a straightforward
way.

EXERCISE 1 ___________________
1. In one way or another, you would need to say, "Well, it depends .... "
What are the things your answers depend on?

Barry, A. K. (2002). Linguistic perspectives on language and 79

education. Greenwood Publishing Group.
BO CHAPTER 5 • Language Change and Variation

2, Are there any things you could say that would be generally true about
dress in the United States? Any taboos, for example, that are universally
respected, except perhaps in very limited settings?

Once you have generated a list of things upon which the appropriateness of one's
attire depends, you will have a good idea of the ways in which language varies as
well: by age, by region, by social setting, by social class, by level of education, by
gender, by purpose, by ethnic identity. There are, obviously, many commonalities
as well, or we would not be able to communicate with one another, but the dif­
ferences are often what is most noticeable to us.

Language Change
Before we even begin to talk .about the variation in English, we need to talk more
about language change, because much of the variation we find is a consequence
of language change. We have taken it for granted in previous discussions that
English has changed over time, although we have not demonstrated that. The fact
is that all languages change over time for a variety of reasons. For example, peo­
ple often need to add new words to the vocabulary of their language in order to
talk about new things: There may be new inventions or new ideas or new terrain
and experiences if they move to a different place. Or they may come into contact
with other languages that influence their own in some way, introducing different
sentence structures or new pronunciations or new vocabulary. This exchange
may happen through immigration or invasion or ongoing border contact, such as
that between the United States and Mexico.

EXERCISE 2-------------------

1. Can you think of new words that have been added to English in the last
several decades?
2. Can you think of any words that have dropped out of English in the last
several decades?
3. Which languages do you think have had an influence on English? Can you
think of any specific words we have borrowed or adopted from another
language?

The influences we mentioned above arc external factors, things outside of

language that make if change to respond to the communication needs of the peo­
ple who use it. But even if there were no changes on the outside, a language would
change anyway over time. Languages are not entirely stable systems; there are
always some things in- every language that are vulnerable to change because they
are unnecessarily difficult or complicated. Take, for example, the past tense of
verbs in English. We have already made reference to the fact that many of these
 Language Change 81

have changed over the years. Once it was common in English for the past tense of
a verb to be formed by changing its vowel, just like sing-sang and write-wrote in
modern English. Gradually, many of these irregular verbs have been replaced by
the regular past tense ending in -ed. Such ccgularization makes these verbs easier
to remember, because their past tea� forms no longer need ro be learned one by
one. Holp, for example, has become helped, and /ow has become laughed. We
have already seen, of course, that this replacement is gradual, taking place over sev­
eral generations. While it is in progress, both forms will be used, sometimes creating
anxiety among those of us who arc concerned about the "correct" usage. This
change from irregular to regular morphology is often called anaJogic change or ana­
logic leveling, because a new form is created by analogy to an existing pattern.

EXERCBE3 ___________________
1. Irregular plurals in English have also undergone regularization over the
years. Shoes used to be shoon, and eyes used to be eyen. Can you think of
any plural forms ending in -n that remain in modem English?
2. Irregular forms may also get introduced into a language from other lan­
guages. The plurals syllabi and fungi were borrowed from Latin. What is
the evidence that English speakers arc trying to bring them into line with
regular plural formation in English?
3. Why is it that speakers of English have so much trouble regarding criteria
and phenomena as plurals? Do you know their origin?
4. Regularized forms are often regarded as uneducated speech when they
first appear. Why do you think this is so?

We can sec simplification processes at work in the phonology of a language

as well. Some combinations of sounds, often consonant clusters, arc difficult to
pronounce. Although languages will tolerate them, there may still be a preference
among speakers of the language to simplify them, leading ultimately co a change
in the language. Our spelling system is revealing of consonant clusters that have
been simplified since the spelling system was established. When we consider the
spellings of knight, drought, bomb, limb, and gnat, we gain some idea of word
pronunciations that used to exist but no longer do.
Languages may also change purely by accident, or at least for no obvious rea­
son, similar to the way fashion changes from year to year. Certain vowel pronun­
ciations may shift, for example, making vowels higher or more fronted or more
backed. Stress may move from one syllable to another. As we will see shortly,
such changes have had a major role in making English what it is today.

EXERCISE 4 ____________________
1. Some words in English used to have an I followed by a consonant, but the
/ has been dropped from pronunciation. Using spelling as your guide, try
to identify at least three such words.
82 CHAPTER 5 • Language Change and Variation

2, Sometimes people "revive" consonants that remain in spelling after they

have been lost in pronunciation, such as the pronunciation oft-en. This is
called a spelling pronunciation, Can you think of others?
3. A modem stress shift in American English involves moving the stress from
the first syllable of a word to the second. Where do you place the stress in
comparable, hospitable, despicable? Do you know anyone who pro­
nounces them with the suess elsewhere?

As we have said before, language change comes about gradually, but inex­
orably. Each generation has a somewhat different set of rules from the generation
before it. Words arc added and dropped, pieces of the morphology undergo sim­
plification, pronunciation changes, forms from other languages are introduced.
All languages are llving, dynamic systems that cannot stay in one place, despite che
fervent wishes of many eighteenth--century grammarians and their modern-day
counterpans. There arc always competing forces in a society-those who exercise
influence to keep the language from changing and those who introduce innova­
tions based on the natural need of speakers to keep the vocabulary sufficiently rich
and to eliminate UMeccssary complexity. The tension between chose two forces
allows language to change, but gradually enough so that communication is not
lost between generations. (You may disagree if you have teenage children!)

EXERC�Es ___________________
L What are some of the forces that exert a conservative influence on lan­
guage, that is, keep it from changing too rapidly?
2. Who arc more likely to be the innovators?
3. What effect do you think widespread access to radio, television, print
media, and the Internet has had on language change?

History of English
Overview
The history of the English language presents a good example of how language in
general can change. The history of English has allowed it to be shaped by other
languages, and its internal changes are clear examples of how language systems
shift from within. A closer look at the history of English provides a useful per­
spective to anyone involved in the teaching of modern English. It gives us a vivid
reminder that our current language is merely one stage of an ever-evolving lan­
guage, that it is always subject to change, and that its current shape and form is
largely a result of historical accident.
English began in England in che year A.D. 449, che year that several Germanic
tribes from nonhem Europe invaded the island and drove out the Celts, The Celts
 History of English 83

had lived under Roman domination for many years, hut as the Roman Empire
began to collapse, the Romans withdrew from England to defend their territories
elsewhere. The Celts, unable to defend themselv�s against invaders, were driven
north and west of England to places like Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. The
Germanic tribes-the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes, and the Frisians-settled into
England, consolidating politically and linguistically. The closely related languages
they spoke merged into what is known now as Old English, or Anglo-Saxon.
During these early centurjes, the English kings established strong alliances with the
Church, and by A.O. 700 the island was Christianized. During these years; too,
England weathered repeated invasions from certain Scandinavians, known then as
the Danes or the Vikings, who at one point had virtually conquered the country.
Through the able leadership of King Alfred the Great, England rebounded and in
A.D. 878 negotiated a treaty with the Vikings that would permit the Scandinavians
to live under their own rule in the northeastern part of England in an area known
as the Danelaw. They settled in peacefully and, not being very different either in
language or culture from the English, soon merged· into the population.
The period of Old English lasted until 1066, a major turning point in the
history of the English language. King Edward the Confessor of England died
without an heir to the throne. William, Duke of Normandy, believed that he was
entitled to the throne, but instead Harold was elected king. ln the famous Battle
of Hastings in 1066, William and his troops invaded England and killed Harold
with an arrow through the eye. William then declared liimsclf King of England
and has been referred to since that time as "William the Conqueror." What
makes this event linguistically significant is that Normandy was part of France
and William spoke French, not English. 'f.his fact, as we shall soon sec, was to
have a profound effect on the development of English from that point on. The
period of English between 1066 and 1500 is known as Middle English. The
period known as the Modern English period begins in 1500, the point at which
English is fully recognizable to us as our language.
The three periods of English are illustrated below in excerpts from the Lord's
Prayer from each period. As you can sec, Old English looks as foreign to speakers
of Modern English as any foreign language might. Middle English is more recog­
nizable bat still not similar enough to be understood by speakers of Modern
English. lt is not until the Modem English version that we can clearly recognize it
as English Uannedy, Paletta, & Weldon, 1994, p. 302).

Old English (449-1066)

.Freder ure t,u pe eart on heofonum, si t,in nama gehalgod. Tobecume t,in
rice. Gewurpe t,in willa on eorOan swa swa on heofonum.

Middle English (1066-1500)

Oure fadir that art in heuenes halowid be thi name, thi kyngdom come to,
be thi wille don in erthe es in heuene.
84 CHAPTER. 5 • Language hange and Variat1.on

Modem English (1500-)

Our Father, who is in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your
kingdom come into being. May your will be followed on earth, just as it is
in heaven.

EXERC�E6 ____________________
1. What are some word order differences that you can detect between Old
English and Modern English?
2. What ace some threads of similarity that run through all three versions of
the Lord's Prayer? {It helps to know that the Old English letters I> and a
are the equivalents of Modern English th.)

Old English
During the period of Old English, the language changed considerably. It took in
many words from Larin, rhe language of the Church, including bishop, monk,
and apostle. People also coined many new words to reflect their evolving civiliza­
tion. Compounding was a preferred strategy for creating new words during this
time, resulting in words that translated as "three-ness" (trinity), "book-craft"
(literature), and "star wise-one" (astronomer). There were also some changes as
a result of the establishment of the Danelaw, especially in northern England. As
the Danes and the English became neighbors, friends, and spouses, English
accepted new words from the Scandinavian language, sometimes adding them to
an already existing English word, sometimes replacing the English word. Words
pronounced with [g] or [k] next to a front vowel arc likely to have come from
Scandinavian: skirt, sky, egg, give. Because of the intimate, day•to•day contact,
Scandinavian was able to give English parts of speech that almost never get trans­
ferred from one language to another, such as pronouns and helping verbs. The
third person plural pronouns they, them, and their come from Scandinavian (the
Old English ones started with h), as docs the verb are.
Another interesting development was taking place in English at that
time, which was probably helped along by the contact with the Vikings. Old
English was a language chat had case endings on nouns. That means that
nouns were marked with suffixes to tell whether they were subjects or objects or
possessives or indir�ct objects. These endings, as we will discuss shortly, were
beginning to fade away. Scandinavian also had case endings, but they were differ­
ent from the English ones. The noun roots in the two languages were similar; and
so people most likely found ic easier to drop the endings when trying to commu•
nicate with one another. That meant, of course, that they had to find some
other way to signal the lost information. We will say more about this later in the
chapter.
 History of English 85

EXERCIBE7 ____________________
1. In some cases, a Scandinavian word was absorbed into English without
displacing the native English word, but with more limited use. What are
the limitations on nay (no) and fro (from)? A distinction was once made
also between the English rear and the Scandinavian raise. Do you know
what it was?
2. What might the following sentence look like if English still had case
endings?
The student gave the teacher the book.

Middle English
Until the Middle English period, English evolved in unextraordinary ways, for
the most part. It was influenced by languages with which it had contact and it
adjusted its internal system to retain effective communication while eliminating
unnecessary complications. With the advent of William the Conqueror to the
throne of England, the history of the English language took an unexpected twist.
As we said before, William was a native speaker of French, not English. When he
assumed the throne, he began to bring into his court and into the clergy many
other native speakers of French. In a short time, England became a nation divided
by language: The upper classes spoke French and the lower classes spoke English.
Whereas in the Old English period English was used for scholarly writing, for lit­
erature, and for legal transactions, early in the Middle English period it became,
by and large, an oral language of the peasants with no public function beyond
that. Whatever was not written in Latin was written in French, and French
became the language of most public functions, including education and the legal
system.
This situation prevailed for several hundred years, until about 1250. By then
the stars were lining up for the reemergence of English as the dominant language
of England. Conflict developed between England and France, which forced
nobles who owned land in both countries to declare their allegiance to one side or
the other. With this growing sense of national identity in England came new
respect for the English language and less for French, the language of the antago­
nists. Furthermore, with a growing English-speaking middle class, French and
English no longer had the high-class/low-class language associations they once
had. The Black Death of 1349 reinforced the value of English by wiping out a sig­
nificant portion of the English-speaking labor force in England. Those workers
who survived were in great demand, making them and the language they spoke
more highly valued. Gradually, the upper classes began to learn English, resulting
in a generation of bilingual speakers. The English they spoke was heavily influ­
enced by their native French. When they did not know a word in English, for
example, they would use the French word. The effect by the end of the Middle
86 CHAPTER 5 • Language Change and Variation

English period was that everyone in England spoke Eng)ish, but it was a very dif­
ferent English from that of the period before. It had absorbed at least 10,000 new
words from French and had changed in other significant ways to make it look
much more like the English of today.

EXERCISES ____________________
1. Words from French often retain their connotations of refinement and high
society from the time it played that role not only in England but in all of
Western Europe. We see one example of this in the terms for cooked meat
that were taken into English during the Middle English period. Before
French influence, the English killed pigs and ate pigs. Now, of course, we
eat pork, a word derived from French. What are the French-derived food
names associated with these Anglo-Saxon animals? ,ow, deer, sheep, calf
2. We see some of the greatest influence of French in the vocabulary of the
English legal system, because legal transactions were all conducted in
French. Some of the words adopted into English arc justice, larceny,
felony, and judge. Can you think of others? Most dictionaries will tell you
the origin of a word, so you can check your guesses. There are also some
remnants of French syntax in legal English: attorney general and accounts
payable put the adjective after the noun, for example.

Modem English
Much of the development that we see in the later years of English is a conse­
quence of the growing function of English as the language of rapidly growing and
changing civilizations. When English once again became the dominant written
language in England, it continued to expand its vocabulary, adding thousands of
words needed to express the abstract thoughts of poetry, lircrature, and philoso­
phy. Advancing technology required and still requires the enrichment of rhe
vocabulary of the language: the automobile, flight, space travel, and computer
technology all added new words to English. Sports and leisure activities have also
added to English, as has changing fashion. There arc other, less obvious, ways in
which English has changed since 1500. We use a wider range of verb tenses now,
including those with -ing, known as the progressive tenses: l will have been wait­
ing for two hours; we use helping verbs more ohcn: Shakespeare might have said
Speak you my name? while we would say Do you speak my name? or Are yoi,
speaking my name? We express negatives differently. Shakespeare might have
said I love thee not, but we say I don't love you. And although we can still under­
stand them, we do not use the pronoWls thou. thee, and thy anymore.
Through the many changes that have taken place over the years, English has
been transformed from the mysterious, foreign-looking language we saw in the
 Mechanisms of Change 87

first sample from the Lord's Prayer to the language that we use unself-consciously
today to conduct the daily business of life, record our thoughts, and communi­
cate our feelings. And by now we arc aware that what might seem to us an
unchanging set of rules that guide our speech and writing is more accurately a
snapshot in time of an organism subject to continuous change.

EXERCISE 9 ___________________
1. What is some vocabulary that you think has been added to English in your
lifetime?
2. Often specialized vocabulary spreads to the language in general. Baseball
has been a rich source of such enrichment: I can't get to first base, yoi1
strnck out, he's batting zero. Can you think of others?
3. The development of the railroads added a great deal to the vocabulary of
English. What expressions can you think of that include track, for exam­
ple? Gold mining also gave us some common expressions. What are some?
4. Consider this passage from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, written at the
end of the sixteenth century. What changes have taken place in English
since then?
Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face;
Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek
For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night.
Fain would I dwell on form-fain, fain deny
What I have spoke; but farewell compliment!
Dost thou Jove me? I know thou wilt say 'Ay';
And I will take thy word. Yet, if thou swear'st,
Thou mayst prove false. At lovers' perjuries,
They say Jove laughs. 0 gentle Romeo,
If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully.
{From A. Harbagc (Ed.). (1969). Wiliam Shakespeare: The complete works. New
York: Penguin Books, p. 869.)

Mechanisms of Change
Vocabulary
We can be convinced chat languages change by comparing samples of a language
at different points in its history, as we have done with English. Our understand­
ing of language change deepens as we look more closely at what actually happens
as languages evolve. Change in the vocabulary is the most obvious and transpar­
ent kind of change. How does a language alter its vocabulary? We know that
often languages adopt words from another language with which they arc in con­
tact; we have seen that in the loan words that English has borrowed from Latin,
88 CHAPTER 5 • Language Change and Variation

Scandinavian, and French. Over cbe years, of course, E.nglish has come into con•
tact with other languages and has borrowed vocabulary from them as well. Many
of our musical terms come from Italian: soprano, alto, cello, and piano. Many of
our ranching t«;rms come from Spanish: corral, rodeo, and ranch; German has
given us sauerkraut, hamburger, frankfurter, blitz, and fritz; we get cookie and
yacht from Dutch, algebra and alchemy from Arabic, thug from Hindustani, and
shawl &om Persian.
When we have not borrowed words from other languages, we have coined
them using a variety of methods. We might recombine existing bound mor•
phemcs, as we did to name the telephone or the telegraph. We might form new
compounds, as the computer industry often docs: software, floppy disk, hard
drive. We might create a blend (bmnch for breakfast + lunch, smog for smoke +
fog) or create a word from an acronym (scuba for self-contained underwater
breathing apparatus). Sometimes we come co use a brand name for the generi<:
name of something: Kleenex, Band-Aid, Jell-O, or the name of a fictional charac­
ter as a description of a type of person (Don Juan, Pollyanna).
In addition to adding words, the vocabulary of a language changes in other
ways over time. As we are all aware, languages can lose vocabulary as well. Try
to read a play of Shakespeare•s (and this is from the Modem English period, of
course) and sec how far you get without a glossary. Some of the words he uses are
unfamiliar to the modem reader: compliment with the meaning "etiquette,"
d1sco11er with the meaning "reveal," and havior for "behavior," for example.
Others may look familiar, but you would never use them yourself: nay, knowest,
fain. If you want more current evidence that English loses words, think of some
terms your grandparents use that you understand but would never use yourself:
davenport? trousers? phonograph?
The vocabulary of any language is in a constant state of flux, adding and sub­
tracting words readily to accommodate the changing communication needs of the
speakers of the language. Ir is also true that even words that seem to be scablc and
permanent may be in a state of flux because their meanings are gradually chang­
ing. Over the years, girl has changed from its meaning of "young person" to
"young female person," meat has changed from "food" to a particular kind of
food, sinister from "left side" to "evil." And, as you probably know if you have
contact with teenagers, or preadolescents, there is a steady influx of slang vocab­
ulary that changes very rapidly but may occasionally make a more lasting contri­
bution to a language, such as cool for " go od.,.

EXERC�ElO ___________________
1. What language do you think is the origin of each of these English words?
troika, smorgasbord, champagne, macho. ginseng, karaoke, goulash, noo­
dle, curry? Check your answers n a dictionary.
2. These are some new words for English approved by the Dictionary Society
of North America: Afrocentric, bummed, in-your-face, managed care,
 Mechanisms of Change 89

microbrewery, Prozac, and trophy wife. What criteria do you thjnk dictio­
naries use for including a word?
3. Word coinage is very common, especially in the media, which can cause a
new vocabulary item to s,pread very rapidly. Can you think of any very
recent words or phrases currently in circulation?
4. What is the origin of the v•erb fax?
5. The word unique once meant "one of a kind." What does it mean if
someone says That's a very unique display? Do you think it is incorrect to
use the word in this way? Why?

Phonology
Phonology, you will remember, iinvolves the way a language organizes sounds.
Every language considers some imunds to be distinct (different phonemes) and
others to be variations of the same sound (allophones of the same phoneme). And
every language has rules that tell you where those allophones appear in words
(rules of distribution). These ;arrangements feel to us to be inherent and
immutable aspects of our langua1ge. We could not imagine English without a /b/,
and we would have trouble conceiving of /b/ as another way of saying /p/.
Similarly, it would be very difficult for us to imagine an English in which the /p/
would be unaspiratcd in the word party or aspirated in the word happen.
Nevertheless, changes of this sor,t can occur over time, altering the relationships
among sounds in a language. Languages can lose phonemes, they can add them,
and the relationship among sounds can shift.
You might be interested to know, for example, that English used to have a
voiceless velar fricative phoneme. We have talked about this sound before, but as a
non-English sound. Its phonetic symbol is [x]. If you think about the features that
make it up, you will see that it is very much like the English [k), accept that it is a
fricative rather than a stop. At on,e time it functioned in English just like any other
consonant phoneme, but it dropp1ed. out by the end of the Middle English period.
Often when it was part of a cons1onant cluster, it stopped being pronounced com­
pletely. When it was at the end of a word, it changed to another voiceless fricative,
[f}. The original sound was represi:nted in spelling as gb, which explains, of course,
why the gh is now silent in night �md pronounced like [fJ in rough.
English is also an example of a language that has added a phoneme. The
phoneme /21, the voiced palatal fricative, is a relative newcomer to the phonology
of English. As you might guess, English took it from French during the many
years of intimate contact after 1066. It is rare for one language to take a phoneme
from another, even with intimate contact, but in this instance English phonology
was in a way prepared for it. Engllish had many pairs of consonants, one voiceless
and one voiced: [p/b, t/d, c/J], for example. The fact that the consonant /s/ had no
voiced counterpart could have be:en perceived as a gap in the system, a gap that
could be filled by the fortuitous presence of French.
90 CHAPTER 5 • Language Change and Variation

As difficult as it might be to imagine, it is also possible that two sounds once

perceived as allophones of the same phoneme can come to be regarded as two
separate phonemes, a phenomenon known as phoneme split. There was a time in
English, for example, when the sounds [fJ and [v] were regarded as variations of
the same sound; [v] was used between voiced sounds-and [f] was used elsewhere.
For example, in the Old English word spelled heofon, the f was pronounced [vJ
because it fell between two voiced sounds. On the other hand, the fin leaf was
pronounced [f) because it was not between voiced sounds. Again, French was the
trigger for this change. In French, the two sounds were separate phonemes, and
once English absorbed a word like veal alongside of its existing word feel, the
two sounds had to be regarded as distinct consonants with the capacity to differ­
entiate meaning-hence, two phonemes where once there was one!

EXERCISE 11 __________________
1. What do speakers of English do now when they are faced with a voiceless
velar fricative, as in Bach?
2. How many English words can you think of that begin with the sound [z]?
How many words end with this sound? Why do you think its distribution
is so much more limited than that of its voiceless counterpart [s]?
3. There is a Modern English remnant of the old rule of distribution for [f]
and [v) in the current plurals of some words that end in f: /oaf-loaves,
shelf-shelves, wife-wives, and so forth. What do you think is the origin of
these irregular plurals?

Another kind of change in the phonology of a language is known as a vowel

shift, which can have far-reaching effects on the pronunciation of words. One such
shift. in English, known as the Great Vowel Shift, began toward the end of the
Middle English period and took about 200 years to complete. In this shift, some of
the vowels of Middle English moved higher in the mouth, with the tongue raised
higher towards the palate. Figure 5.1 illustrates the changes that took place.

Figure 5.1
front back
high
mid

low

So, for example,

[ges] became [gis] (geese)
[brck] became [brek] (break)
 Mechanisms of Change 91

[gos] became [gus] (goose)

[p::il] became [pol] (pole)

[narn] became [nern] (name)
The top ones, [i] and [u], could not be raised any more; these changed by becoming
diphthongs: [i] became [ay] and [u) became [aw]. Examples of changed words are:
[mis) became [mays) (mice)
[hus] became {haws) (house)

EXEROSE 12--------------------
1. Here are the pronunciations of some Middle English words. What did
they become as a result of the Great Vowel Shift? [ut], [wif], [april], [fod],
[g::,t), [gren], [grct]
2. The reasons for the Great Vowel Shift are unknown, although some schol­
ars think it started because some people were attempting to imitate the
pronunciation of a more prestigious variety of English. Can you think of a
modern-day situation in which people alter their pronunciation to sound
higher class or more intelligent?

Morphology and Syntax

We have already seen some evidence that languages change their morphology and
syntax over time. There is a tendency to regularize irregular forms through ana­
logic leveling. English has experienced quite a bit of that over the years in its past
tense verbs and plurals of nouns. We have also alluded to the fact that languages
may develop new verb tenses and may change the way they form questions and
negation.
Languages may also shift over time with respect to how they signal the gram­
matical function of nouns. Every language must, in one way or another, tell what
role each noun in a sentence plays. Is it a doer of the action? a receiver? a posses­
sor? a beneficiary? As we said earlier, English used to signal these functions by
placing suffixes, called case endings, at the ends of nouns. For example, if
Modern English did this, it might look like this: The student-o gave the teacher­
um a book-a. The Old English system was quite a bit more complicated than this,
but the principle is the same: attach a suffix to tell what role the noun plays in the
sentence. Now, notice what would happen if we rearranged the words in the sen­
tence: Gave a book-a the teacher-um the student-a, You see that the meaning
does not change because the role markings travel with the nouns. In fact, Old
English had very flexible word order because of its case endings. Bur, if you
recall, the endings on words began gradually to wear away in English. One rea­
son was that stress had drifted toward the beginnings of words, leaving less force
92 CHAPTER 5 • Language Change and Variation

on the ends and making them less audible. Another reason, as we mentioned ear­
lier, was that the Scandinavians and the English very likely tended to drop the
endings because they were different for the two languages. The effect over time
was that English lost its case endings. To compensate for the loss, English became
much stricter about word order. Now, it is the location in the sentence that tells
us whecher a noun is a doer or a receiver, for example, and we do not have the
freedom to move things around without changing the meaning. The boy chased
the girl means something different from The girl chased the boy.
English, then, has undergone a major change in its morphology with ics loss
of case endings and a major change in its syntax with the imposition of strict
word order. This may all seem rather remote and possibly even uninteresting to
the modem reader, but as teachers, it is especially important for us to recognize
that aspects of English are still caught up in this change (which means that we
and our students are likely to experience some discomfort and uncertainty).
Consider the fact that our pronouns work the way nouns used to work: If they
are doers (or subjects), µ1ey have one form, but if they are objects (or receivers)
they have another. For example, the troublesome who-whom distinction harks
back co che old case system, as does the rule for the usage of personal pronouns:
subject pronouns for subjects and object pronouns for objects: I saw him but He
saw me. But not everyone follows this usage, especially in compounds. Many
younger people or people in very informal settings seem to prefer to use the object
pronouns in compounds: Me and him are friends, with a variety of reactions that
will be the topic of a later discussion in this chapter.

EXERCISE 13 ____________________
1. Another thing speakers of English did as case endings were dropping off
was to make greater use of prepositions to signal noun function: I gave the
book to Mary, for example. The one remaining case ending, the posses­
sive, also seems to be giving way to prepositions: the roof of the garage
rather than the garage's r.oof. When are we mo.re likely to use a preposi­
tion rather than the 's to express possession?
2. We are not likely to say the table's leg is broken. What arc the two more
common alternatives? How do they fit into the general direction of change
in English?
3. Why is it that everyone understands Me and him are friends even though
the pronouns are in their object form?
4. Why do you think many well-educated people say ungrammatical sen­
tences like They are happy for he and I?

The most important thing we learn from studying language history is that no
language is permanently fixed, that languages keep changing to achieve certain
goals for their users, and that change gives rise to variation in people's usage. As
te;1chers, we need to be sensitive to the directions those changes take and to