10 Language Change Free Online FlashCards

Which aspects of language can change?

Languages change in pronunciation, word forms, sentence structure, and meaning; changes spread through communities over time.

What is a sound change?

A sound change is a shift in how speech sounds are pronounced or organized. Sounds may be lost, added, altered, or merged.

How can sound changes be context-dependent?

Many sound changes follow regular patterns in particular contexts, such as affecting a sound only at a word’s end or beside a particular vowel.

What sound correspondence appears in father, pater, and pitṛ?

In the inherited words English father, Latin pater, and Sanskrit pitṛ, English f corresponds to p in Latin and Sanskrit, reflecting a wider pattern in Germanic.

Why is one matching word pair insufficient to establish a sound rule?

One matching pair cannot establish a sound rule. Linguists look for repeated correspondences across many words.

What is analogy in language change?

Analogy is the reshaping of an irregular form to match a more familiar pattern. It can make forms less alike and obscure earlier sound patterns.

What is grammaticalization?

Grammaticalization is a process in which a word or phrase becomes more grammatical over time, sometimes becoming shorter or less independent.

What does going to express in “I’m going to call”?

In “I’m going to call,” going to expresses a future plan and functions as a grammatical construction, not simply movement.

What makes languages members of the same language family?

A language family consists of languages descended from a common ancestor, called a proto-language.

What are daughter languages?

Daughter languages are languages descended from a common ancestral language.

What does branching in a language-family tree represent?

A language-family tree represents descent and branching: separated communities’ varieties develop into distinct languages.

Why doesn’t shared vocabulary alone prove languages are related?

Borrowing can make unrelated languages look more similar, so vocabulary resemblance alone does not prove common ancestry.