Prace komisji nauk.pdf - Instytut Filologii Angielskiej Uniwersytetu ...
Prace komisji nauk.pdf - Instytut Filologii Angielskiej Uniwersytetu ... Prace komisji nauk.pdf - Instytut Filologii Angielskiej Uniwersytetu ...
produced. The children must guess at it and they can be “mistaken”. This is the way in which the uvular r could have come into being: instead of the tip of the tongue they cause the uvula to vibrate. An interesting morphological case are the so-called strong (irregular) verbs in Germanic: compare English verbs like to drive – drove – driven, to sing – sang – sung, to bring – brought – brought. The past tense and the participle are formed by a vowel, in some cases also by a consonant alternation. Roughly speaking, children acquire these verbs in three stages. In the first stage they learn the very frequent strong verbs, for example to bring – brought – brought, in correct forms. In the second stage they discover the so-called weak verbs, which inflect in a regular pattern. But they overgeneralize it, led by the working hypothesis: the past tense and the past participle have to be formed by adding a dental suffix, containing a d or a t, compare: to work – worked – worked. And so they make, by analogy: to drive – drived – drived instead of the correct drove – driven. In the third stage the children are corrected by the language behaviour of older people: they learn the correct strong inflection (cf. e.g. Bybee & Slobin 1982). But especially in the case of less frequent strong verbs, they can keep hesitating and it is possible that incorrect forms, incorrect so far they are in conflict with the old, established norms, remain in their speech and can survive into their adult speech. It is even possible that these incorrect forms become the new norm, at least part of the norm in the long run. An example is English to bake, originally a strong verb but now entirely weak: baked – baked. In German and Dutch it is now weak in the past tense: backte/bakte, but still strong in the participle: gebacken/gebakken (not gebakt). The old past tense was (Dutch) boek [buk], biek [bik]. Many strong verbs have become weak through the centuries but many other strong verbs are maintaining themselves as such because they are used very frequently and therefore easily acquired. Frequency is here the enemy of analogy. Nevertheless, analogy is a very important source of language 20
change. In most cases it establishes more regularity in language. To a great extent the systematic character of language must be attributed to this factor. 5 Children are also led by other hypotheses, hypotheses concerning the relation between form and meaning. They stick to the one form – one meaningprinciple, also called the Humboldtian principle after Von Humboldt (cf. note 4). I give two examples. The first example. In English the usual comparative and superlative have the endings –er and –est: great – greater - greatest. It is also: old – older – oldest, but in case of family relations (in a wider sense: people) we have to use (according to an old rule): elder – eldest: Susan is his eldest daughter. In predicative use it is always older and oldest: Susan is older than her brother. Elder and eldest are older forms, with so-called Umlaut: compare German alt – älter – ältest. Later on, by analogy, new regular forms came into being: older – oldest. There was first a period of variation in which two reactions were possible: one of the two forms could disappear, or they could be associated with different meanings or different uses (semantic or functional differentiation). For a while this happened in our case. It is as if were hypothezised: the two different forms must have two different meanings or uses. 6 A slightly different Dutch example is veen besides ven. Originally they had the same meaning – they developed from different cases within the paradigm - but nowadays veen means “peat-soil”, Polish “gleba torfowa” and ven means “fen”, Polish “małe jezioro na wrzosowisku”. In the case of Dutch schout and schuld, also originating from different caseforms and both meaning “debt, guilt”, the first form disappeared. 5 The role of frequency in the loss or preservation of strong verbs has been investigated by two American scholars (Eres Lieberman & Jean-Baptiste Michel; see: http://www.kennislink.nl/web/show?id=129397, with reference to Nature 11/10, 2007). It became clear that if there is a difference in frequency x-y (e.g. 2-4) between two strong verbs v and w, the chance of survival is x 2 (4) for v and y 2 (16) for w. 6 But the fight is not over yet: nowadays there are many speakers who use only older and oldest, in all positions; and prescriptive pressure to keep using both forms is diminishing. Elder and eldest may yet disappear from the language/ 21
- Page 1 and 2: POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES WROCŁAW
- Page 3 and 4: Prace Komisji Nauk Filologicznych O
- Page 5: PRZEDMOWA Mamy zaszczyt przedstawi
- Page 8 and 9: II 18 maja 2008 roku Komisja Nauk F
- Page 10 and 11: JĘZYK WALIJSKI - UMIERAJĄCY CZY O
- Page 12 and 13: interested in everything that grows
- Page 14 and 15: Scheme 1: the invisible hand intent
- Page 16 and 17: Antlitz, haar engelachtig gelaat
- Page 18 and 19: Reduction is also a case of economy
- Page 22 and 23: The second example. The official Du
- Page 24 and 25: language. They preserve some words,
- Page 26 and 27: In general, the higher classes resi
- Page 28 and 29: past and especially ongoing changes
- Page 31 and 32: Izabela Białek Wrocław A linguist
- Page 33 and 34: On the nature of discourse The expl
- Page 35 and 36: - a system of principles (these pri
- Page 37 and 38: Moreover, based once again on the d
- Page 39 and 40: dialect as a regional or a social s
- Page 41 and 42: variation of language, namely, the
- Page 43 and 44: feature constituting the hunting so
- Page 45 and 46: great ignorance and an improper att
- Page 47 and 48: 61. leśniczy forester der Förster
- Page 49 and 50: 123. samura (dzik) ----------------
- Page 51 and 52: appears to be a fashionable hobby.
- Page 53: Wilkoń, Aleksander (1987) Typologi
- Page 56 and 57: poniewaŜ w analizie jakościowej,
- Page 58 and 59: manipulacji. Van Leeuwen (2005) wsk
- Page 60 and 61: Van Dijk, Teun A. (1993) “Princip
- Page 62 and 63: which, as culturally bound linguist
- Page 64 and 65: undertakings. Thus Thore’s death
- Page 66 and 67: “intratextlinguistics”, this wo
- Page 68 and 69: actually a creative projection of a
change. In most cases it establishes more regularity in language. To a great<br />
extent the systematic character of language must be attributed to this factor. 5<br />
Children are also led by other hypotheses, hypotheses concerning the<br />
relation between form and meaning. They stick to the one form – one meaningprinciple,<br />
also called the Humboldtian principle after Von Humboldt (cf. note 4).<br />
I give two examples.<br />
The first example. In English the usual comparative and superlative have<br />
the endings –er and –est: great – greater - greatest. It is also: old – older –<br />
oldest, but in case of family relations (in a wider sense: people) we have to use<br />
(according to an old rule): elder – eldest: Susan is his eldest daughter. In<br />
predicative use it is always older and oldest: Susan is older than her brother.<br />
Elder and eldest are older forms, with so-called Umlaut: compare German alt –<br />
älter – ältest. Later on, by analogy, new regular forms came into being: older –<br />
oldest. There was first a period of variation in which two reactions were<br />
possible: one of the two forms could disappear, or they could be associated with<br />
different meanings or different uses (semantic or functional differentiation). For<br />
a while this happened in our case. It is as if were hypothezised: the two different<br />
forms must have two different meanings or uses. 6 A slightly different Dutch<br />
example is veen besides ven. Originally they had the same meaning – they<br />
developed from different cases within the paradigm - but nowadays veen means<br />
“peat-soil”, Polish “gleba torfowa” and ven means “fen”, Polish “małe jezioro<br />
na wrzosowisku”. In the case of Dutch schout and schuld, also originating from<br />
different caseforms and both meaning “debt, guilt”, the first form disappeared.<br />
5 The role of frequency in the loss or preservation of strong verbs has been investigated by<br />
two American scholars (Eres Lieberman & Jean-Baptiste Michel; see:<br />
http://www.kennislink.nl/web/show?id=129397, with reference to Nature 11/10, 2007). It<br />
became clear that if there is a difference in frequency x-y (e.g. 2-4) between two strong<br />
verbs v and w, the chance of survival is x 2 (4) for v and y 2 (16) for w.<br />
6 But the fight is not over yet: nowadays there are many speakers who use only older and<br />
oldest, in all positions; and prescriptive pressure to keep using both forms is diminishing.<br />
Elder and eldest may yet disappear from the language/<br />
21
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