Language change over time, language families, and the comparative method used to reconstruct ancestral languages.
36 cards · basic cards · AI-written, checked twice. Edit anything.
- What is the comparative method in historical linguistics?
Show answer
A technique that compares similar words and sound patterns across different languages to reconstruct their common ancestor language.- What are cognates?
Show answer
Words in different languages that descended from the same word in an ancestral language and share a common origin.- Define sound change.
Show answer
A systematic alteration of phonemes in a language over time, affecting either individual sounds or sound classes in predictable ways.- What is the Neogrammarian hypothesis?
Show answer
The principle that sound changes operate mechanically and regularly across all words containing the affected sounds, except in cases of analogy or borrowing.- What does phonetic conditioning mean in sound change?
Show answer
Sound changes that apply only in specific phonetic environments, affected by surrounding sounds or syllable position.- What is analogy in historical linguistics?
Show answer
A process where speakers regularize irregular forms or extend grammatical patterns by false association with similar forms.- Define borrowing in the context of language change.
Show answer
The adoption of words or grammatical features from one language into another, usually through contact between speakers.- What is semantic broadening?
Show answer
A type of semantic change where a word's meaning becomes more general or inclusive, covering a wider range of referents.- What is semantic narrowing?
Show answer
A type of semantic change where a word's meaning becomes more restricted or specific, covering fewer referents than before.- Define amelioration in semantics.
Show answer
A type of semantic change where a word's connotation becomes more positive or prestigious over time.- Define pejoration in semantics.
Show answer
A type of semantic change where a word's connotation becomes more negative or derogatory over time.- What is a proto-language?
Show answer
The reconstructed, hypothetical common ancestor language from which related languages descended.- What is a language family?
Show answer
A group of languages that share a common ancestor language and are therefore genetically related.- What is the Indo-European language family?
Show answer
The largest language family, including most European languages, Persian, Sanskrit, and most languages of India and parts of Central Asia.- Name three major branches of Indo-European.
Show answer
Germanic, Romance, and Balto-Slavic are three major branches; others include Italic, Celtic, Greek, Anatolian, Tocharian, and Indo-Iranian.
FlashKeepers