Re: Historical Lingusitics/Dialect Question
| From: | Roger Mills <romilly@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, September 7, 2003, 3:06 |
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J.K.Hoffman wrote:
> Okay, so I've got a couple of questions regarding language change.
> What's more common, change in pronunciation of words? Or, change in
> grammatical structure?
Pronounciation, by far. Sometimes within the space of 2-3 generations.
Grammatical change seems a lot more resistant; I think the schoolmarms have
finally given up on "whom" and maybe "it is I" etc, but those battles were
going on even before I was born a Long Time Ago.
> Or, are there other ways that are more common that I'm not aware of?
Interesting and sometimes amusing things happen in the semantic area-- aside
from words being lost, you can find pejoration, amelioration, loss/addition
of connotations, confusion (e.g. disinterested vs. uninterested), not to
mention all the slang that comes and goes. Groovy.
An interesting and not overly-technical book on semantics (in the
linguistic, not philosophical, sense) is Stephen Ullmann's; I disremember
the title at the moment; it may be "Meaning and Change of Meaning". Old,
but still available.
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