Post on 16-Aug-2015
Interpretation language variation and change
Kevin Tuitu
Dera Frana Kusumaand
Yespita Tamba
present
Etymology and comparative grammar
• Etymology
Etymology is the study of word origins or the reconstruction of the history (and prehistory) of words and word elements.
For example:
The modern English word “water” goes back to Old English “woeter” and High German “watar”
Etymology and comparative grammar
• Comparative grammar
“theos”Greek
GOD
“deus”Latin
The Neo-grammarians and the doctrine of the “exceptionless sound law”
The Neo-grammarian (Junggrammatiker) or young grammarian is a German school of linguists, originally at the University of Leipzig, in the late 19th century who proposed the Neo-grammarian hypothesis of the regularity of sound change.
The Neo-grammarians and the doctrine of the “exceptionless sound law”
The doctrine of the exceptionless sound law is a shift of sound law who related to “Grimm’s first sound law”.
For example:Grimm’s first sound law
Greek Latin English Indo-Europe
-Voiced stop -Voiced stop -Voiceless stop -Voiced stop
Duo Duo Two Dwo
The etymology of “trouver”
TROPARE“compose a melody” “compose” >
“invent” > “discover, find”
TURBARE“stir up” > “rummage through” > “seek”
> “find”
TROUVER (FRENCH) / TROBAR (OCCITAN)“find”
Etymologies, fossils, and narratives
Etymological studies of even a single word may run to hundreds of pages.
Fossil is constituted as an object of study through its positioning in a web of relations to other fossils.
Narrative is texts which consist of collecting of words that have same meaning.
Research on variation and change since Saussure
•Synchronic linguistics :the study of the state of a language at a given point in time.(ex:Tropare)
•Diachronic linguistics :the study of language change. (Turbare-Trouver)
Research on variation and change since Saussure
• Imonda language of Papua-New-Guinea. Seiler (1985: 20) varied regularly with age.
•The case of Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, is instructive. This town was founded after the Second World War
Conclusion
Variation and change is a ubiquitous characteristic of language.
Variation – different ways of saying “the same thing” – is the primary resource exploited in this process.
Language is not statis but dinamis, it have variation and change from time to time.
THANK YOU!