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!