Institute of English and American Studies INtroduction to historical linguistics 2008 University of Pannonia, Faculty of Arts, Institute of English and American Studies H-8200 Veszprém, Egyetem u. 10. Phone: (36) 88/ Introduction to historical linguistics. VETKANB213T/VETLANB213T Lecture 1. Important course information - Basic notions Szilárd Szentgyörgyi

Institute of English and American Studies INtroduction to historical linguistics 2008 University of Pannonia, Faculty of Arts, Institute of English and American Studies H-8200 Veszprém, Egyetem u. 10. Phone: (36) 88/ Contents: –Course information –Language change

Institute of English and American Studies INtroduction to historical linguistics 2008 University of Pannonia, Faculty of Arts, Institute of English and American Studies H-8200 Veszprém, Egyetem u. 10. Phone: (36) 88/ Contact information: Szentgyörgyi Szilárd Office in Building „K” upstairs Office hours: Wed and Thu Course materials at: in Fixinfo (Course title: Intro to historical linguistics, password: )

Institute of English and American Studies INtroduction to historical linguistics 2008 University of Pannonia, Faculty of Arts, Institute of English and American Studies H-8200 Veszprém, Egyetem u. 10. Phone: (36) 88/ Obligatory readings: Terry Crowley: An Introduction to Historical Linguistics Oxford University Press. John Algeo – Thomas Pyles: The Origins and Development of the English Language Wadsworth Publishing.

Institute of English and American Studies INtroduction to historical linguistics 2008 University of Pannonia, Faculty of Arts, Institute of English and American Studies H-8200 Veszprém, Egyetem u. 10. Phone: (36) 88/ Requirements for signature –2 midterms including theoretical and practical tasks on weeks 8 and 15 (NO make up tests!!!) –Gradebooks only signed if you get at least 40% of the points in both parts separately. –Grades will be offered if you get at least 60% in average.

Institute of English and American Studies INtroduction to historical linguistics 2008 University of Pannonia, Faculty of Arts, Institute of English and American Studies H-8200 Veszprém, Egyetem u. 10. Phone: (36) 88/ Exam requirements: –4 written exams –passmark: 50% –Tasks: same as in midterm tests gap-filling multiple choice practical task

Institute of English and American Studies INtroduction to historical linguistics 2008 University of Pannonia, Faculty of Arts, Institute of English and American Studies H-8200 Veszprém, Egyetem u. 10. Phone: (36) 88/ Historical linguistics –describes objectively what and how happened in the language at an earlier stage of its development ??? –Synchronic vs diachronic linguistics (Ferdinand de Saussure)

Institute of English and American Studies INtroduction to historical linguistics 2008 University of Pannonia, Faculty of Arts, Institute of English and American Studies H-8200 Veszprém, Egyetem u. 10. Phone: (36) 88/ Linguistic universals –languages change throughout time –all (states of) languages are equal: no golden age? Why do languages change? –ease of pronunciation (laziness)? –shortage of memory? –imperfect imitation? How do languages change? –haphazardly or in similar ways?

Institute of English and American Studies INtroduction to historical linguistics 2008 University of Pannonia, Faculty of Arts, Institute of English and American Studies H-8200 Veszprém, Egyetem u. 10. Phone: (36) 88/ What changes in languages? –everything: sounds, sound patterns, morphemes, words, morpheme and word structure rules, phrase structure rules, etc. –one change may lead to another (chain shifts) What is the result of changes in languages? –emergence of varieties (social and geographical) –emergence of languages –difference between language and dialect (linguistic and common sense) –dialect chains

Institute of English and American Studies INtroduction to historical linguistics 2008 University of Pannonia, Faculty of Arts, Institute of English and American Studies H-8200 Veszprém, Egyetem u. 10. Phone: (36) 88/ Classification of languages: –typological (isolating, inflecting, agglutinating) –genetic (language families)

Institute of English and American Studies INtroduction to historical linguistics 2008 University of Pannonia, Faculty of Arts, Institute of English and American Studies H-8200 Veszprém, Egyetem u. 10. Phone: (36) 88/ Sir William Jones (1786): –„The Sankskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which perhaps, no longer exists: there is similar reason, though not quite forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanskrit; and the Old Persian might be added to the same family.

Institute of English and American Studies INtroduction to historical linguistics 2008 University of Pannonia, Faculty of Arts, Institute of English and American Studies H-8200 Veszprém, Egyetem u. 10. Phone: (36) 88/ Sir William Jones (1786): –„The Sankskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which perhaps, no longer exists: there is similar reason, though not quite forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanskrit; and the Old Persian might be added to the same family.

Institute of English and American Studies INtroduction to historical linguistics 2008 University of Pannonia, Faculty of Arts, Institute of English and American Studies H-8200 Veszprém, Egyetem u. 10. Phone: (36) 88/ lanuages being related (instead of deriving one language from another, there is parallel development) thus families of languages arise (proto- languages)

Institute of English and American Studies INtroduction to historical linguistics 2008 University of Pannonia, Faculty of Arts, Institute of English and American Studies H-8200 Veszprém, Egyetem u. 10. Phone: (36) 88/ language change: –natural vs deliberate –automatic vs planned