An Introduction to Language and Linguistics by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2014-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

Mechanisms of language change

There are three main mechanisms creating language change: sound change, borrowing, and analogical creation.

Sound change

Sound change is a change in the way members of a speech community pronounce particular sounds; it takes place constantly but slowly. Sound changes result in phonological changes (changes to the phonology of the language). Tracing sound changes helps linguists to determine relatedness among languages and reconstruct languages no longer spoken, and to distinguish loan words such as dentist and pedestrian from native words such as tooth and foot.

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