12-12-2012, 04:40 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Guidelines for Linguistic Evolution
So I've read things periodically about how languages change over time and it's a quite interesting subject. Things suitable for non-linguists with an interest in the subject seem sort of scattered though. Has anyone come across a collection of lots of summarized "rules" that linguists have observed possibly for the purpose of conlangs?
Does anyone have anything to keep in mind when using stuff like this for languages in game? |
12-12-2012, 04:46 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Guidelines for Linguistic Evolution
Not really, no. Hopper and Traugott's Grammaticalization has some interesting generalizations, though.
Bill Stoddard |
12-12-2012, 04:50 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Re: Guidelines for Linguistic Evolution
That's a shame, but I'll keep any eye out for the book.
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12-12-2012, 04:54 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Guidelines for Linguistic Evolution
There is a lot of this in the field of language change, a branch of historical linguistics. I think that the key work was by Robert Murray and Theo Vennemann in the 1980s. That said, you do need a few hundred or thousand hours of linguistics training to use it, so if words like alveo-palatial, comment, and grammaticalization make your head spin stay away!
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12-12-2012, 05:00 PM | #5 |
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Re: Guidelines for Linguistic Evolution
I'm sadly not fully fluent in linguistics which is one reason I'm asking. A collection of observations boiled down into rules with less technical language intended for conlangers intent on aging their language realistically would be more comfortable reading then going through actual linguistic texts. That said the real problem isn't fluency but precisely how much stuff there is. It's easy to find something on how languages change but I'd rather not start reading an entire field beginning with whatever I randomly come across first.
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12-12-2012, 05:34 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Guidelines for Linguistic Evolution
Well, I gave you two full names to type into your local library catalogue and journal database or mention when you talk to your local reference librarian ... I can't do more than that for you because its not my specialty. I am an ancient historian not a philologist.
I think that one book you will want to read is Vennemann, Theo (1988), Preference Laws for Syllable Structure and the Explanation of Sound Change, Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter There is also a forthcoming book P. Honeybone & J. Salmons, Handbook of Historical Phonology, Oxford: Oxford University Press .
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"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature |
12-12-2012, 05:38 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Guidelines for Linguistic Evolution
Quote:
Bill Stoddard |
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12-12-2012, 05:50 PM | #8 | |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA
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Re: Guidelines for Linguistic Evolution
Quote:
Of course, that is for grammar. For phonetics, I say the word aloud a few times. |
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12-12-2012, 05:52 PM | #9 | |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA
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Re: Guidelines for Linguistic Evolution
Quote:
This thread really should be in Roleplaying in General, since it's not GURPS-specific. |
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12-12-2012, 09:29 PM | #10 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Guidelines for Linguistic Evolution
One of the recurring patterns is that. You start out, let us say, with an idea that you want to convey, and you adopt a phrase that conveys it: I will go = I will go [despite obstacles or opposition] or [ego] cantare habeo, "I to sing have [that is, before me as a task]." Through repeated use, the force gets worn down to where will or habeo becomes a marker of simple futurity; this is grammaticalization. Then, because it's no longer an independent semantic element, the word becomes unstressed in pronunciation, and worn down to a clitic, such as 'll in I'll go, or a prefix or suffix, such as -ai in je chanterai. That's as far as it's gone in contemporary European languages, but it can go further: suffixes and prefixes tend to get slurred or dropped entirely in hasty pronunciation, which eventually becomes standard pronunciation (as it has to some degree in Black English Vernacular). But then you're no longer conveying the grammatical information, and sometimes you may want to be more explicit. So you develop new ways of stating the idea, such as I am going to go => I'm going to go => I'm gonna go => I gonna go => I gon go, and the cycle starts over.
Traugott and Hopper found that there are words expressing fully meaningful concepts that habitually get worn down into prefixes, suffixes, prepositions, and so on. (For example, "He is on the out side of the door" => "He's outside the door.") Those patterns can be used to develop word endings and other grammatical elements. Bill Stoddard |
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language, languages, linguistics |
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