The Internal History of English

Preface

CHAPTER 1. Language Change
1.1. Language-external Causes for Language Change
1.2. Language-internal Causes for Language Change

CHAPTER 2. Changes in Vocabulary: Lexical Change
2.1. Borrowing Words from Foreign Sources
2.2. Creating Words from Native Sources
2.3. Current Changes in English Vocabulary

CHAPTER 3. Changes in Spelling and Pronunciation:Orthographic and Phonetic Change
3.1. Spelling Change
3.2. Pronunciation Change
3.3. Remedies for Discrepancy: Efforts for Spelling Reforms

CHAPTER 4. Changes in Word Form: Morphological Change
4.1. Inflection: Declension and Conjugation
4.2. Pronouns
4.3. Articles and Demonstratives
4.4. Nouns
4.5. Adjectives and Adverbs
4.6. Verbs

CHAPTER 5. Changes in Grammar: Syntactic Change
5.1. Word Order
5.2. Internal Structure of the Noun Phrase
5.3. Internal Structure of the Verb Phrase
5.4. Grammatical Functions

CHAPTER 6. Changes in Meaning: Semantic Change
6.1. Aspects of Meaning
6.2. Metaphoric and Metonymic Transfer of Meaning
6.3. Synesthesia
6.4. Abstraction of Meaning
6.5. Objectivization and Subjectivization of Meaning
6.6. Broadening and Narrowing
6.7. Pejoration and Amelioration
6.8. Taboo and Euphemism
6.9. Semantic Bleaching
6.10. Why does Meaning Change?
6.11. Meaning Change and Dictionaries

Cited Bibliography
Index

One of the most conspicuous aspect of language change is the appearance of new words. It is inevitable to receive new words from foreign languages. For example, our language, Korean, is also provided with a lot of foreign words, especially from English these days.
There are some ‘language purists’ who are trying to refuse and expel foreign elements from a language. However, borrowing of words is a natural process for any language to a large degree, just as language is bound to change.
Although some people are lamenting that English is ‘killing’ other languages, English itself has been influenced by a lot of foreign sources. We can see the evidence for that in the amount and variety of words poured into English. That is, new words have been pouring into English at a prodigious rate throughout its history, and the rate of introduction of new words is now perhaps greater than at any previous time. Language contact is mutual, which is easily evidenced in the exchange of words between languages. The borrowing of words can make the word stock of a language rich. Besides the borrowing of words, there is another source to make a rich word stock. It is the creation of new words using its own material; word-coinage or word formation.
Getting new words (either through borrowing or through creating) is an important aspect of language change. The word inventory of a language changes according to the flow of time. An old word can just disappear, or can be replaced by the one imported from a foreign language, or can be transformed into a new one.