Ojas Patil suggested long ago that I write a post about causes of language change. I had forgotten it until E, who’s already given me post fodder once via a comment on a Linguistrix post, asked me a follow-up question on my reply to his comment-question. It was heartening to see that E appeared reasonably convinced by my answers to his first question, and his question is quite interesting—
So how does language or grammar evolve (Because it certainly _does_ evolve)? I think the procedure would be for somebody to make a grammatical ‘mistake’ (notice quotes), either deliberately, or inadvertently, and then, for that ungrammatical construct to propagate and become popular enough to be deemed ‘acceptable’. Would I be correct in thinking this? We don’t really know whether, in the future, _They is going_ will or will not become an acceptable form. So how does one differentiate from something that is evolution in progress, versus something that is just plain wrong? Or isn’t there a difference?
Historical Linguistics is a topic that I have mentioned only once on this blog, and have never quite touched upon in detail, so I’ll try to give you a fairly broad answer.
Many factors can cause language change, and while I can’t provide an exhaustive list, I hope to provide one that is fairly illustrative and representative. Also, all components of language can change. You can have semantic shifts, where the meanings of words change, structural shifts, where the language structure changes. You can also have phonetic/phonological changes, where the pronunciation of words change. Semantic shifts are usually very common. They can lead to words getting broader or narrower senses, and can also cause the sense of words to reverse. For instance, awful used to be a positive adjective meaning _full of awe_ but it now has a negative sense, while _awesome_ continues to be positive. Sometimes, a new meaning becomes so prevalent that the old one is virtually lost, like in the word gay, whose association with homosexuality has taken over its sense of happiness.
Languages can change in the process of learning (or acquiring them). Speakers prefer regular patterns, and this might lead to irregular forms slowly becoming regular. An example of reanalysis is hamburger, which is actually supposed to be Hamburg-er (coming from the city Hamburg), but was reanalyzed by English speakers as Ham-burger, which is misleading, since hamburgers usually have beef, not pork.
They can change because of coming into contact with other languages. Often, change is caused due to societal influences—a particular dialect or language feature may get a prestige status, and people might start copying it for social acceptance.
Some of this change might be due to policy issues. Education boards might mandate something, and students, not wanting to lose marks/grades over this start using it until it becomes fairly widespread. For instance, the German language underwent a systematic spelling reform in 1996.
You can have lexical changes due to plain and simple borrowing. When languages come into each other’s contact, they tend to exchange vocabulary. Some languages are particular amenable to such intercourse, English being a glaring example. Some languages (their speakers, i.e.) might resist this, because they fear that this leads to language dilution. But no matter what the French Academy says, people are still going to say stuff like le weekend and faire du shopping.
And finally, a lot of change happens due to standard linguistic processes. Words may change due to sound similarity—An apron was originally called napron. Because of the similarity between ‘a napron’ and ‘an apron’, it slowly got changed to apron. Similarly, a nadder became an adder, a fact that is confirmed when we see that the word for adder in a related language, German, is natter, with the n still preserved.
Often, linguistic processes such as assimilation and deletion that take place in rapid speech get conventionalized to the extent that they start being followed in normal/slow/careful speech too, and a new word is born. An example of this would be if the English contraction gonna for going to were to get accepted.
More important (and, to me, interesting) than the fact that languages change is the fact that a lot of this change is fairly systematic. If you’ve been following recent posts on Linguistrix, you would have seen me strongly defending language as it is, and so on…, and a few people even
There is a lot of order within this apparent chaos. For instance, have you noticed that the contraction gonna for going to is done by English speakers only when it is followed by the infinitival form of a verb, and never when it’s followed by a noun phrase? Sample this:
I’m going to watch a movie at PVR → I’m gonna watch a movie at PVR
BUT
I’m going to PVR to watch a movie → *I’m gonna PVR to watch a movie
Many people find contractions like these annoying, probably because they signify a certain lack of respect, or a certain I-don’t-care attitude. How you interpret it is your choice, but be aware that there is nothing special or extra-ordinary about these processes, and a lot of what you speak today, and what you consider perfectly grammatical and respectful today, has come via similar transformations. If Chaucer could hear the way we speak, I am sure he would have denounced it as a horrible corruption of his beautiful language. Here, I will give my favourite example—consider the contraction gotcha for got you, or betcha for bet you, or any similar contraction where the t+y combination gets contracted to a ch sound. While you may find gotcha annoying, the truth is that it is a fairly natural phenomenon, called palatalization, which is pretty common when a sound like [t] is followed by a high frontal vowel or glide like [j]. And if you somehow believe that that sound changes are done only by lazy, uneducated people, have a look at the Hindi word for truth, sach, and see how it came into being. It comes from the Sanskrit word satya. Does something look familiar? Palatalization all over again! The Sanskrit satya became sachch in Pali, which then dropped the germination, and gave rise to the Modern Hindi sach.
Sound changes in particular are known to be very systematic and predictable. Since this post has already become too long, I would suggest that you read up about the Great Vowel Shift and Grimm’s Law if you are further interested.
How do we know if usage is evolution in progress or just plain wrong? It depends on what we are questioning. New words are given credence by their inclusion in a dictionary, which implies that lexicographers have enough reason to believe that the utterance qualifies as a word. Look at Merriam-Websters’s methodology, for instance. As far as changes in grammar go, it might be relatively more difficult to gauge, but the same principle applies. A one-off, inadvertent grammatical error by a speaker would be just that—an error. But it is certainly possible that errors, whether unintentional or intentional, get picked up. For example, if the popularity of memes make Y u no (or Why you no) common enough that people start using it in non-meme settings, and slowly the media picks it up and starts using it, and so on, it may actually go on to become standardized. To that much, most people agree. But would this be considered as degradation of English? I don’t think so. English is what it is because of similar changes, and such changes in the future would do it no more damage than what they have done previously—none. Let’s end with a very famous quotation by Horace, with translations below the original.
multa renascentur quae iam cecidere cadentque
quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus,
quem penes arbitrium est et ius et norma loquendi.
Many words shall revive, which now have fallen off;
and many which are now in esteem shall fall off, if it be the will of custom,
in whose power is the decision and right and standard of language.