Relationships among the Etymological Directions

Folk etymology. One further pattern in diachronic morphology we have not yet discussed is folk etymology. This is a change in the form of a word orphrase, resulting either from an incorrect popular notion of the term’s original meaning or from the influence of more familiar terms mistakenly taken to be analogous. “Sparrow-grass”, or “sparrygrass”, a regional-dialectic word derived by folk etymology from “asparagus”, and “cold slaw”, from “coleslaw”, reflect mistaken analogies. The Middle Ages were particularly fond of the first type of etymologizing, as can be seen in the common medieval spelling of “abomination” as “abhomination”, with an <h> in its middle. The word actually comes from the Latin ab, away from, and omen, evil sign or portent, and thus means an ill omen to be shunned. But throughout the sixteenth century, the assumption was that it had come from ab homine away from man, that is, something inhuman.

All of these directions and processes of morphological change depend to some degree upon phonological shifts as well. All the changes stem from one of any language’s, and therefore one of the English language’s, more important traits: its open-ended acceptance of change, particularly lexical change. Bear in mind that the open-endedness in turn depends upon majority rule, or conventionality, which itself is an aspect of language’s systematic and sociocultural functions. Languages change because speakers participate in and accept the changes. Those lexical and structural shifts may reflect alterations in the speakers’ perceptions of the varying realities around them: social, political, economic, psychological, and so on. Alterations in a language over time probably reflect the alterations in the society of which that language is a part.

Review Questions

1. Why is there no such thing as “morphetics”?

2. What are the two major kinds of meaning dealt with in this chapter?

3. Give some examples of inflections, of operators, of affixes.

4. Distinguish between diachronic and synchronic morphology.

5. What three binary sets do we use in synchronically describing a morpheme?

6. Distinguish between inflectional and derivational suffixes.

7. What are processes in morphology? Whatare directions in morphology? How does each function?

8. Which of the processes do linguists identify as most significant? Why?

9. What is folk etymology? What is a blend, or portmanteau, word? What is a dead metaphor?

10. Upon what universal trait does etymological function depend?

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 811