ll 303 DETERMINING GENETIC RELATIONSHIP (note]}

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DETERMINING GENETIC RELATIONSHIP
There are two ways of determination Genetic Relationship in language, also known as language Reconstruction Techniques. These are ComparativeReconstruction Techniques and Internal Reconstruction Technique. The word “Reconstruction” has 3 morphemes;  Re- Prefix - means again,  Construct - Root  means put something and  Ion - suffix ( denominalsuffix)  change from Verb to Noun. The goal of reconstruction is to get a previous language form bythe use of agiven reconstruction methodology.
1 .COMPARATIVE RECONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUE
This method analyses languages that are suspected to have originated from the same source with the aim of establishing the original language. The original language is also known as the Proto/Parent language,which is a language that is believed to be the source of other languages. Example: Bantu language.
Languages that are genetically related and come from a common Proto – language are known as Sister Languages. Usually the products of reconstruction are knownas Proto – forms / underlying forms.
A  Proto - form   is a reconstructed linguistic item that is hypothetical or assumed. It is usually marked with an asterisk (*) before reconstructed. In reconstruction we use words that are related in sounds and meaning from the sister language and these are known as cognates.Cognates are words with similar phonological or semantic realization that belong to a basic vocabulary of any language.
Example:   Mtu         -      Kiswahili
Umundu-Kinyakyusa
Mnhu-     Kisukuma
Omuntu -      Kihaya
Umuntu    -      kiha
Historical and comparative linguistics have identified 5 groups of vocabulary that can be regarded as basic vocabulary; (a) Parts of the body (external parts) like eyes, ears, (b) Kinship terms and words that name people likeFather and mother, Sister   and   brother, Daughter and son, (c) Lower numerical (1-5) (d) Universal natural phenomenon like sun, moon, star, water, (e) Personal Pronoun.


PRINCIPLES  OF  RECONSTRUCTION.
(i) STATISTICAL   DOMINANCE PRINCIPLE
This principle performs the reconstruction by looking the frequency of occurrence of a certain forms i.e. if a single lexical item appears in many sister language then must be a proto – form.The justification for the argument is that “many languages retain the original form and few language changes.
Example  :
EnglishDutch  Danish      German      Swedish      Reconstructed form
 Hand               handhandd        hand           hannd      = *hand
         Summer         ZommerSommerSommerSommer   =*Sommer

(ii)  NATURAL DEVELOPMENT PRINCIPLE (Phonetic Plausibility Principle)
In ComparativeReconstruction we usually begin with the majority principle.Ifit fails the Natural Development Principle is applied. The principle use documented directions of sound change as Language change is systematic and it always occurs in a directionthat is predictable.In applying the principle, Historical and Comparative Linguists have come up with the following rules:
(a)    Plosives are likely to change to become fricatives  ( voiced or voiceless)
(b)   Final  vowels disappear
(c)    Consonants in words final position become voiceless
(d)   Voiceless sounds become voiced between vowels.
NB: these rules apply in any natural language.
Example: consider the data below;
A                        B                           
Group   1.     *Piptfifth               
Group 2.*Pig                    pit                  
Group   3.*toby                    tob
Group      4.*Rekion               Region
In the current English words above if the phonological change rule is applied respectively the proto- forms for the words will be shown as displayed in the data above.

2   INTERNAL RECONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUE
 Some languages have no living relatives (they have no sister languages).Comparative Reconstruction is therefore impossible. Internal Reconstruction is therefore described as a study of development of a single language at different point in time where the natural development principle is applicable in determining the Genetic relationship to such languages.Internal Reconstruction can be done to language with no sister languagesand can also be done to languages with sister languages.Example:  An internal Reconstruction of English concluded that the language has got three phases of development.
NB: A language that does not show any resemblance with other languages or rather has no sister language is known as language Isolate/ Linguistic Orphan.  Examples can be drown to languages such as click languages found in Tanzania Such as Sandawe, Basque spoken in southern part of France and Northern part of Spain.














MODULE  2
LANGUAGE EVOLUTION
Language is a dynamic phenomenon and all living languages change over time. Language change is systematic and regular these two characteristics enable historical and comparative linguists to follow specified methods of analyzing that language change.
TYPES OF LANGUAGE CHANGE
Language do change at various levels of linguistics and these form the type of language change asSuch we have five types of language change which are; Phonological change, Morphological change, Lexical   change, Semantic change and syntactic Change.
1. PHONOLOGICALTYPE OF LANGUAGE CHANGE
It  is  further  divided into  three main types  and  each  branch  has  further  been divided as follows.
A: SOUND APPEARANCE/ DISAPPEARENCE
 i) Sound appearance
This is a kind of phonological change where a sound that was not in a general phonological system of a language is added. For example:Sound /ʒ /the voiced palato- alveolar fricative was added in the Middle English as used inwords like leisure, pleasure etc.
ii) Sounddisappearance
This is a kind of phonological change where a sound that was in a general phonological system of a language is lost. Examples of sound disappearance can be drown from English language where English haslost the phoneme which was word initial position; where /g/ voiced velar plosive which was followed by a vowel or approximant got lost and replaced by /ð/ voiced velar fricative, and again the voiced velar fricative was lost in the middle English.
B:  phonologically unconditioned   sound change
This is a cover term for all sound changes that cannot be a result of any Phonological environment or not influenced by any Phonological environment and they do not involve the appearance or disappearance of a phoneme. There three examples of Unconditioned phonological change which are;
i) Sound merger
This is the process where two or more sounds collapse or coalesce into one sound.There are two patterns of sound merger:


Pattern i:    A+B             CTwo sounds collapse to form a new phoneme.
Pattern i:   Kiswahili words
Examples:Ma+ ingi                *meengiMengi
Wa+ ingi*weengiWengi
Ma+ino                        *meenoMeno
Ma+iko*meekoMeko
Therefore; a + i = ee/e:
Pattern ii:   A+B              A or BTwo sounds collapse to form either of the sounds that is A or B
Pattern ii:  cockney English
The labio – dentals both voiced/ voiceless have merged with the dentals, Voiced and voiceless to form labio – dentals thus, in that variety of English there is no dental fricative
/ƒ/ + /Ө/           /ƒ/    e.g.   Thin  /ƒIn/
/v/ + /ð/              /v/ e.g.   These /vɛsa/

ii) Sound split
Is an opposite of sound merger, which is a process where a sound that was originally treated as one sound breaks to create an independent phoneme. It is a gradual process where a phoneme has variance / allophones, the allophones become independent sound.
In Middle English the voiced alveolar nasal /n/ had two variants /n/ and /ŋ/ where /n/ occurred in initial word position and /ŋ/ that occurred in word final position. However in modern English the voiced velar nasal /ŋ/  is an independent phoneme and not allophone, where the voiced velar nasal is articulated at word final position except with a few cases where it appears in a middle position through   nasal assimilation  process.
Sound shift
This is a process where a sound gains a different articulatory position. The process is not a result of any phonological environment. The best example of sound shift is the Great Vowel Shift that affected the pronunciation of English vowel. Great Vowel Shift was a major change which took place in 1400 and 1600 in English that resulted in new phonemic representations of words and morphemes. During this period the seven long vowels of Middle English underwent the following changes;.
Shift                                                           Example
Middle                         Modern                  Middle     Modern
English                                    English        English                English
[i:]                     [ai]                 [mi:s]               [majs]             mice
[u:]                    [aw]               [mu:s]              [maws]                       mouse
[e:]                    [i:]                  [ge:s]               [gi:s]                gerse
[o:]                    [u:]                 [go:s]               [gu:s]               goose
[e:]                    [e.]                 [bre:ken]            [bre:k]                        Break
[ɔ]                     [o]                  [bro.ken]          [bro:k]             broke
[a]                     [e:]                 [na:me]            [ne:m]              name   
By diagraming the Great Vowel Shift on a vowel chart, we can see the high. Vowels [i:] and [u] became the diphthongs [aj] and [aw], while the long vowels underwent an increase in tongue height, as if to fill in the space vacated by the high vowels.In addition, [a] was fronted to become. [e:]
[e] THE GREAT VOWEL SHIFT
 

                                                  AJ


                                    ɛ


The long vowels of English were systematically raised to the articulatory position above it. The Great Vowel Shift did not result because of any phonological aspect but it is a way of making the pronunciation of English systematic.



C.PHONOLOGICALLY CONDITIONED SOUND CHANGE/PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSES.

This is the phonological change that is influenced by the phonological environment.  Combination of phonemes can create a difficult in articulation but most phonological processes create ease of articulation.Some phonologically conditioned sound changes are permanent while others appear in some varieties of the language especially in rapid speech.

PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSES:
(i)                 deletion/elision
Is a phonological process where a sound or sound segment is deleted or omitted.

TYPES OF ELISION
We have different types of sound elision depending on the position where deletion takes place as such there is the following deletion processes:
a)      Aphesis
 Is a phonological process where a sound segment is deleted at the initial word position. For Example: In old English, we had a combination of /k/ and /n/ in word initial position in words such as knew, know, knowledge, knife, knight, knee, etc.In middle English, the voiceless velar /k/ was lost and it has remained the same in Modern English where it appears in Orthography and not phonologically realized.
Knee  /ni:/
Knew             /nju:/
Knife             /naɪf/
Know            /na/ etc

b)      Syncope
Is a phonological process to which sound segments are lost in a word other than final position, sometimes sound lost can be the whole syllable lost.
Example: /Nakuja/  /Naja/              /amekwishakwenda/        /ameshakwenda/
                /waliokuja/       /walokuja/     /amekwishakwenda/         /ashakwenda/

























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