Understanding English Language: Word Classes, Borrowing, and Development - Prof. Cucchi, Dispense di Linguistica Inglese

Scarica Understanding English Language: Word Classes, Borrowing, and Development - Prof. Cucchi e più Dispense in PDF di Linguistica Inglese solo su Docsity! LINGUISTICA INGLESE Primo Semestre ESAME = esame su Blackboard; 20 domande teoriche e pratiche. L’esame può essere diviso in due parti: una 1a parte a gennaio con 10 domande (sul corso Blackboard della prof Cucchi) + 2a parte a maggio con altre 10 domande (sul corso Blackboard della prof Piotti). Per fare questo bisogna registrarsi ai link su Blackboard e iscriversi ad un appello ufficiale. What does it mean to know a word? It means that I know different aspects of a word such as:  Pronunciation  Spelling  Its function  Meaning There are even distinctions between connotative and denotative meaning:  Denotative/referential meaning (which relates to specific phenomena in the real world)  Connotative meaning (is the meaning which a word or a phrase has beyond its central meaning, it’s an emotional meaning). It is also important to distinguish between polysemy and homonymy:  Polysemy (a word with several meanings related to each other)  Homonymy (a word with several meanings but not related to each other; for example “The bank” as financial institution or “The bank of the river”) English words can be dived into different word classes, that are:  Prefixes : an example is the word “unfriend” where un is the prefix, and friend is the head.  The network of meaning relations with other words: all words enter a network of meaning relations with other words.  Collocations : words that can or must collocate with (in this group there are words which are used more flexibly than others) other words in order to create new expressions/meanings.  Variety : different types of language used. English has some varieties like the British, the American and the Australian English. Variety depends also on context, formality, new vs old- fashioned. Let’s consider the following two expressions: 1. “put/set the cat among the pigeons” (British and Australian English) means to do something that causes troubles or make a lot of people angry. 2. “Be somebody pigeons” (from the British and Australian old-fashioned English) means it’s not a field of my competence, I don’t know so much about this topic.  Frequency : how often a word is used and by whom is used. Depending on when we use a word we have: 1. Slang = words used in oral language, not so frequently in the written form. 2. Jargon = the language used in formal situations/contexts and is very specific (for example when we talk about job careers). By whom a word is used we have different types of word: 1. euphemism (something unpleasant or harsh) 2. politically correct language (used to avoid being offensive, to avoid using rude expressions).  Dictionary and Speakers : where you can find info about words. When we talk about the English language, we must talk about lexicology and lexicography: a. Lexicology = deals with the description of the nature, meaning, history and use of vocabulary of a language, also referred to its lexis or lexicon. b. Lexicography = is a branch of linguistics which studies how dictionaries are made. Another important feature of the English language is textuality: it’s how words/phrases and sentences are organized in texts. Normally we only think about how tenses are organized, but we should also bear in mind the way in which texts are organized. Usage is another fundamental theme in English; it’s how you should use a word in a specific context. Receptive and Productive lexical competence Receptive competence is the ability to understand a word when you hear it or read it whereas the productive competence is the use of a word in speaking and writing. We also need to bear in mind that different types of word knowledge develop at different types and overlap, so it’s really rare that you get all the features of a word the first time you hear it. Word associations and the learning of lexis There are many types of word associations:  Words which co-occur > green pass  Metaphorical associations > green grass  Opposites > light-dark These association tasks are administered to native speakers (who tend to produce paradigmatic relations), less competent speakers (they tend to produce syntagmatic relations) and not very competent speakers and children (they tend to produce associations based on sounds). They produce three different kinds of associations:  Syntagmatic : salt-water, they often co-occur in a sequence.  Paradigmatic : green black, they are words which can be substituted in a specific context (words that are in the same group ... in this case are both colors).  Based on sound : reflect-effect. There is a great deal of consistency in the associations produced by a group, suggesting that members have similar kinds of mental connections between words. For example during the lesson we all made similar connections. 2. Idiom principle OPEN CHOICE PRINCIPLE = It refers to that part of language that functions according to predictable grammatical rules (like a count noun can be made plural or a mass noun cannot, in this case we use “a piece of” or “many items of”). Sentences can be thought of as a series of empty slots, which means that when we think about a sentence, we can visualize the sentence in a series of slots in which each one is occupied by a word. Speakers choose how to fill each slot. Each choice is a separate one, is independent from other words. This is the traditional view of language, taught in many pedagogical grammars. This is the traditional view because this doesn’t actually happen in language. IDIOM PRINCIPLE = Words don’t occur at random texts; many aren’t chosen individually but in groups. There are regularities in how words occur, for example “of course” / “so long”. When we use them, we’re not filling 2 separate slots, but one slot which is made of 2 words. So, words are chosen in chunks and not individually. Through this principle we can explain collocations, that are observed pervasive in language. They can be found very frequently in language. A variety of collocations in English In the English language there are various types of collocations, like the followings:  Free combinations/unrestricted collocations Common lexical items, like “Fat” / “large” / “white” / “woman” are in this category. Lexical items which can co-occur rather freely with a wide range of items. We can combine these common lexical items with a variety of other words/lexemes.  Semi-fixed expressions (semi-restricted or even variable) Given a word, there is some degree of predictability of the others. Let’s take as an example the word “interest”, we can predict there will be some verbs which co-occour with it (such as protect or promote). We can substitute some words with others or change their order. We can understand the meaning of these expressions from the meaning of the single words.  Frozen collocations (fixed or unique) Collocations which are totally restricted in their combinability, so they cannot be changed. These are fully regulated by the idiom principle. An example of frozen collocation is “He shrugged his shoulders” because the only thing you can shrug are shoulders. Collocations are an example of syntagmatic relation. In English there are even other types of phrases, like proverbs (long self-contained statements that express popular wisdom or historical heritage), in social situations pragmatic idioms are often used (expressions longer than a word and shorter than a sentence, whose meaning cannot be derived from the meaning of the components. They are fixed or semi-fixed social formulae, they’re very predictable). Discourse organizers are multi-word units used to structure discourse. Then there are idiomatic expressions, or also idioms, that have the same definition of pragmatic idioms. In English we also have binomials (expressions such as “ups and downs” or “bed and breakfast”), particular types of idioms made up of two or more fixed elements connected by “and”. Similes are, instead, stereotypical comparisons: “as mad as a hatter” or “eat like a horse” or even “as English as apple pie”. The Speakers of English There are different types of English speakers in the world:  ENL = as a native language  ESL = as a second language  EFL = as a foreign language  ELF = as a lingua franca In a model developed by Kachru in 1985, we can divide English speakers in different concentric circles depending on the usage of the language in contexts: o Inner Circle = in countries such as USA and UK, where is a native language o Outer Circle = in countries like India, Nigeria where is used as a second language (used in some official contexts, in most of the cases is spoken in ex-British colonies). o Expanding Circles = in countries like China, Russia or Brazil is spoken as a lingua franca (they speak it when they don’t share the same language. By using this lingua franca, they are able to communicate with each other). The lingua franca is the only mean that all these concentric circles use. Our country, Italy, is part of the expanding circle. English as lingua franca, becomes a global asset belonging to all the users, regardless of whether it is their mother tongue. It belongs to everybody and nobody at the same time and no longer embodies a single culture. Even non-native speakers are granted the right to appropriate the language and shape it. English may deviate from native speakers’ norms, provided that the users’ communicative purposes are achieved. Communicative effectiveness becomes more important than native-like command of English. In ELF English, idiomaticity is a characteristic of ENL and for this reason it can cause problems for ELF users, in this case we talk about “unilateral idiomaticity”, which may derive from cultural loading, opacity, lexico-grammatical complexity or a combination of these.  cultural loading: an example is the Cockney rhyming slang. Its origin is in the mid-19th Century in the East End of London. It was a linguistic accident; others say it was a game or a cryptonet developed intentionally to confuse non-locals. It may also have been used to maintain a sense of community and it may have been used by vendors in the market place or by criminals. A few expressions of the cockney rhyming slang are: bees and honey > money box of toys > noise fisherman’s daughter > water pleasure and pain > rain The Cockney rhyming slang is an example of super idiomaticity. It was found that idiomaticity is very important when ELF speakers interact, but it occurs in a way which is different from native English: ELF speakers usually co-construct idioms in interaction drawing on both the idiom principle and the open choice principle. Consequently idioms in ELF can vary formally from their ENL equivalents: ‘we should not wake up any dogs’, is a metaphor underlying the idiomatic ENL expression that has been reawakened. Metaphors in ELF may be:  entirely novel  formally related to existing English idioms  created with idioms in other languages The co-creation of idioms in ELF settings may:  enhance cooperation for mutual understanding  foster a mutual affective Word Terminology 1. Lack of parking space was putting potential customers off 2. In the city center restaurant, you pay through the nose for your drinks. How many words can you count in these sentences? It depends on whether we consider all the single words or the collocations. The number of words varies according to what counts as a word. We’re talking about LEXEME/LEXICAL ANTHEMS (group of related forms which share the same meaning and belong to the same word class. Lexemes are terms which also applies to word combinations). The concept of word alone is not sufficient to describe the language, so here we have to mention WORD-FORMS, LEXEMES and ENTRIES, HEADWORDS, LEMMAS. Let’s take as an example “speak, speaking, spoke, spoken” where SPEAK is the lexeme (an abstraction) and the concrete realizations of this abstraction are SPEAK, SPEAKING, SPOKE and SPOKEN. They’re best known also as word forms. Lexeme and lexical item are abstract unit of vocabulary which underlies different variants of the same word (called word-forms). According to Bauer, lexemes require particular word-forms to realize them in any given context and the lexeme then encompasses all the word-forms which realize that particular lexeme. When we talk about entry, headword or lemma. These last two are kind of synonyms and are the citation form of a word; the form which is conventionally chosen to represent a lexeme in a dictionary. The entry is an independent lexical unit listed in a dictionary in alphabetical order. It consists of the headword (printed in bold type) and information about it. Dictionaries There are different ways of classifying dictionaries on basis of the content. Despite the fact that many scholars have given their own classification there are various criteria of classification. Dictionaries can be: o Monolingual and bilingual o Online and paper o Pocket dictionaries o General or with specific content It was the first dictionary to use a corpus as a basis for writing a dictionary. It was created by John Sinclair, who was a professor of English language at Birmingham University since 1965 and was the director of the Cobuild project. His research interests were spoken language, discourse analysis and corpus linguistics. Corpus is a large collection of texts assumed to be representative of a given language, it contains all the words a person is supposed to need so it’s crucial that the corpus can represent a language. It can be examined with collocational software programmes to get information about language. It contains written material from websites, newspapers, magazines, and spoken material from radio, tv and everyday conversations and new data is put into the Corpus every month. With all these technological tools, lexicographers can see the most frequent words and how often they are used in different types of texts or asking the system how many times a specific word is used or the most frequent collocates. When lexicographers didn’t have corpora or software tools, they had to rely on examples taken manually from works and on their own intuitions. Corpora is an essential observe data without preconceptions about meanings, functions, collocability, grammar and importance of target words. They make it possible to observe how words are actually used and to process more data, finding what is central and typical. Corpora makes possible to see the most frequent words and phrases, which need the most detailed treatment. They can also identify the most frequent senses of words which have to be put first in dictionaries. Examples are authentic and taken from the corpus, while in the past were taken from literature and books. They are taken from relevant information to be included in the definitions, which is selected from the corpus. It is possible to select a restricted vocabulary for explanations. Cobuild stimulated lexicographic innovation and by the late 1990s all major English learner’s dictionaries relied on corpora and used computational techniques for extracting information. The most complete editions of learner’s dictionaries are the following:  Advanced Dictionary, Collins Cobuild  Advanced Learners Dictionary, Cambridge  Advanced Learners Dictionary, Oxford  English Dictionary for Advanced Learners, Macmillan  Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Online Dictionaries It’s difficult to classify online dictionaries, there are too many to present a complete catalogue and comparing them is problematic. The traditional criteria for classifying online dictionaries are the following: o General/specialized subject o Contemporary/historical o On the basis of speakers Additional criteria for classifying online dictionaries are also: o User-involvement o Free vs Paid o Number of dictionaries offered Considering the user-involvement there are institutional and collective dictionaries. With “collective” we mean the result of a collaborative effort by non-professional users, while “institutional” means that there is a specific institutional publisher that publish a dictionary. “Free vs paid”, means that there are dictionaries where you pay every time you use them. They are even called “pay-per-view”, because there’s a subscription-based access and a bonus for buyers of paper editions. There are even ad-supported dictionaries, so-called “FREEMIUM”: publishers sell extra content (for example synonyms or antonyms) or non-lexicographic content (like exercises, language testing materials). Another criteria are the number of dictionaries offered, which includes the following types of dictionaries: 1. Stand-alone > single dictionary. 2. Dictionary Sets > set of dictionaries which are related, and we can access by a single page, there’s a home page for which we can go to various dictionaries. 3. Dictionary Aggregators > collect information taken by various dictionaries and they put them together. An exemplar of online dictionary is the General English Dictionary, a type of general-purpose dictionary, that isn’t related to a specific field or register. Another example of this type is the American Heritage Dictionary. The Big Five of institutional dictionaries for learners (British English) are Oxford Advanced, Longman Dictionary, Cambridge Advanced, COBUILD and MacMillan. British dictionaries lead the market but there are also American dictionaries for learners (like the Merriam-Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary). Thanks to the internet, users can play lexicographers. One case is the “Urban Dictionary”, a dictionary with a successful story of over 10 years and it can be considered a true bottom-up initiative that features users voting the best “definitions” and also unreliable definitions. It is valuable for slangs, but it doesn’t only contain them. Another case of user-involvement is “Wiktionary”, a companion to Wikipedia. It’s a collaborative project to produce content in various languages and its purpose is to provide a multilingual dictionary. Specialized Dictionaries They are mainly for language scholars with a higher level of sophistication and language awareness. A valid example is the Oxford English Dictionary, which normally is with a subscription-based access or institutional subscription (from UC). Another type of specialized dictionaries is the area of subject field dictionaries. They deal with the vocabulary of a specific field in language and there are countless types of these dictionaries. Some of these categories are abbreviations, acronyms, agriculture, biology, blog dictionary, marketing, military, psychology, social issues and many others. Dictionaries may have restricted macrostructures; this means that only a distinct subset of vocabulary is included in the wordlist. It doesn’t contain all the words of a language but only specific ones or a specific field a dictionary focuses on. Instead, dictionaries with a restricted microstructure are characterized by a systematic reduction in lexicographic data categories. Another type again is onomasiological dictionaries, that take the user from a concept or idea to a linguistic form, rather than explaining the meaning or use of a given form. Names of onomasiological dictionaries are: a) VisualTheSaurus = a dictionary that finds words which are connected with other words and meanings. b) WordNet = large lexical database of English. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are grouped into sets of cognitive synonyms, each expressing a distinct concept. WordNet labels the semantic relations among words. Aggregators An example of aggregator is the FreeDictionary, which copies and pastes definitions from a variety of online dictionaries, an aggregator is simply the same content taken from a variety of different websites. However, there are also some disadvantages like very long entries, redundant and disconnected lexicographic data. Corpora & Lexical Databases As corpus interface gets increasingly sophisticated, they can be used in some ways similar to dictionaries. An example of corpus-based collocation dictionary is “Just The Word”: a completely new kind of aid to help you if you're learning English. It justifies your choice of words, suggest improvements and knows about some common errors made by speakers of your mother tongue. Users that frequently go through these types of dictionaries can run the risk of getting lost and they need for guidance because of the numerous types of dictionaries available online. Aggregators help the users to avoid irrelevant/repetitive info because they may get flooded. Search engines can be risky because dictionaries can be marginalized. Core Vocabulary and Wordlists How many words do we need to know? The same of a large dictionary (about 54.000-word families) or more of a native speaker (20.000-word families for a university graduate)? I think we should know the basis of English to survive, which consists in words that are essential. We need to know the most frequent, essential words and then improve ourselves to sound more natural. First thing first we have to consider what a WORD FAMILY is: it’s a word and its derived forms. These derived forms are new words created by simply adding suffixes or prefixes, but it also includes infected forms which represent the same lexeme, and we obtain them adding grammatic suffixes. Let’s see a word family for the verb “to admit”:  Admit = to allow into a group or to agree something is true  Admissible = something or someone that can be accepted  Admission = acceptance into a school, organization (even acceptance of blame)  Admittance = acceptance into a program Not all the words are equally useful, there are some kind of words that we absolutely need to know and others which are unnecessary. We can find essential words in the Core Vocabulary, which consists of words that sustain basic communication, that are also the most frequent ones and the most shared by all adult speakers of the language. Beyond word families there are even WORD CLASSES: we have an open word class (which contains an infinite number of words) that expresses semantic content, and its members are called lexical- These are cohesive sentences that made a proper text because there are semantic relations and linkers. It also gives complete information, and it could be a report or an article. Some words have the same referent; in this case we’re talking about co-referential words. Texture and Reference It’s the property of texts which distinguishes them from unconnected sentences. Cohesion is an important element that gives a text its texture, it establishes relations of meaning within a text. Another important grammatical cohesive device is reference: there are certain item in every language that have this property. Instead of being semantically in their own right, they make reference to something else for their interpretation. There are various types of reference:  ENDOPHORIC > it is in the co-text 1. ANAPHORIC > we have to go backward 2. CATAPHORIC > we have to go forward  EXOPHORIC > depends on the context In order to understand these types of references we need to look for the referent in the context. But reference can also be:  Personal = expressed through personal pronouns, possessive adjectives, possessive pronouns. (They are linguistic items which can be used as reference).  Demonstrative = this, that, these, those, here, there, now, then. (They are examples of reference, because to understand the meaning of the text I have to go elsewhere).  Comparative = same, identically, similar, different, other, another, better, more. We can also use the definite article “THE” in order to avoid repetitions. The purpose of reference is to abbreviate constructions in order to avoid redundant information. Substitution, Ellipsis, Conjunction Substitution consists in the replacement of linguistic expressions by means of pro-forms such as DO- ONE-ONES-SO. Then we have ellipsis, which is the omission of unnecessary words. The objects that can be omitted are a word or a part of a sentence. The function of the ellipsis is to abbreviate constructions. Instead, conjunction guide readers throw the text. They are used as linkers, usually placed at the beginning of a sentence. Examples of conjunctions are “consequently, or rather, for instance, in short, in fact, however, moreover, then, next”. Lexical Cohesive Devices Lexical relationships in a text set up reiteration and collocation. Inside of reiteration we can find several lexical cohesive devices such as REPETION, SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY, HYPONYMY, Toshiba Corp. said that it has agreed to buy Fujitsu LDT.’s hard-disk-drive business, in a deal that will make it the world’s largest supplier of one of the most commonly used drives for laptop computers. HYPERONYMY,MERONYMY and HOLONYMY. Instead, collocation is the relationship between words which occur in the same surrounding. Reference, Substitution, Ellipsis, Conjunction and Lexical Organization are all parts of cohesion. Lexical and Grammatical cohesion provide to make the text cohesive. Examples of cohesion can be found in the following text, a transcript of the commencement speech at Stanford given by Steve Jobs, in 2005. What makes this text cohesive are the following cohesive devices: YOU > an exophoric reference TODAY > exophoric reference I > exophoric reference YOUR > exophoric reference THIS > exophoric reference Phrases Thank you . I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college. And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. In Italian is translated into “sintagmi” and phrases are huge important parts in syntax. Phrases are important for the texture, which distinguishes texts from unconnected sentences. A phrase is made up of a single word or group of words, that are built around a head. There are 5 types of phrases which are the following: 1. Noun phrase (NP) 2. Verb phrase (VP) 3. Adjective phrase (AdjP) 4. Adverb phrase (AdvP) 5. Prepositional phrases (PP) A phrase is built around four essential elements which are: o A noun = the head or central element o Determiner = articles, demonstratives, possessives, quantifiers, numerals o Pre-modifier = they are in a pre-head position o Post-modifier = they are in a post-head position In Noun phrases the head can be a common noun (singular or plural, countable or uncountable) a proper noun, a pronoun and there can be even an adjectival head (like the cases of the unemployed, “the Bold and the Beautiful”). The pre-modifiers may be adjectives or adjective phrases but even nouns or noun phrases (because they can pre-modify heads); instead, post-modifiers define the head and there are different variants of post-modifiers. In a verb phrase the head is represented by a lexical verb (or a primary auxiliary like BE, HAVE and DO used as main verbs). A lexical verb can be pre-modified by one or more auxiliary verbs and verb phrases can be finite or non-finite (which are gerund, present and past participle). Adjective phrases have an adjective as its head and it can be pre-modified by adverbs (like extremely important) and post-modified by PPs or clauses with that, Ing-form, infinitive clauses. Adverb phrases provide info on circumstances of manner, frequency, time, modality, place and can be pre- modified by a degree adverb (very, rather, quite, extremely) and post-modified by adverbs (like strangely, enough, indeed…). An adverb phrase can modify an adjective phrase (I’m really happy), a verb phrase (I can’t actually find out who made it) and a clause (Unfortunately I haven’t had an answer, perhaps I will try writing). Preposition phrases have prepositions as its head, and it is followed by another element; usually a noun phrase (the element that follows the preposition is indicated with the letter C and it’s called complement). Prepositional phrases can post-modify a noun phrase. Theme & Rheme It’s very important in a sentence and is what the message is concerned with, is what comes first. Instead, the rheme is the part in which the theme is developed. Let’s take as example the following sentence: “In the UK” is the theme of the sentence, while the rest of the sentence is considered the rheme. The structure of theme and rheme contributes to the texture and thematic progression helps the “In the UK, families often celebrate Christmas together, so they can watch each other open their presents!” Capitoli da fare sul libro (argomenti anche trattati a lezione) - Capitolo 1 parte 2 - Capitolo 2 parte 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10 - Capitolo 3 parte 2 (2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4) - Capitolo 4 parte 1 (1.1), 2 (2.4) LESSON 1 (21 st February): Facts about English English is not a monolithic language; it has some varieties around the world. The two main varieties are the British and the American, someone also considers the Australian one a very important variety. English is spoken in different forms or varieties by people all over the world. At the beginning of 21st century is the most spoken language in the world and crucial for international communication. L1 speakers are estimated to 400 million people spread over 4 continents, L2 speakers are almost the same amount and foreign language speakers are around 600-700 million people. English has changed a lot over the last 1300 years. Through time we had different historical variations and changes: Shakespeare’s language was considered Early Modern English, where the verb “to have” is written with -TH instead of -VE, in the negative form there’s no auxiliary, the past forms are written with an apostrophe that stands for the actual form with -ED. Shakespeare’s English is easier to understand, compared to modern English but if we move even backwards, at Chaucer time (around 1387-1400) things are completely different: some words are still used today but with different spelling (like “Aprill” that has only one L or “shoures” that today has lost the U). If we listen to this variety of English, it sounds like a completely different thing, very far from English. “Beowulf” is the first English epic poem ever written, first form of written English. At that time, English alphabet was totally different because it had some influences from the Latin alphabet, but it had also elements from the runic alphabet. Some letters are imported from the Irish language. When you listen to it, it sounds more like German (this because they are sister language, they have the same ancestors). Historical development of English: - Old English (600-1100) > period of full inflections, vocabulary predominantly of Germanic origin. - Middle English (1100-1500) > levelled inflections, big changes in vocabulary with a large number of words of French origin coming into English. - Early Modern English (1500-1750) > lost inflections, English was subject to great vowel shift (like the verb “bite” which was originally pronounced differently) and a standard language started to emerge. Great writers helped improving the English language such as Shakespeare, Milton and many others. - Modern English (1750- today) > this term is more used for the period between 1750 and 1900 and the English after 1900 is referred to as Present-Day English. English has gone through different changes: phonological, morpho-syntactic and semantic change.  Phonological change = sporadic vs regular/unconditioned vs conditioned. The great vowel shift is significant for the language, which affected the long vowels. The verb “bite” before the great vowel shift was pronounced in a different way. It is one the reasons behind inconsistencies between spelling and PDE. Before the GVS, we had other consistent and phonological change like the Consonant cluster reduction: old English was a phonological language so what you see on the paper it’s what you read. Taking the word loaf, in old English was Hlaf; the same for raven who was pronounced Hraefn. Neck in old English was pronounced Hnecca. For the sounds GN or KN (for example of knife and gnat) the spelling is not affected. Another great change is rhoticity , a phenomenon that concerns the vocabulary of a postvocalic. We see this with the word “car” where in British English the R is silent, whereas in American English it isn’t. British English is a non-rhotic variety, while American English is a rhotic variety. However, some dialects do not follow this rule. The spoken standard of British English is called RP (Received pronunciation), while the spoken standard of American English is called GenAm (General American). A rising phenomenon in intonation is known as Uptalk or High Rising Terminals. It affects some varieties from US-New Zealand-Australia to UK. Generally there’s a rising intonation with higher pitch at the end of statements, which sound more like a yes-no question. Phonological changes affect even contemporary English.  Morpho-syntactic change = analogy (modelling a language form in relation to an already existing form of that language), there’s an extension/generalization of plural inflection in -S used in almost all nouns which had a different plural ending in OE (hand/handa becomes hands). There’s another extension/generalization of 3rd singular person present tense inflection -S. It started out as variety only used in a particular part of England, ended becoming a super-localization of a northern suffix. There are some varieties of English where the -S in the 3rd person singular present tense is present in some dialects/varieties. Verbal concord (or agreement) with collective nouns which distinguishes American English from British English. It is called also grammatical concord (like in the case of “Our team wins often” in American English), while the notional concord doesn’t take into consideration the morphology of the noun, but it takes into account the semantic meaning (like in the case of British English with “Our team win/wins often”). – Grammatical concord > verb agrees with morphological number of subject. – Notional concord > verb agrees with the semantics of the subject. LESSON 2 (28 TH February): Grammaticalization (Morphological changes) Grammaticalization is the process of giving a grammatical function to a previously independent word. The verb “will” for example has many functions: modal verb, prediction, noun (in reference to a person strong intention to do something or somebody last intentions who passed away). In old English it was willan, it wasn’t used as an auxiliary verb as today, but it was a proper verb that expressed strong relation to do something. The same considerations are for the verb “can”, which in old English was cunnan. The suffix “ly” is used normally for adverbs in modern English, which can be paraphrased as “in the manner/in the way like”. In old English was written “lic” and meant “body”, it referenced to the shape of the body. It used to be an independent noun. The use of “to be going to” is another form, with which we make reference to the future, an alternative to “will”. In the late modern English period, it was used as a lexical verb which meant “verb of motion”. Semantic change It’s a change in the words meaning which can happen due to different attitudes, feminine words used to define feminine people with male connotation. There’s a widening in meaning (grow for example meant grow by getting bigger, and now is “grow in any quality”). Narrowing in meaning is “meat” in present English, which originally meant just “food”. Pejoration of meaning happens in cases like “silly” which in middle English meant “happy, innocent”. Amelioration of meaning happens with words like “queen” that in old English was “cwene” and meant “woman, wife”. “Knight” is another case, because in old English its equivalent was cnight/cneoht whose meaning was simply “boy, servant”. Lexical change We have the borrowing phenomenon, words that the English language has taken/borrowed from other languages, like the Scandinavian ones. Words and verbs such as “take”, “city”, “skirt”, “shirt”, the 3rd plural person pronoun “they” comes from the Scandinavian languages. Lexical changes have consequences also on different varieties, the same word has different meanings: the word Café in American English is “a place to have coffee and typically some sort of cake” while in British English is “a place to eat”. Social media influenced new expressions used commonly by young people for instant messaging such as LOL, BTW or OMG. The receiving language, which is English in this case, uses its own materials to translate to compositional elements of an expression or a notion. With the semantic loan it happens that there are two different words which have the same meaning. In Latin frequently a word has another meaning and has to be transferred. The Latin “lingua” has three different meanings, in English there was a word for just one meaning so the Latin word was transferred into “tongue” (organ of speech) and “language” (faculty of speech) and “language” (a part-language). Lesson 4 (14 th March): Traces in PDE vocabulary French is between the most influential languages that English has borrowed from. Some words were borrowed from different varieties and at different stages (it comes from a French dialect and when it entered the English language it had a different meaning or phonology). English had borrowed words from a specific French dialect but at one point started borrowing only from another dialect. When it comes to loanwords from French, we have to distinguish between 2 different varieties English has borrowed words from: Norman French and Central/Parisian French (aka Modern French). Norman French was spoken shortly after the Norman conquest, it was used in the court and used up to the first half of the 13th Century. In 1204 England lost possess of Normandy, meaning that all contacts between the two lands stopped. After that all French words entered in the English language, were borrowed from Central/Parisian French due to contacts/relations with the French court. Here are some examples:  C atch – Chase have similarities in meaning, the reason why they are semantically related is because they share some shades of meaning. In late Latin it was “captiare- captare” (to seize) and has developed differently in the two varieties: “catch” is from Norman French and “chase” is from Central/Parisian French.  Ca ttle (bestiame)– Chattel (more general) they generally refer to personal properties and they are semantically and etymologically related. They respectively represent the Norman French form and central/Parisian French form of the same Latin word, which is “captale” (property). Words from Norman French - Candle (in modern French is chandelle) - Castle (in modern French is château) - Escape (in modern French is échapper) - Garden (but in modern French is jardin) There are words which have interplay between Anglo-Saxon, French and Latin in PDE, we can see this in kinship terms:  Anglo-Saxon terms, especially basic terms (father, mother, husband, wife, son, daughter, sister, brother).  French/Latin for other terms (aunt, uncle, niece and nephew, family).  Hybrid formations are a combination of old English and foreign language (grandmother, grandfather). There are words who could be lexical doublets (more or less the same meaning) or lexical triplets (different meaning). Anglo-Saxon/Germanic words are used in low-familiar register, while French/Latin words tend to be used in high register. Here are some examples: 1. Guts (Anglo-Saxon) – courage (French) 2. Clothes (Anglo-Saxon) – attire (French) 3. Climb/rise (Anglo-Saxon) – mount (French) – ascend (Latin) 4. Fire (Anglo-Saxon) – flame (French) – conflagration (Latin) 5. Happiness (Anglo-Saxon) – felicity (Latin) 6. Wish (Anglo-Saxon) – desire (French) Originally some words borrowed from French were considered synonyms of Anglo-Saxon terms. Subsequently they had become specialized terms like the following cases:  Cow > Beef (edible flesh of a cow)  Calf > Veal (edible flesh of a calf)  Sheep > Mutton (edible flesh of a sheep) A pattern observed widely in European languages: a loan-word synonym of an indigenous expression typically develops some semantic difference from the native word. Even when it comes to morphology, English had borrowed some elements like affixes. These are added to native bases or roots.  - ESS = goddess  - MENT = enlightenment  - AGE = shortage  - ANCE = hindrance  - OUS = thunderous  - (e)RY = fishery, bakery  - (i)TY = oddity  - (i)FY = scarify Main Sources of borrowing in English The main sources, which English has borrowed words from, are: 1. North European terms 2. Latin terms  Borrowed from French  Anglo-Saxon 3. Christianized Latin 4. Old Norse 5. Norman French 6. Ancient Latin and Greek 7. French and Italian 8. Indo-European and non Indo-European languages Many English lexemes have arrived with the Germanic invaders and have never fallen out of use. These represent the Anglo-Saxon core, which continues to dominate everyday conversation. Grammatical words (in, on, be, that), lexical words (father, love, name), or affixes (mis-, un-, -ness, -less) are all of Germanic origin. They provide all the most frequently used words in English. The borrowing from Latin began soon after the Anglo-Saxons arrived in the British Isles. In Old English there are very few Celtic loans, but the influence of Latin is strong, especially after the arrival of Christianity. When the Vikings invaded the British Isles, about 2,000 Scandinavian words came into English and most of them replaced Old English words: window, sky, skin, skill, skirt, leg, take, egg, dirt….are all words that came from Scandinavian (or Old Norse). The Norman Conquest was the most significant change of direction in the history of English vocabulary because about 10,000 new lexemes had entered the language from French and several thousand more had entered from Latin. When Middle Ages ended, the surviving Old English lexicon was already in the minority. French loans were originally spoken by new rulers, becoming part of the central core of English lexis. They also contributed to add new terms in fields such as art, architecture, fashion, war, politics but especially in food cooking and names of tradesmen. By the end of the Renaissance, vocabulary derived from Latin, had doubled the size of the lexicon. This period represents the peaks of the borrowing activity in the history of English. Countless technical terms were provided in all branches of human knowledge, strongly did by English humanists (who wanted English to express the most refined thoughts, like Latin and Greek). In Present Day English, the contact with lots of languages and cultures, and the emergence of English as a world language, have generated thousands of new lexemes. English is still classified as a Germanic tongue because of its grammar and basic vocabulary are Germanic, but it is actually a mixture that contains words from nearly every major language of the world. Many of these words we don't even think of as borrowed. Word Formation and Morphology Is a layer that represents the group of words which English has coined by putting together elements already present in the language or elements borrowed from other languages. Is one of the mayor processes along with borrowing for lexical creation/innovation in the English language. It contributes to enlarge the vocabulary by adding new words. - S here is used to make evident the plural and it qualifies as an ending (bound morph) The previous morphs realize the following morphemes: - S , in this case, realizes a grammatical morpheme > REFERENCES - Reference is just a lexical morpheme, which indicates a type of relation. With “reference” and “references” we can say that the noun is the same, as well as the meaning but in the plural form. This process is known as inflection. A productive ending (or inflectional affix) means is still used in Modern English to coin new words/expressions. What happens if we can’t identify any free morphs?  Dental – dentist – dentistry  Transmit – commit – remit – admit – submit  Convert – revert – subvert  Perceive – deceive – receive  Transfer – refer – prefer – defer – confer In these groups of morphemes we can’t find free morphs. They all share some elements but they can’t be identified as free morphs, they are more likely to be considered bound morphs. In the first group we notice that all these are related with “teeth”, but the root “dent” had been borrowed from Latin and isolated by native speakers; then it has been used as a root to create other words. All foreign borrowings were independent in the source language, once they had entered the English language, they had become bound morphs that could carry core meaning, perform the same function as roots do in other words. They’re known as BOUND ROOT. Nowadays, when we coin new words, we only use free roots. It’s difficult to state their meaning; we need to know the language they come from, their history or etymology. Lesson 6 (28 th march): Allomorphs Let’s consider the following couples of nouns:  Cat – cats  Ox – oxen  Woman – women  Goose – geese  Mouse – mice  Cliff – cliffs  Shelf – shelves  Sheep – sheep All these words share the fact that they are the same words, the only thing that changes is the number. The words in red are plural forms. Some of them are regular plural nouns because they end with -S. But it’s realized in many other ways. All these examples are variant morphs of the same morpheme, the formal realization varies across the different nouns. Each variant of the same morpheme turns into an allomorph (which means “different morph”). In other words the same morpheme can be realized by several different morphs. Some morphemes are realized by bound morphs which remain distant from the root (like in “cats, oxen, cliffs, shelves”) but in other cases are realized by morphs which do not remain distant from the root (like in “mice, geese”). Now let’s take as an example the cases of monosyllabic adjectives and verbs: a) HOT – HOTTER – HOTTEST > these are regular forms of comparative and superlative, where the root is the same, you just inflected by adding -ER and -EST. BUT GOOD – BETTER – BEST > here the word has completely changed and we can’t say “gooder” or “goodest”. In this case the root is different and it seems unrelated to GOOD. b) WORK – WORKED – WORKED > the root is the same, the past and past participle are realized adding -ED, which is the suffix for the regular form of past tenses. BUT GO – WENT – GONE > the root for the past tense isn’t related with GO, unlike the past participle which can be related with GO. In both cases the same morpheme (which can be of degree, tense, gender….) is realized by etymologically unrelated morphs in the inflectional paradigm of a word. Here we find a type of allomorph that’s called suppletive morphs. This kind of allomorphs is free, not bound and they don’t have relations with the original/base form. Suppletion and suppletive allomorphs aren’t a phenomenon only restricted to the English language, but it can be found in almost every language. It occurs in many languages around the globe with more or less the same concepts/meanings: - French = aller – il va -/être – sui – est – sommes – était - German = sein – bin – bist – ist – war - Italian = io vado – noi andiamo Morphological realization rules in English In English there isn’t always a one-to-one relationship between morphs and morphemes within word-forms/lexemes. So how do morphemes combine and how are they formally realized in English words? We can say that there are 3 major morphological realization rules in English: 1. Cat – cats > the bound morph -s realizes the plural form and it’s still productive Ox – oxen > does the same but it’s no longer productive Each word consists of 2 morphs (cats = cat + s/oxen = ox + en) and 2 morphemes (cat/ox + plural number). Each morpheme is realized by a distinct morph, they are simply glued together according to a morphological rule called AGGLUTINATIVE RULE, which is the base of agglutinative languages. 2. Woman – women > the morpheme of plural number is formally realized by simply doing an internal vowel mutation (or known also as root allomorphy). In these case there is just 1 morph (women) but the morphemes are two: woman-person + plural number. What changes here is not how the word is written, but how it is pronounced. The morphemes are realized by morphs which do not remain distinct and the word cannot be segmented. Singular and plural form are distinguished by spelling and pronunciation. The morphemes of plural number are fused together in the same morph and this morphological rule is called FUSIONAL RULE. Goose – geese Mouse – mice Spelling and pronunciation in English don’t always match. Each word consists of just 1 morph (geese and mice) and two morphemes (goose/mouse-animal + plural number). The two morphemes are just fused together in one morph. Morphemes are realized by morphs which do not remain distinct; singular and plural forms are distinguished by spelling and pronunciation. This is another case of FUSIONAL RULE. 3. Cliff – cliffs > the plural form is realized following the agglutinative rule. Shelf – shelves > -ES + voicing of root consonant (or root allomorphy) that involves the consonant F which becomes V. In this case we have a combination of the two previous rules. 4. Sheep – sheep > singular and plural sound and are spelled the same, so we can understand the difference thanks to the context. Here we have 1 morph (singular/plural) and two morphemes (sheep-animal + plural number). When a morpheme has no overt realizations, no visual realization (morphological/orthographic/phonetic) is called a ZERO MORPH or ZERO RULE. The morpheme is there but it has no possible realization. The same rule applies to verbs such as the paradigm of CUT, COST where the past and the past participle are In both cases there’s a root vowel mutation or root allomorphy o Offshoring (to offshore) > back-formation o Lab (laboratory), exam (examination) > clipping Productive word formation processes in XXI century in the English Language are:  Compounding = mainstay of lexical creativity in English, it’s been productive since the old period. In the 21st century it has become relevant for verb-to-verb compounds, compounds adjectives (such as well-known, twenty-story). It has been impressively productive since the early 20th century.  Zero-derivation = it has become particularly productive in advertising, from a marginal to a central position.  Acronyms and abbreviations have been impressively productive since early 20th century, due to an increasing literacy or development in Western societies.  Blending has been increasingly productive since early 20th century. Derivation In derivation new lexemes are created from an already existing lexeme simply by adding derivational affixes, prefixes and suffixes attached to the root. There are different types of affixes, some of them are native while others are foreign (mostly borrowed from other languages like French). When these words were firstly borrowed, they weren’t analyzable so they had to strip them off from the original words and they started attaching them to other words in English.  Native (from Old English): un-, mis-, for-, -hood, -ship, -ful, - ly, -less  Foreign (borrowed from other languages): dis-, de-, en-/in-, -ment, -ess, ous We have to think of productivity as continuum with two different points:  Unproductive (they are preserved in just a few lexemes. They are no longer used to create new ones. Examples are -th, a-, be-, en-).  Productive (they are used freely and added to many roots. Some of these are bio-, -able, -er, -ist, -ism)  There are affixes with limited productivity like -ship or -hood Anti-vaccinationist (noun created in 1869) by adding “anti” to the already existing word “vaccinationist”. The same happened for the verb “to re-use” and with the noun “non- smoker”. These prefixes realize a lexical morpheme, because prefixation is based on prefix + free morph. The bound lexical morph stands before a free lexical morph which is also the root. In English there are some prefixes called “class maintaining” but they are no longer productive (such as enlarge, ensure, befriend, betoken, abroad). Other prefixes systematically affect meaning and are divided into different subcategories but these do not affect orthography and do not produce phonological change. Particularly productive prefixes in Modern English are divided into different categories:  Neoclassical = in words borrowed from Classical languages in the 16th century, then used to form words that did not exist in Classical languages. Some of these are mega-, hyper-, giga-, cyber-, bio- and they are used in computing, science and general speech but one formation spawns even a series of words and they could be found in most European languages today.  Romance Verbal Prefixes = like de- (deselect, detox, dehire) and other older suffixes which retain their productivity but they’re not subject of a passing fashion. Semantic Prefixes Taxonomy  Pejorative: maltreat, miscalculate, pseudo(-)scientific, dislike...  Degree or size: overconfident, mini-skirt, supernatural, hypercritic,  Attitude: pro-Obama, antiwar, counter-revolution…  Spatial relations (both concrete and abstract): intercultural, international transatlantic, subnormal….  Time and order: postmodern, ex-president….  Numerical value: bilingual, multilingual, multipurpose, multitasking…  Repetition: rewrite, rebuild….  Reversal: undo, unfasten… Suffixation is another productive process in the formation of the English language, like we can see in these three examples:  Happy (adjective) > happiness (noun)  Unhappy (adjective) > unhappiness (noun)  Vaccine (noun) > vaccinist (noun) English suffixes are:  Class changing (-ful, -ly, -ify, -al…)  Class maintaining (-ess, -let, -hood, -kind, -ship, -ism)  Affect meaning, affect orthography (like deny – denial) They produce a phonological change in the root (sometimes word stress is also affected) like in reduce – reduction, clear – clarity, electric – electricity. Grammatical suffixes taxonomy • Noun suffixes (largest category): – (a)tion, -dom, -ee, -ess, -ette, -hood, -ism, -ity, -let, ness, -ment, -ship • Adj suffixes: – i/-able, al/ial, -ar, -ary, -ed, -esque, -ful, -ic, -ish, -less, -like, -ly, -ous, -some, • Verb suffixes: – ate, -en, -ify, -ise/ize • Adverb suffixes– ly, -wise Semantic Suffixes Taxonomy  Diminutives: -ling, -let, -y, -ie (like princeling, piglet, daddy, hoodie)  Feminine gender: -ess, -ette, -rix, -ine (like actress, usherette, aviatrix, heroine)  Common gender: -(i)an, -ist, -er (like librarian, Texan, Canadian, Marxist, Londoner, artist, etc.)  Abstract suffixes: -ship, -hood, -ism (as in friendship, neighborhood, hoodlumism)  Meaning ‘nearly, not exactly’ as in greenish, fortyish, coldish  Expressing ‘resemblance’ as in godly, sickly, lonely; childish In Present Day English the most particularly productive suffixes are called established suffixes like -wise (often used in nounce-formations and is often attached to nouns) and -ish (attached to roots from different word classes). Recent suffixes that are becoming quite productive are -fie (in spoken and informal), -holic (in spoken and written), -ish (in brand names or websites), -scape, -gate (mostly in newspapers). Lesson 8 th (2 nd May): Zero Derivation and shortening Zero-Derivation is a very productive word formation process in the English language, along with conversion, functional shift, derivation by a zero morph and it has become very common in advertising and in social media. Let’s look at the following examples:  I bike to the department every day/I have a new bike.  We must be properly resourced for the job/We agreed to pool our resources.  We towelled after the swim/Can you pass me the towel please?  I cleaned the house this morning/The house is very clean. These lexemes belong to different part of speech, without exhibiting any change in their internal structure. In most cases zero-derivation words are verbs converted from nouns or adjectives, or even from verbs. Here there are the most common cases of zero derivation: Noun > Verb (most common type) Bike > to bike Hoover (brand name) > to hoover c) Orientation > to orientate (Orientation is an action noun borrowed from a foreign language. Its verb didn’t exist until back-formation was applied to the original word and that’s how the verb was created). Here the source lexeme is a borrowed noun, mainly from French or Latin. The perceived suffix denotes an agent, instrument or an action noun.  Burglar > to burgle In this example, the source lexeme is a native word. The perceived suffix denotes an agent. o Babysitter > to babysit (the nouns denotes someone who does the action of babysitting. The verb that describes this action didn’t exist but by simply cutting the suffix -er, the verb was created). o Housekeeper > to housekeep o Typewriter > to typewrite In these cases, the source lexeme is a compound word from native basis only. The perceived suffix here denotes an agent or an instrument. New Words “by mistake” Speakers sometimes encounters multi-morphemic word containing sound sequence that sounds and looks like a derivational affix. Originally an analyzable unit, the word becomes synchronically analyzable as a syntagma; then the speaker strips off presumed affix. At the end the speaker “invents” meaning for leftover part by subtracting meaning of presumed affix. Back-formation across history of English Back-formation across the history of English has shown appearance from the 13th century until the 1960s. 6 types were found (grammatical category and meaning of source and output lexeme), but only four of them have been productive in the language: o Type 1 = noun (instrument/agent noun that can be supposed or real) > verb (action denoted by instrument/agent noun). o Type 2 = noun (action noun, supposed or real) > verb (action denoted by action noun). o Type 3 = adjective (taken to be a derivative from the verb) > verb. o Type 4 = adjective (taken to be a derivative from the noun) > noun. Then, starting from the 1960s until nowadays, only two types have been productive.  Noun (action noun) > verb (action denoted by action noun) It has been the most productive type over the whole 20th century and it has seen a dramatic growth since the 2nd half of the 20th century.  Noun (instrument/agent noun) > verb (action denoted by instrument/agent noun). This has been fairly productive in the first half of the 20th century. Lesson 9 th (9 th May): The sounds of English RP stands for Received Pronunciation and it’s the official language and the standard level of the language that is been taught in most countries. RP is also the British English variety while the American variety is known also as General American and they differ from one another because the British variety is a non-rhotic language (some sounds are not pronounced, that’s because the following word begins with a consonant but sometimes this happens even if the next word begins with a vowel). The sound “r” is characteristic of rhoticity and it usually occurs at the end of a word; but also when it stands in a middle position is silent. That’s because there’s a long vowel before the “r” . Even within English there are some dialects that are rhotic varieties; like the Scottish dialect which do not follow the non-rhotic rule. RP is something you learn through education; you’re not born with it. It’s a model for correct pronunciation and is a localized pronunciation. We can say is a social-cultural variety, it’s adopted in EFL textbooks, dictionaries and other teaching materials. It was also known as BBC English pronunciation because it was used by BBC news readers. English Phonetics and Phonology English does not have a phonemic spelling system, in the sense that the spelling reproduces pronunciation as unambiguously as possible. There’s a one-to-one correspondence between graphemes (letters) and phones/phonemes (sounds). It could be a problem for EFL students.  Caught – court  Soar – saw – sore  So – sow These are homophones, they have different spelling but the same pronunciation. At least in isolation.  Enough – cough – tough  Though – through – plough These are homographs, which have the same spelling but the pronunciation differs.  Wine – vine  Wet – wait  Boat – vote  Caught – coat  Hit – heat When we have two or more words with different pronunciation just because of one sound, these words are known as phonemes or minimal pars. In English we have plenty of examples of silent letters, and this lack of spelling-to-sound in PDE is largely historical, which means that it reflects the history of the language rather than its present status. English has always resisted spelling reforms and academies to set standards. Then the spelling became fixed around the 16th-17th centuries with the arrival of printing. Many of the printers were Flemish and had little knowledge of the language. English has borrowed extensively from other languages and has tended to maintain original spelling. International Phonetic Alphabet It’s a system of graphemes and symbols to represent a sound in a language, regardless of how the sounds are spelled. It consists of phonetic symbols, graphic marks each of which stands for a phone/sound: same sound, same symbol across different languages. Vowels production is affected by the position of the tongue and even by the shape of the lips. Depending on the tongue position:  close to the roof of the mouth, there are high vowels  when is far from it, there are low vowels  when it’s retracted, there’s a back vowel  when it’s not retracted, there’s a front vowel  it can be even half-retracted, it said to be a central vowel Depending on the position of the lips, vowels can be:  rounded (o, u)  unrounded (i)  stretched out (a) Some vowels in English are inherently of a shorter duration, while some other are inherently longer. Vowels can stay relatively unchanged during their production and they are called monophthongs or pure vowels (es: a, æ). Vowels can change their place of articulation during their production and became diphthongs and triphthongs. Diphthongs change during their production. There are closing diphthongs (towards a closed vowel sound like “I” and “Ʊ”) and centering diphthongs (towards a central vowel sound, like the “schwa”). In RP, all diphthongs are falling, which means that the first element is acoustically more prominent than the second. Lesson 10 th (16 th May): RP Consonants, Connected speech Consonants are classified according to the following criteria: