LINGUIST List 5.1203

Sun 30 Oct 1994

Sum: Vocabulary loss

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1. , Loss of vocabulary

 A week or two ago, I posted a query to LINGUIST asking why languages
 should lose lexemes over time. Since the replies seem to have ceased,
 it's time to summarize. (Actually, there weren't that many, so for
 the most part I'll reproduce the answers.) I'll annotate the replies,
 hopefully without doing injustice to anyone.

 -----------------------------------------------------
 [Stephen P Spackman (stephenacm.org or spackmandfki.uni-sb.de?)
 wrote:]

 You ask how languages can lose vocabulary steadily without becoming
 impoverished (if I understand correctly). The answer is that they also
 gain vocabulary, even (perhaps especially) internally.

 (1) it might not matter; english has an immense vocabulary and could
 lose half of it without harm (cupboard/closet/...)

 (2) words can move in from less rigidly controlled areas of the
 lexicon. In english, new names are fairly easy to introduce, and they
 get recycled as new words (watergate > x-gate; 'dick' (or peter or
 willy, actually))

 (3) load could shift up to the phrasal level (eventually producing a
 new morphological layer). Compare chinese or german with english to
 see how you can get as much meaning with fewer roots! (eg floppy disk)

 (4) morphology can be folded into the base lexicon (eg hero/heroine,
 assume/resume/consume - I assume these ones have a common origin but
 there are a hundred more examples if they don't)

 (5) roots shifting in meaning can acquire new pronunciations as they
 move into new syntactic or morphological contexts

 (6) phonological rules can become sufficiently opaque as to shift into
 the lexicon, producing a proliferation of 'new' words

 Try looking these up in a dictionary!
 sensation sensational sense sensible sensor sensual sensuous sentience
 sentinel

 [How it is that languages can lose vocabulary without eventually
 running out of words is indeed part of the question, although I was
 also asking why langauges should lose words in the first place.
 Answer (5) would be part of the reason for that (apparent) loss, given
 that a linguist studying the situation after the shift might miss the
 cognates.]

 ------------------------------------------------------
 [Nigel Love (NLOVEBEATTIE.UCT.AC.ZA) wrote:

 Well, surely one other common reason is going to be loss or disuse of
 the thing the word was a word for ...

 [I guess that could be a part of it, but it seems to me like it would
 only be a small part. A culture that used hand-made clay vessels
 might lose some words having to do with the making of pottery when
 vessels became available by trade. Or words might become limited to
 specialized parts of the culture--the few remaining potters, for
 instance.]

 -------------------------------------------------------

 [Jay Rifkin (jirifkinbungle.rutgers.edu) wrote:]

 ...I think that there are plenty of reasons why a loan word might
 replace a native one on fitness grounds.

 Social fitness: One word is used by the conquering group/group with
 higher social status; thus native movers-and-shakers would do well to
 adopt it.

 "Physical fitness": The loan word might simply be easier to pronounce
 and/or remember than the native one.

 Fitness of use: The loan word might encompass a broader set of
 meanings, connotatively and/or denotatively, than the native one.
 Thus it would show up in more contexts than the native word,
 effectively "reproducing" more than the native word and propagating
 its use that way.

 There are probably other fitness grounds, but I do think that you are
 onto something with the word placement idea.

 [Actually, I was saying that I thought the Darwinian notion of fitness
 was *not* part of the explanation. But if it turns out to be, I'll be
 glad to take the credit! :-) ]

 I think you're right about native words not being replaced by entirely
 new words; however, the arguments above hold for replacement of words
 by other native words as well. Something like the fitness of use idea
 is particularly important, where a word with a broader use will
 gradually dominate. Further, such a word will then often gradually
 broaden in use, taking on the meanings a wider range of meanings,
 perhaps through analogy. For example, the recent expansion in English
 of the word _go_ into contexts which previously only licensed words
 like _say_.

 ----------------------------------------------------

 [Robin Sabino (sabinromail.auburn.edu) wrote:]

 I'm responding as a creolist who also works on language death to your
 recent linguist query. You may find it fruitful to reframe your
 question, why should a language lose words,
 as why would speakers no longer use words such that younger
 generations would not learn them? It seems to me that there are many
 reasons for this. Including, but not limited to, contact induced,
 cultural change.

 [I guess my question would be, is the gradual loss of vocabulary in
 non-creole situations due (largely) to the same things that cause
 creolization? If so, we should expect to find a positive correlation
 betweeen vocabulary loss and contact with other languages/ cultures,
 with creolization being simply an extreme case. This sounds quite
 testable! It would also imply that languages that have been isolated
 for some time, like the Waorani (Aucas) of Ecuador, should preserve an
 older form of their language (at least wrt. vocabulary) than
 neighboring language groups. Again, perhaps testable--although in
 that specific case there are no known related languages to do the
 comparison with. One question, though: I understand that groups that
 have been in greater contact with other languages have retained some
 words that have been lost in the homeland. The Norwegians in the US
 are an example, I think. Perhaps someone can confirm/ deny?]

 -------------------------------------------------------

 [Alexis Manaster Ramer (amrzeus.cs.wayne.edu) wrote:]

 It has been suggested that some words are lost because they becacome
 too short or homophones with something else, any number of reasons
 other than contact... Chinese use of compounds instead of simplexes is
 a classic example, especially in Mandarin, since Mandrin sound changes
 would have produced the most homophony. Also, French, e.g., Latin
 apem 'bee' would have given *e, and so instead they use abeille from a
 Latin diminutive. There is a classic study in French dialects
 where there it turns out that all dialects where cat and cock should
 have become homophones replace one of these words... That one was
 Gillieron's work, I think. If you read Saussure and Bloomfield I am
 sure you will find discussion of these issues.

 [This one surprised me, although upon reflection I could think of
 examples from languages of SE Colombia where nouns used as classifiers
 in a compound noun construction arguably became bound affixes.]

 -------------------------------------------------------

 Thanks to all who replied! It looks to me like this could be an
 interesting area for research. In fact, I wonder why, during the
 period when glottochronology was under attack, there apparently wasn't
 much work done on this question. Surely the "why" of vocabulary loss
 could have informed the question of whether the rate of loss was
 constant?

 Mike Maxwell
 Mike.Maxwellsil.org