<p>There are mainly two ways of comparing adjectives in English: the analytic and the synthetic. The analytic way is to use more and most (for example difficult, more difficult, most difficult). The synthetic, or inflectional, way is to add the endings –er and –est (for instance fast, faster, fastest). During the last twelve centuries the way of forming comparisons in English has evolved from predominately synthetic to the point where both inflections and analytic forms are used. Today many adjectives are almost always compared either synthetically or analytically (e.g. fast and difficult respectively), but sometimes we have two alternatives; for example, we can choose between more polite and politer. The author has three aims with this paper: firstly, to examine how adjectives in English are compared today; secondly, to determine how well the descriptions in modern grammars agree with authentic written English; thirdly, to see whether there have been any recent changes in the way of indicating comparison. This is a quantitative study. A corpus investigation was undertaken: some one hundred common adjectives in two British newspapers, The Guardian and The Observer, from 1990–91 and 2005 that vary in their way of expressing comparison were studied. The results were compared with six grammars from the last five decades. After the data collection, the chi square test was applied, showing how statistically significant the changes between 1990–91 and 2005 are. Judging from the data in this study, the synthetic comparison seems to be becoming less common. The author also concludes that the comparison of adjectives in contemporary British English varies considerably.</p>

Martin Vančura - Diplomová práce (2012) Evolution of phonological contrat in sibilants - typological analysis Abstract: The goal of this paper is to employ the paradigm of Greenbergian language typology to process diachronic data originating in the field of historical linguistics. In the first few chapters, I discuss both disciplines and identify some of the pitfalls of such an endeavour. The substance of this paper lies in chapter 4 where I try to demonstrate a real utilization of this diachronic typology on a specific set of data, represented by documented cases of the evolution of sibilants. Then I analyse the precise articulatory and evolutionary character of the sibilants in selected branches of the Indo- European language family and selected languages of the world and I attempt to uncover the common evolutionary tendencies of their sibilant systems. At the end of this chapter, I construct a map of sibilants' evolutionary trajectories and I propose some remarks on the general phonetics and phonology of sibilants.

(in English): Typology of verbal suppletion on the ground of Indo-European languages is the focus of the thesis Verbal suppletion in Indo-European languages. The diachronic approach is of special interest. Description of verbal suppletion in the oldest stages of the IE languages and reconstruction of their Proto-Indo-European forms is thus aimed for (for each of the ten well-described IE language branches, one sample language is chosen, and its verbal system and suppletive verbal paradigms are described). Besides the descriptive data from individual language branches, the outcome of the thesis comprises the evaluation of the data by typological means from diachronic and synchronic view-point and its assessment in relation to frequency, semantic fields and Semantic relevance hierarchy. The thesis delivers a review of Proto-Indo-European roots in suppletive paradigms and their mutual relationships.

The following Master thesis "A Comparative Analysis of Anglicisms in German Standard Varieties" focuses on the matter of English lexical borrowing in German which is currently very topical and provokes mixed reactions both from laymen and linguists. First, the thesis introduces the fundamental knowledge of language change focusing on its internal and external causes. Furthermore, the three German standard varieties are characterised - German Standard German, Austrian German and Swiss German. The third chapter is devoted to the concrete influence of English lexical borrowings on German. Moreover, the empirical part presents a comparative analysis based on a collection of anglicisms from 100 newspaper articles from national online newspapers for each of the varieties. At the end of the analysis, current tendencies concerning the use of anglicisms and the particularities of the individual standard varieties are defined. To conclude with, the thesis deals with the critical reception of anglicisms in the public discourse and presents the matter from the point of view of sociolinguistics.

Human languages are not static entities. Linguistic conventions, whose social and communicative meaning are understood by all members of a speech community, are gradually altered or replaced, whether by changing their forms, meanings, or by the loss of or introduction of altogether new distinctions. How do large speech communities go about re-negotiating arbitrary associations in the absence of centralised coordination? This thesis first provides an overview of the plethora of explanations that have been given for language change. Approaching language change in a quantitative and evolutionary framework, mathematical and computational modelling is put forward as a tool to investigate and compare these different accounts and their purported underlying mechanisms in a rigorous fashion. The central part of the thesis investigates a relatively recent addition to the pool of mechanisms that have been proposed to influence language change: I will compare previous accounts with a momentum-based selection account of language change, a replicator-neutral model where the popularity of a variant is modulated by its momentum, i.e. its change in frequency of use in the recent past. I will discuss results from a multi-agent model which show that the dynamics of a trend-amplifying mechanism like this are characteristic of language change, in particular by exhibiting spontaneously generated s-shaped transitions. I will also discuss several empirical predictions made by a momentum-based selection account which contrast with those that can be derived from other accounts of language change. Going beyond theoretical arguments for the role of trends in language change, I will go on to present fieldwork data of speakers’ awareness of ongoing syntactic changes in the Shetland dialect of Scots. Data collected using a novel questionnaire methodology show that individuals possess explicit knowledge about the direction as well as current progression of ongoing changes, even for grammatical structures which are very low in frequency. These results complement previous experimental evidence which showed that individuals both possess and make use of implicit knowledge about age-dependent usage differences during ongoing sound changes. Echoing the literature on evolutionary approaches to language change, the final part of the thesis stresses the importance of explicitly situating different pressures either in the domain of the innovation of new or else the selection of existing variants. Based on a modification of the Wright-Fisher model from population genetics, I will argue that trend-amplification selection mechanisms provide predictions that neatly match empirical facts, both in terms of the diachronic dynamics of language change, as well as in terms of the synchronic distribution of linguistic traits that we find in the world.

Die moderne Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte lässt sich – auf den Ebenen des Transports, der Informationsübertragung und der interpersonellen Kommunikation – als ein sich permanent steigernder Beschleunigungsprozess beschreiben. Insbesondere neuartige Medientechnologien verkürzen die zeitlichen Intervalle der Kommunikation zunehmend. Es ist davon auszugehen, dass sich die dem Geschwindigkeitsimperativ unterliegenden neuen Kommunikationsbedingungen in sprachlichen Innovationen niederschlagen und diese wiederum Indikatoren für Sprachwandel sind. In der jüngsten linguistischen Forschung wird allerdings vielfach die These geäußert, der Sprachgebrauch in den neuen Medien indiziere fundamentale Veränderungen der Schriftlichkeit und führe zu einem sprachlichen Verfall besonderen Ausmaßes. Diese These soll am Beispiel schriftbasierter Alltagskommunikation – vom Telegramm über den Brief und der Internetkommunikation bis hin zur SMS-Kommunikation – in medien-, kultur- und texthistorischen Zusammenhängen überprüft werden. Es geht darum, die kulturhistorischen Modalitäten der Medien- und Beschleunigungsgenese aufzudecken und spezifische mediale und kontextuelle Bedingungen sprachlicher Veränderungen herauszustellen. / It is generally considered that the modern history of culture is widely influenced by a permanent process of increasing acceleration. This social trend occurs on different levels, such as public transport, information transport and interpersonal communication. Particularly, new emerging media technologies are abbreviating the temporal intervals of daily communication increasingly. Starting from this premise, it can be assumed that new conditions of communication based on speed imperatives result in special linguistic innovations. In doing so, these innovations clearly reveal the mechanisms of language change. However, in recent linguistic debates, it is frequently asserted that the use of language in new media applications causes fundamental changes of written language and, moreover, results in a language decay of exceeding extent. By pulling together several strands of empirical evidence and conceptual approaches this thesis is to be examined by the example of written-based everyday life communication, i.e. telegram, letter and Internet communication up to SMS communication - within a medial, cultural and text-historical context. The objective of this paper is to investigate the culture-historical modalities of media and acceleration genesis and to point specific medial and contextual conditions out of language change.

The main focus of this study is the High German language spoken by Russian Mennonites, one of the many groups of German-speaking immigrants in Canada. Although the primary language of most Russian Mennonites is a Low German variety called Plautdietsch, High German has been widely used in Russian Mennonite communities since the end of the eighteenth century and is perceived as one of their mother tongues. The primary objectives of the study are to investigate: 1) when, with whom, and for what purposes the major languages of Russian Mennonites were used by the members of the second and third migration waves (mid 1920s and 1940-50s respectively) and how the situation has changed today; 2) if there are any differences in spoken High German between representatives of the two groups and what these differences can be attributed to; 3) to what extent the High German of the subjects corresponds to the Standard High German. The primary thesis of this project is that different historical events as well as different social and political conditions witnessed by members of these groups both in Russia (e.g. closure of High German schools and churches in the 1920s and 1930s) and in Canada (e.g. the transition of most Mennonite churches from High German to English) have had a considerable influence upon and were reflected in their perception and use of High German. The data for the project consist of two sets of audio-recorded interviews in High German conducted in 1976-1978 by Henry Paetkau and Stan Dueck with Russian Mennonite immigrants of the 1920s (21 interviews), and by the author of this project in the spring of 2007 with representatives of the third migration wave (19 interviews). Both sets of interviews underwent textual and content analysis. Ten selected interviews have been transcribed following the rules of the CHAT (Codes of the Human Analysis of Transcripts) notation system and analyzed with the help of the CLAN (Computerized Language Analysis) software. The results of the study indicate that generally the patterns of language use by both groups showed a number of important differences during their stay in Russia but were found to be very similar after each group migrated to Canada. Further, no significant differences in the use of non-standard constructions between the two groups have been discovered and the main hypothesis of the study was not supported. Finally, it has been determined that the variety of High German spoken by the Russian Mennonites departs from Standard High German in a number of respects and features a variety of non-standard constructions. While some of them can be traced back to the influence of the English or Russian languages, many other non-standard constructions were most likely present in the speech of Russian Mennonites long before intensive contact with these languages began. It has been argued that some non-standard constructions were also relatively stable in the group’s High German and that they are a result of both language-internal as well as language-external processes of change.

In this comparative study, relativizers have been examined in two versions of the Bible: the King James Bible Version from 1611 and the New King James Bible Version from 1990. The hypothesis of this investigation was that, as the English language has undergone noticeable changes from the year 1611, the changes might also concern the usage of relativizers. Thus, the aim was to analyse how the use of relativizers has changed and try to find out reasons for these changes. To examine this, The Gospel According to Luke in both Bible versions was studied, because it is the longest of the 27 books of the New Testament. During this study, all the relativizers were sought out and counted. The results showed that in particular, there were remarkable discrepancies concerning the frequency of the relativizers who, which and that. In the King James Bible Version the relativizers which and that have a high frequency of occurrences, whereas the relativizer who does not appear as frequently. In the light of several examples, the usage of the relativizers was discussed and it has been found that the discrepancies depend on different factors. The most obvious difference in the usage of relativizers is that the relativizer which has both human and non-human antecedents in the King James Bible Version, whereas there is a clear distinction in the usage of who and which in the New King James Bible.

The main focus of this study is the High German language spoken by Russian Mennonites, one of the many groups of German-speaking immigrants in Canada. Although the primary language of most Russian Mennonites is a Low German variety called Plautdietsch, High German has been widely used in Russian Mennonite communities since the end of the eighteenth century and is perceived as one of their mother tongues. The primary objectives of the study are to investigate: 1) when, with whom, and for what purposes the major languages of Russian Mennonites were used by the members of the second and third migration waves (mid 1920s and 1940-50s respectively) and how the situation has changed today; 2) if there are any differences in spoken High German between representatives of the two groups and what these differences can be attributed to; 3) to what extent the High German of the subjects corresponds to the Standard High German. The primary thesis of this project is that different historical events as well as different social and political conditions witnessed by members of these groups both in Russia (e.g. closure of High German schools and churches in the 1920s and 1930s) and in Canada (e.g. the transition of most Mennonite churches from High German to English) have had a considerable influence upon and were reflected in their perception and use of High German. The data for the project consist of two sets of audio-recorded interviews in High German conducted in 1976-1978 by Henry Paetkau and Stan Dueck with Russian Mennonite immigrants of the 1920s (21 interviews), and by the author of this project in the spring of 2007 with representatives of the third migration wave (19 interviews). Both sets of interviews underwent textual and content analysis. Ten selected interviews have been transcribed following the rules of the CHAT (Codes of the Human Analysis of Transcripts) notation system and analyzed with the help of the CLAN (Computerized Language Analysis) software. The results of the study indicate that generally the patterns of language use by both groups showed a number of important differences during their stay in Russia but were found to be very similar after each group migrated to Canada. Further, no significant differences in the use of non-standard constructions between the two groups have been discovered and the main hypothesis of the study was not supported. Finally, it has been determined that the variety of High German spoken by the Russian Mennonites departs from Standard High German in a number of respects and features a variety of non-standard constructions. While some of them can be traced back to the influence of the English or Russian languages, many other non-standard constructions were most likely present in the speech of Russian Mennonites long before intensive contact with these languages began. It has been argued that some non-standard constructions were also relatively stable in the group’s High German and that they are a result of both language-internal as well as language-external processes of change.

<p>In this corpus-based study, the two verb pairs arise and rise and awake and wake are investigated. The paper focuses on seven research questions that are related to the meanings of the verbs in question, the semantic specialisations of those verbs, and the semantic relation</p><p>of the specific verb pair constituents. Furthermore, tendencies of language change are investigated, and an attempt is made to generalise over the influence of the prefix a- on those</p><p>tendencies.</p><p>The results of the quantitative and qualitative analysis show that the verbs awake and wake are more synonymous than the verbs arise and rise. It seems as if due to this difference, the two verbs arise and awake are subject to different processes of language change that take</p><p>their development into different directions. The observations made about the characteristics of the prefix a- that is involved in the two verbs arise and awake are often ambiguous and inconclusive. Therefore, the influence of this prefix on the processes of language change needs to be analysed further by investigating more word pairs distinguished by the absence or presence of the prefix a-.</p>