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Component 2: Language Change Over Time
Quick questions on The processes of language change: lexical, semantic, grammatical and orthographic - Eduqas A-Level English Language
7short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is lexical change?Show answer
Vocabulary changes most visibly and quickly. The key processes are borrowing (loanwords from contact languages, French, Latin, and later from across the empire and the world), coinage and neologism (new words for new things), affixation (adding prefixes and suffixes), compounding (joining words) and blending. Words also leave the language: archaism (a word becoming old-fashioned) and obsolescence (a word dropping out entirely). Name the specific process, and note why the vocabulary entered or left.
What is grammatical change?Show answer
Grammar changes more slowly but is rich to analyse. The processes include the loss of inflections (older verb endings such as '-eth' and '-est', the decline of 'thou'), word-order change (English has become more fixed in its word order as it lost inflection), changes in negation (older multiple negation, the rise of 'do-support' in questions and negatives), and the regularisation of irregular forms. English has shifted broadly from a more synthetic (inflected) towards a more analytic (word-order-dependent) grammar.
What is a model lexical and semantic paragraph?Show answer
"The text's vocabulary shows several processes of change. The word 'physic' for medicine is now archaic, displaced by borrowed and coined alternatives, while 'awful' is used in its older, ameliorated sense of 'awe-inspiring' rather than its modern pejorated sense of 'very bad', an example of semantic change. Naming these as archaism and pejoration, and tying them to the eighteenth-century date, turns the observation that the language 'looks old' into precise analysis."
What is a model grammatical paragraph?Show answer
"Grammatically, the older text marks change through its inflections and negation: the verb ending '-eth' ('hath', 'doth') reflects an inflectional system since lost, and the multiple negation ('never did no harm'), standard in earlier English, has since been stigmatised out of Standard English. Naming inflection loss and the change in negation, rather than calling the grammar quaint, shows the shift from a more synthetic towards a more analytic grammar." This names grammatical processes.
What is q1?Show answer
What is the difference between narrowing and broadening? [2 marks]
What is q2?Show answer
Name three processes of lexical change. [3 marks]
What is q3?Show answer
Analyse how the lexis, semantics and grammar of English have changed, using dated examples. [16 marks]
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