Historical English
What period of English language history began around 1500 and ended around 1700?
Early Modern English.
Which linguistic level examines spelling and the writing system?
Orthography.
What word-formation process combines two complete words, as in “football”?
COMPOUNDING
What semantic change occurs when a word's meaning becomes broader?
Broadening or generalisation.
What is a large, searchable collection of authentic language data called?
CORPUS
Which landmark dictionary published in 1755 helped standardise English spelling?
Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language.
Which linguistic level examines word structure, including prefixes, suffixes, and inflections?
Morphology.
What process creates a shortened word, such as “exam” from “examination”?
CLIPPING or telescoping.
What semantic process occurs when a word develops a more negative meaning?
Pejoration.
Which theory, associated with Charles Hockett, explains unpredictable language changes arising from chance events?
Random fluctuation theory.
Identify two orthographic features commonly associated with Early Modern English.
Interchangeable u/v and i/j, and inconsistent spelling.
A historical document contains unusually long sentences linked by “and,” “but,” and “so that.” Which linguistic level should be used to analyse this feature?
Syntax or grammar.
Identify the word-formation process used to create “brunch” from “breakfast” and “lunch.”
BLENDING
The word “meat” once referred to food generally but now primarily refers to animal flesh. Identify the semantic process.
Narrowing or specialisation.
What linguistic term describes words that frequently appear alongside a target word in a corpus?
COLLOCATES
Explain the historical importance of Caxton's printing press from 1476 onwards.
Printing encouraged spelling consistency by producing and distributing texts in increasingly standardised written forms.
Explain the difference between graphology and orthography when analysing historical English texts.
Graphology examines visual presentation, such as the long s, capitalisation, and layout. Orthography examines spelling conventions, including historical letter substitutions and inconsistent word spellings.
What word-formation process creates the verb “edit” from the noun “editor”?
Back-formation – A new word is created by removing an actual or perceived affix from an existing word.
Explain how “nice,” which historically could mean “foolish,” illustrates semantic change.
Amelioration. The word developed a more positive meaning, becoming associated with pleasantness or kindness.
New technological inventions introduce words such as “telegraph,” “railway,” and “station.” Which two theories could explain this development?
Functional theory and the theory of lexical gaps. New inventions create communicative needs and require new vocabulary to name previously unnamed concepts.
A historical text uses the long s (ſ), inconsistent spelling, and forms such as “thou” and “hath.” Identify the likely historical period and justify your answer using two linguistic levels.
Early Modern English. The long s is a graphological feature, while inconsistent spelling is an orthographic feature. “Thou” also reflects older grammatical and pragmatic conventions, while “hath” is an archaic verb form.
A historical writer uses “thou” when addressing a friend but “you” when addressing someone of higher status. Identify the linguistic level and explain its significance.
Pragmatics. The distinction reflects historical patterns of politeness, social hierarchy, familiarity, and formality in interpersonal communication.
The word “donation” developed into the verb “donate,” while “happiness” was formed from “happy.” Identify the two word-formation processes and explain how they differ.
Back-formation and affixation. Back-formation creates a new word by removing a perceived affix, as in “donation” → “donate.” Affixation creates a new word by adding a prefix or suffix, as in “happy” + “-ness” → “happiness.”
The word “awesome” originally conveyed a strong sense of awe but is now frequently used to describe ordinary positive experiences. Identify the process and explain its linguistic significance.
Semantic weakening or bleaching. Through frequent use in less intense contexts, the word loses some of its original semantic force.
A corpus shows that a word's common collocates have changed significantly over 150 years. Explain how this evidence can support an argument about semantic change.
Changing collocates can reveal shifts in a word's typical contexts, associations, and meanings. Comparing historical and modern corpus data provides evidence of semantic development rather than relying on individual examples.