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Syntactic change is the evolution of the syntactic structure of a natural language. Over time, syntactic change is the greatest modifier of a particular language. [citation needed] Massive changes – attributable either to creolization or to relexification – may occur both in syntax and in vocabulary. Syntactic change can also be purely ...
Etymology studies the history of words: when they entered a language, from what source, and how their form and meaning have changed over time. Words may enter a language in several ways, including being borrowed as loanwords from another language, being derived by combining pre-existing elements in the language, by a hybrid known as phono ...
The distribution of languages has changed substantially over time. Major regional languages like Elamite, Sogdian, Koine Greek, or Nahuatl in ancient, post-classical and early modern times have been overtaken by others due to changing balance of power, conflict and migration. The relative status of languages has also changed, as with the ...
Metonymy: Change based on nearness in space or time, e.g., jaw "cheek" → "mandible". Synecdoche: Change based on whole-part relation. The convention of using capital cities to represent countries or their governments is an example of this. Hyperbole: Change from weaker to stronger meaning, e.g., kill "torment" → "slaughter"
Cyclic drift is the mechanism of long-term evolution that changes the functional characteristics of a language over time, such as the reversible drifts from SOV word order to SVO and from synthetic inflection to analytic observable as typological parameters in the syntax of language families and of areal groupings of languages open to investigation over long periods of time.
Real-time studies are crucial because changes do not necessarily occur in stable, progressive increments that can be documented synchronically, as is assumed in the apparent-time hypothesis. Language change may occur quickly as a result of social changes. That was the case in the dialects of some island communities, such as Smith Island ...
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Therefore, in Saussure's view, language change (diachrony) does not form a system. By contrast, each synchronic stage is held together by a systemic equilibrium based on the interconnectedness of meaning and form. To understand why a language has the forms it has at a given stage, both the diachronic and the synchronic dimension must be considered.