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Ah, thanks, Alexander, for pointing this out! It’s really hard to see in a small font, I didn’t notice. Here’s the Polish alphabet with the proper <ł>=/w/: https://images.lingvozone.com/languages/Language%20Information31_files/image001.gif
But since <ɫ> and <ł> are probably never in contrastive distribution, the difference doesn’t lead to any confusion luckily.
Polish /w/ developed out of Proto-Slavic /l/, via Old Polish /ɫ/, where original /l/ was followed by another consonant, if I understand correctly. Wikipedia lists some of the relavant sound changes at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Polish#Phonetic_processes_from_Proto-Slavic, based on Stanisław Rospond. 2005. Gramatyka historyczna języka polskiego, Warszawa-Wrocław it seems (there’s no proper citation in the text, only a references list). It seems as if the change /ɫ/>/w/ (vocalization) happened in the 16th century, after Polish already had an orthography based on the Latin alphabet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-vocalization#Polish_and_Sorbian, information from Leksykon terminów i pojęć dialektologicznych, s.v. Wałczenie), and probably, as Alexander says, after [l] and [ɫ] had become different phonemes as other sound changes created minimal pairs.
Maybe we can ask Magdalena for confirmation/more information.Well, I’d be the last person to claim that etymology and historical linguistics aren’t fascinating. 🙂 We should look at the synchronic and the diachronic dimension. But we have to keep them apart conceptually. Your example with the names is a good one. I can certainly study the etymology of names (and also their morphology), but the fact that someone is called Müller or Krüger or Potter or Miller (derivation, root {mill} + agent-suffix {er}) doesn’t tell us anything about the person. It tells us something about their distant ancestors, but that doesn’t predict anything about today.
(Btw, do you know Schirm Schirmer in Steglitz?)
Dear Jozielly,
We won’t do syntax until next week, so instead of a definition I’ll give you examples for the time being.
sentence: They have always been the same thing to me, but apparently they are not. (everything between two full stops)
clause: They have always been the same thing to me.
clause: But apparently they are not. (everything that belongs to the same verb)
phrase: the same thing
phrase: to me (everything that stays together when moved or replaced)And to clarify (this came up in the seminar today): a phoneme is a unit of language. Phonemes are bundles of features (/p/ is a voiceless bilabial stop), and features that differentiate between phonemes in a specific language are called contrastive features. So voicing is a contrastive feature in English, because there are minimal pairs that differ only with respect to voicing (pit vs. bit). You can also say that voicing is phonologically relevant in English, or that aspiration is phonologically relevant (i.e. meaning-distinguishing) in Russian but not in English. (Can someone post a minimal pair from Russian?)
Do try to use linguistic terminology, it makes it a lot easier to understand what you mean and to decide whether what you’re suggesting is correct or not.
Yes, there is something to add.
Minimal pairs are defined as the smallest meaning- distinguishing units in language. That means that the meaning can change when only one letter is different in a word. For example the letters /p/ (voiceless bilabial plosive) and /b/ (voiced bilabial plosive) only deviate in the voicing and are therefore two different sounds. These two letters change the whole meaning of a word: pit- die Grube, bit- das Stückchen.
The smallest meaning-distinguishing unit in language is a phoneme. That meanst that meaning can change if only one phoneme is changed. /p/ and /b/ are phonemes/sounds, NOT letters. (PLEASE stop talking about letters. Letters don’t matter. Knit and wit is a minimal pair, even though two letters are different.)
You misidentified one of the words and you didn’t answer the second question.
(I just took out some code from Jozielly’s answer, to make it readable.)
