Teaching in Colleges and Universities

The Application of Historical Linguistic Information to the Foreign Language Classroom

University of Virginia

A little more than 36 years ago, with regard to bettering the preparation of the language teacher, Pulgram (1954: 78) wrote:

But since then, the information which has been made available to the language teacher and subsequently applied to the classroom has come from synchronic analysis alone; that is, what Pulgram referred to as the descriptive study of the language in question¹⁵⁰. Linguists, applied as well as historical, have ignored the second half of Pulgram's proposal as regards the applicability and usefulness of such historical linguistic information in the classroom. It is in an attempt to resume the second half of Pulgram's proposal, and in the hope that language teachers will find my suggestions useful, that I urge all foreign language teachers to become familiar with and apply the available historical linguistic information to the foreign language classroom.

Now, one might ask, why bother? Don't students have enough information to deal with when learning a second language? True enough. But there are two good reasons for incorporating historical insight into our teaching routines. First, students often ask the question «Why?» regarding certain puzzling facts and «irregularities» of the target language. Second, it is well known, and therefore practiced in other areas of study (e. g., sociology, government, etc.), that for a good understanding of the present state of affairs, a look at the history of the situation in question is desirable, if indeed not indispensable. Why, then, should the study of a foreign language be any different?

I raise these two points from experience: as a student of Spanish, as a teacher of Spanish, and as a language historian. As a student, I myself asked my teachers many questions, to which I received responses like, «That's just the way it is, learn it!», «It's just irregular», or «No me preguntes por qué». I did not find these «explanations» very satisfying. As a language historian, I have found that many of the so-called «irregularities», from a historical perspective, are not really irregular at all. Furthermore, as a teacher of Spanish, I have found that students find these brief, historically oriented answers not only interesting, but a lot more satisfying than a response like, «That's just the way it is, learn it!», «It's just irregular», or «No me preguntes por qué». I would like to make clear, though, that I am not advocating long explanations, nor that all grammar points be taught from a historical perspective. Below we will review some common questions which can be answered with brief historical accounts.

I would like to demonstrate first, however, the explanatory nature of historical analysis. The nature of synchronic analysis, i. e., analysis of a language at one given point in time, (usually the modern language), is such that it describes, i. e., it provides a description or statement of the facts of the modern language. Diachronic or historical analysis, on the other hand, often explains how these facts came to be as they are. Let us look at one

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example. Synchronically, we can state that the indirect object pronouns le/les become or are replaced by se when appearing before the direct object pronouns lo, la, los, las. Without looking historically, we might try to account for this phenomenon with unfounded, ad hoc explanations like «le lo sounds bad», or «lelo means 'stupid'»¹⁵¹. Historically, however, we find that this phenomenon resulted from a series of normal or expected phonological changes: (IL)LI ILLUM > li ellu > ljelo > ŷelo > želo > šelo > śelo (the last step by analogy to reflexive se and confusion of š and ś). [Revised from Lathrop 1984: 156-57).

Now let us look at some of the common questions raised by students regarding «irregularities» which can be answered with brief historical accounts.

(1) Why do ser and ir have the same form in the preterite? First, it is really the perfect conjugation of the Latin verb esse which came to be used for both ser and ir in Spanish. In Spoken Latin, the preposition in (> Sp. en) used with a location signified «movement toward». Also, ser and estar did not have the same restrictions in Old Spanish that they do in Modern Spanish and consequently ser occurred at times where one might expect estar. Thus fuerunt in campum = «they were (moving/in route) toward the country», e. g., eventually came to mean «they went to the country», and this paradigm eventually became associated with the infinitive ir «to go».

(2) Why does the imperfect of ver retain the stem vowel? Because in Old Spanish the verb was veer, like leer and creer. Thus we have in Modern Spanish veía, like leía and creía. The real question (and irregularity) is why OSp. veer later contracted to ver while leer and creer did not.

The explanations above are of the type students find interesting. Others, like the following, are not only interesting, but hold a practical value.

(1) Why do all three conjugations have the same endings in the future? (This phenomenon applies to Portuguese, French, and Italian as well.) Because, historically, the future forms are really a combination of the infinitive + the verb haber (OSp. auer). Haber was often used in place of (or where one would expect in Modern Spanish) tener. If one said he/she had to do something, this obligation carried an implied futurity. Again, there was a shift in meaning: hablar hé con él «I have to Speak with him» > «I will speak with him». The practical aspect of this explanation is that the students, already knowing the forms of haber (for the present perfect) now know the endings for the future (by taking off the h-) without having to re-memorize them.

(2) Why is the masculine definite article used for nouns beginning with a stressed a, e. g., el agua, but las aguas; el águila, las águilas, etc.) First, students must realize that it is not the masculine definite article. Rather, it is the fast half of what came to be the feminine article from the Latin demonstrative:

Thus, if students realize that historically this is not the masculine definite article, they will not confuse the gender of the noun when modifying it, i. e., el agua pura, not *el agua puro (unlike el poema épico, un poeta famoso, etc.).

(3) Giving the Latin base too for the «irregular» past participles will facilitate the learning of correct forms through association with English derivatives. In these cases, the infinitive offers no clue to the formation of the past participle:

Infinitive	Spanish	Latin	English derivatives
morir	muerto	mortu(u)m	mortuary, mortician
poner	puesto	pos(i)tum	position, posit, post
ver	visto	vis(t)um	vision, visor, visual
escribir	escrito	scriptum	scripture, manu(script)
abrir	abierto	apertum	aperture, apertural
romper	roto	ruptum	rupture, errupt

Through the Latin connection and association with the English derivatives, students may more readily remember the -t- or -st- element of the past participle, thus avoiding the common errors *morido, *ponido, *vido or *veído, *escribido, etc.¹⁵²

I maintain that the application of such historical linguistic information will replace the typical inaccurate, uninteresting, and unhelpful responses like those mentioned at the beginning of this article with enlightening, helpful ones, which will enrich the study of the target language for the teacher and students alike.

Lathrop, Thomas A. 1984. Curso de gramática histórica española. Barcelona: Editorial Ariel.

Pulgram, Ernst 1954. «Preparation for Language Teaching». In Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching. Ed. Ernst Pulgram. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. 75-85.

Hispania [Publicaciones periódicas]. Volume 73, Number 3, September 1990