historical linguistics assignment

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Course info.

• Prof. Norvin W. Richards

Departments

• Linguistics and Philosophy

As Taught In

• Linguistics

Learning Resource Types

Introduction to linguistics, lecture notes.

Lecture 1: Introduction (PDF)

Lecture 2: Morphology (Part 1) (PDF)

Lecture 3: Morphology (Part 2) (PDF)

Lecture 4: Morphology (Part 3) (PDF)

Lecture 5: Phonetics (Part 1) (PDF)

Lecture 6: Phonetics (Part 2) (PDF)

Lecture 7: Phonetics (Part 3) (PDF)

Lecture 8: Phonology (Part 1) (PDF)

Lecture 9: Phonology (Part 2) (PDF)

Lecture 10: Phonology (Part 3) (PDF)

Lecture 11: Syntax (Part 1) (PDF)

Lecture 12: Syntax (Part 2) (PDF)

Lecture 13: Syntax (Part 3) (PDF)

Lecture 14: Syntax (Part 4) (PDF)

Lecture 15: Syntax (Part 5) (PDF)

Lecture 16: Syntax (Part 6) (PDF)

Lecture 17: Syntax (Part 7); Semantics (Part 1) (PDF)

Lecture 18: Semantics (Part 2) (PDF)

Lecture 19: Semantics (Part 3) (PDF)

Lecture 20: Semantics (Part 4) (PDF)

Lecture 21: Semantics (Part 5) (PDF)

Lecture 22: Dialects (PDF)

Lecture 23: Historical Linguistics (PDF - 1 MB)

Lecture 24: Endangered Languages (PDF - 1.5 MB)

Lecture 25: Language Acquisition (PDF)

Lecture 26: Signed Languages (PDF)

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COMPARATIVE AND HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS

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This paper reviews the basic concepts of historical linguistics and the comparative techniques used by various linguists who studied Indo-European and American languages to determine a shared ancestry among languages. This paper also evaluates the major concepts of historical linguistics and the well-grounded theories and classifications that have guided and shaped the modern linguistic classification practices. For over one and a half century, historical linguists have been deducing the origins of different languages. Genetic classifications have been proposed for languages from all parts of the world and thus far, 142 language-families have been identified. Although all of these classification schemes are controversial in terms of their validity and reliability but with the progress in the field of bioinformatics, the problems in linguistic reconstruction have been greatly resolved. Therefore, the historical classification schemes that have been proposed earlier are being radicall...

The evolution of culture: an interdisciplinary view, 1999

Similarities between languages can be due to 1) homoplasies because of a limited design space, 2) common ancestry, and 3) contact-induced convergence. Typological or structural features cannot prove genealogy, but they can provide historical signals that are due to common ancestry or contact (or both).

Journal of History Culture and Art Research

All languages have a common, ontological nature, and this nature cannot be changed. Although there are some differences in the fictions of languages, the general course of this ontological nature is the same in all languages. Although we are talking about an ontological nature that is the same in all languages, the differences that exist between languages affect and determine the attitudes of societies that use this language. In another respect, history is a totality of social attitudes. Therefore, the language used by society can affect the attitude of that society. In other words, societies have an attitude in such a way that the language they use is foreseen. So much so that, beyond the fictional difference, even the presence or absence of a word in any language can be decisive of a social attitude. Of course, the presence or absence of a word is a small detail in the whole; but when the peculiar fictions of languages are evaluated as a whole, the effects of social attitudes on h...

This is an English translation of LaPolla & Yang 2007 by Nathan Straub. This paper discusses the use of comparative data when describing a particular language. That is, even though we might be describing one variety, we can gain insights into the development of that variety from comparisons with related varieties. The examples presented are from the Rawang and Dulong languages, two closely related Tibeto-Burman languages in Myanmar and China respectively. We see that comparison with Dulong data can help us to understand the development of the applicative benefactive in Rawang, and comparison with Rawang can help us understand the development of the verbal first person plural long vowels and nominal agentive marking long vowels in Dulong.

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Alexander Akulov. 2015. Why conclusions about genetic affiliation of certain language should be based on comparison of grammar but not on comparison of lexis? Cultural Anthropology and Ethnosemiotics Vol. 1, № 3; pp.: 5 - 9

In contemporary linguistics there are an obsession of discovering genetic relationship of certain languages by comparison of lexis and a tendency to ignore grammatical/structural issues. If certain morphemes are considered it is done almost the same lexical way, i.e.: only material exponents are compared and no attention is paid to the fact that grammar is positional distribution of meanings. Using such methodology we can prove that completely unrelated languages are relatives, for instance: we can ‘prove’ that Japanese and Chinese are relatives. Another notable fact is that different scholars using this methodology attribute same language to completely different stocks: Sumerian is considered as a relative of Kartvelian, of Uralic, of Mon-Khmer or Sino-Tibetan; Ainu is considered as a relative of Altaic, of Austronesian or Mon-Khmer. These facts are evidences that comparison of lexis is a completely irrelevant method and that genetic classification should be based on analysis of structural issues.

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Lin 210 / cla 210, introduction to historical and comparative linguistics, john t. merrill, back to "fall 2024" courses.

The world’s astonishing linguistic diversity owes to the fact that languages change, and that each language takes a unique and unpredictable trajectory of change. In this course, students explore how and why languages change. Employing core methodologies (the Comparative Method and Method of Internal Reconstruction), students learn to analyze phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic language changes. Topics include the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language and the people who spoke it. Strong focus on applying methods to a variety of data sets. See below for prerequisite information.

View this course on the Registrar’s website.

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Chapter 18. Historical linguistics, history, and prehistory: Linguistic paleontology and other applications of our methods

From the book language history, language change, and language relationship.

• Hans Henrich Hock and Brian D. Joseph
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Chapters in this book (22)