Historical Linguistics: Toward a Twenty-First Century Reintegration

Contents......Page 9
Figures......Page 10
Tables......Page 11
Methodological preliminaries: the nature of hypotheses......Page 14
Authorship......Page 15
Acknowledgments......Page 16
Special challenges of historical linguistics......Page 17
Meeting the challenges: the uniformitarian principle......Page 19
Transcription......Page 20
Language is species-specific......Page 23
A biological parallel: birdsong......Page 24
Universal Grammar......Page 26
The Principles and Parameters model......Page 36
Learning from inadequate evidence......Page 37
Consequences of the model......Page 41
Potential sources of language change......Page 44
Why the source of any particular change is elusive......Page 45
The cycle of language replication......Page 48
Learner errors as a source of language change......Page 51
The evolution of errors into linguistic changes......Page 53
Beyond anecdotes: inferential investigation......Page 56
The fate of linguistic innovations......Page 60
Longitudinal patterns of variation......Page 61
Key questions about the progress of real changes......Page 63
Spread of an innovation as borrowing......Page 64
Borrowing and/or native learning: the spread of mergers......Page 69
The long-term direction of change......Page 70
Change by loss of a stylistic register......Page 72
After variation: going to completion......Page 74
Dialect contact and language contact......Page 75
Transfer by monolingual speakers......Page 76
Bilingualism and the community......Page 79
Lexically mediated structural borrowing......Page 82
Cases from the past: some secure inferences and their consequences......Page 85
Some general conclusions......Page 92
The trajectory of sound changes and the regularity of sound change......Page 94
Understanding sound change in phonetic terms......Page 99
The phonological effects of sound change......Page 105
Patterns of sound change: contrasts and rules......Page 106
Sound change and rule ordering......Page 114
The limitations of phonological contrast: “functional load” and near-mergers......Page 117
Sound change and formal phonology......Page 121
Change at the level of structure: abrupt sound changes......Page 126
Simplification of phonological rules......Page 131
Reordering of phonological rules and restructuring of underlying forms......Page 139
Unexpected underlying forms......Page 147
Rule fragmentation......Page 151
Rule restriction and loss......Page 157
Morphological influence on the development of phonological rules......Page 163
Morphological theory and morphological change......Page 168
Morphological patterns......Page 171
Some useful aspects of Distributed Morphology......Page 173
Resegmentation and reinterpretation of terminal nodes......Page 183
Fusion, readjustment rules, and empty morphs......Page 193
Syncretism......Page 197
Impoverishment, defaults, syncretism, and leveling......Page 203
Paradigms and suppletion......Page 209
Concord classes and lexical classes......Page 212
The loss of morphosyntactic categories......Page 223
9 Syntactic change......Page 228
10 Reconstruction......Page 244
Uses of linguistic reconstruction......Page 245
Goals and limits of linguistic reconstruction......Page 246
Sound change and sound patterns......Page 247
Phonological reconstruction by the “comparative method”......Page 253
Comments on comparative phonological reconstruction......Page 267
Reconstruction of morphosyntax and the lexicon......Page 269
Subgrouping of languages......Page 272
Inferences from proto-lexica......Page 279
“Long-distance” language comparison......Page 281
Appendix: Recovering the pronunciation of dead languages: types of evidence......Page 297
2 Phonological structure......Page 298
3 Surviving statements of native speakers of past languages......Page 299
5 Rhyme and other sound-patterns......Page 300
6 Graphemics......Page 301
8 Representation of animal sounds......Page 302
10 Loanwords......Page 303
12 Phonemic change......Page 304
Further reading......Page 305
References......Page 307
General index......Page 325
Index of languages and families......Page 328