Ebook: An Introduction to Historical Linguistics

Fourth Edition. — Oxford University Press, 2010. — xxxii, 376 pages. — ISBN 978-0-19-536554-2.I would like to think that this book will prove useful to teachers of historical linguistics at all undergraduate levels. I have written it on the assumption that students have already completed at least one basic course in descriptive linguistics, so I have not bothered to define terms such as phoneme, morpheme, or suffix. Some familiarity is also assumed with a distinctive feature analysis of phonology. More specialist linguistic terminology, such as ergative or exclusive pronoun, however, is introduced at its fist appearance in the text in small caps and is always explained (and generally also exemplified) for the benefit of students. The linguistic terminology in this volume is used in the same way as in Crowley, Lynch, Siegel, and Piau, The Design of Language: An Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics. The bold page numbers in the index indicate where definitions are located.Introduction[b]
The Nature of Linguistic Relationships
How and Why Do Languages Change?
Attitudes to Language Change
[b]Types of Sound Change
Lenition and Fortition
Sound Loss
Sound Addition
Metathesis
Fusion, Fission, and Breaking
Assimilation
Dissimilation
Tone Changes
Unusual Sound Changes
Expressing Sound Changes
Writing Rules
Ordering of Changes
Phonetic and Phonemic Change
Phonetic Change without Phonemic Change
Phonetic Change with Phonemic Change
Phonemic Change without Phonetic Change
The Comparative Method (1 ): Procedures
Sound Correspondences and Reconstruction
An Example of Reconstruction: Proto-Polynesian
Reconstruction of Conditioned Sound Changes
The Reality of Protolanguages
Determining Relatedness
Finding Families
Subgrouping
Shared Innovation and Shared Retention
Long-Distance Relationships
Internal Reconstruction
Using Synchronic Alternations
Internal Reconstruction and Indo-European Laryngeals
Limitations of Internal Reconstruction
Summary: Procedures for Internal Reconstruction
Computational and Statistical Methods
Distance-Based versus Innovation-Based Methods
Lexicostatistics
Criticisms of Lexicostatistics and Glottochronology
Subgrouping Computational Methods from Biology
The Comparative Method (2): History and Challenges
Background: The Neogrammarians
Convergent Lexical Development
Nonphonetic Conditioning
The Wave Model and Lexical Diffusion
Dialect Chains and Nondiscrete Subgroups
Morphological Change
Changes in Morphological Structure
Analogy
Doing Morphological Reconstruction
Semantic and Lexical Change
Basic Meaning Changes
Influences in Direction of Change
Lexical Change
Consequences of Borrowing and Irregular Lexical Change
Syntactic Change
Studying Syntactic Change
Typology and Grammatical Change
Grammaticalization
Mechanisms of Grammatical Change
Observing Language Change
Early Views
Indeterminacy
Variability
The Spread of Change and Lexical Diffusion
Language Contact
Convergence
Language Genesis: Pidgins and Creoles
Mixed Languages
Esoterogeny and Exoterogeny
Language Death and Language Shift
Cultural Reconstruction
Archaeology
Oral History
Comparative Culture
Historical Linguistics
Paeolinguistics and Language Origins
The Reliability of Cultural Reconstruction