Language Classification: History and Method

This page intentionally left blank Language Classification How are relationships established among the world’s languages? This is one of the most topical and most controversial questions in contemporary linguistics. The central aims of the book are to answer this question, to cut through the controversies, and to contribute to research in distant genetic relationships. In doing this the authors show how the methods have been employed, revealing which methods, techniques, and strategies have proven successful and which ones have proven ineffective. The book seeks to determine how particular language families were established and offers an evaluation of several of the most prominent and more controversial proposals of distant genetic relationship (such as Amerind, Nostratic, Eurasiatic, Proto-World, and others). Finally, the authors make recommendations for practice in future research. This book will contribute significantly to understanding language classification in general. Lyle Campbell is Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Linguis- tics at the University of Utah. William J. Poser is Adjunct Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Linguistics at the University of British Columbia. Language Classification History and Method Lyle Campbell and William J. Poser CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521880053 © Lyle Campbell and William J. Poser 2008 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2008 ISBN-13 978-0-511-41381-0 eBook (EBL) ISBN-13 978-0-521-88005-3 hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Contents List of figures, tables, and charts page vi Acknowledgments vii Preface ix 1 Introduction: how are languages shown to be related to one another?1 2 The beginning of comparative linguistics 13 3“Asiatic Jones, Oriental Jones”: Sir William Jones’ role in the raise of comparative linguistics 32 4 Consolidation of comparative linguistics 48 5How some languages were shown to belong to Indo-European 74 6 Comparative linguistics of other language families and regions 87 7How to show languages are related: the methods 162 8 The philosophical–psychological–typological– evolutionary approach to language relationships 224 9 Assessment of proposed distant genetic relationships 234 10 Beyond the comparative method? 297 11 Why and how do languages diversify and spread? 330 12 What can we learn about the earliest human language by comparing languages known today? 364 13 Conclusions: anticipating the future 394 Appendix: Hypothesized distant genetic relationships 404 References 416 Index 508 v Figures, tables, and charts Figures 5.1 The Indo-European family tree page 84 6.1 The Uralic family tree 89 6.2 The Austronesian family tree 100 Tables 7.1 Matching forms of the verb ‘to be’ across Indo-European languages 181 7.2 Quechua–Finnish accidental morphological similarities 185 7.3 Coincidences between Proto-Eastern Miwokan and Late Common Indo-European 188 7.4 The fire ‘word family’ in Sahaptian–Klamath–Tsimshian comparison 211 7.5 Borrowings of Salishan pronominal suffixes into Alsea 220 9.1 Greenberg’s Indo-Pacific pronominal markers for each person 291 10.1 Misassigned and underrepresented numeral classifiers in Nichols (1992) 314 12.1 Comparison of English, Hindi, and Maori forms 382 Charts 11.1 Larger and smaller languages in the same geographical area 335 11.2 Spread and non-spread language families with and without agriculture 340 vi Acknowledgments We would like to thank a number of friends and colleagues for answering specific questions, for providing comments and feedback on particular issues, or for helping us to obtain access to materials. We do not mean, however, to imply that any of them is necessarily in agreement with what we have written, and certainly all mistakes are our own. We sincerely thank: M. Lionel Bender Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino Terry Crowley Alan Dench Nick Evans Andrew Garrett Ives Goddard Matt Gordon Veronica ´ Grondona Alice Harris Bernd Heine Jane Hill Juha Janhunen Jay Jasanoff Brian Joseph Harold Koch Joe Kruskal James Matisoff David Nash Elisabeth Norcliffe Andrew Pawley Robert Rankin Don Ringe Aryon Rodrigues Malcolm Ross vii viii Acknowledgments Tapani Salminen Joe Salmons Pekka Sammallahti Larry Trask We also acknowledge the support of a Marsden grant from the Royal Society of New Zealand, awarded to Lyle Campbell, which aided significantly in the preparation of this book. Preface We began talking together and thinking about the subject matter of this book when we prepared a paper for the Spring Workshop in Reconstruction in 1991, held at the University of Pittsburgh. We later decided to write this book, but were not able to do that until now due to other obligations. With respect to the division of labor, William Poser is primarily responsible for the writing of Chapter 5, part of Chapter 3, and parts of Chapter 4 (especially sections 4.8 and 4.11). Lyle Campbell is the principal author of the other chapters and sections of this book. ix 1 Introduction: how are languages shown to be related to one another? I fear great evil from vast opposition in opinion on all subjects of classification. (Charles Darwin 1838 [Bowlby 1990:225]) 1.1 Introduction How are languages shown to be related to one another? How are language families established? Judging from media attention, it might be thought that this is one of the “hottest” questions in contemporary linguistics. Proposals of distant linguistic kinship such as Amerind, Nostratic, Eurasiatic, and Proto-World have been featured in Atlantic Monthly, Nature, Science, Scientific American, US News and World Report, The New York Times, and in BBC and PBS television documentaries. Nevertheless, these same proposals have been rejected by the majority of practicing historical linguists. The difference of opinion is reflected in much debate and considerable confusion about the methods for demonstrating family (phylogenetic) relationships among languages as yet not known to be related, and about the ways that language families have come to be established. Some enthusiasts of long-range linguistic relationships, disappointed that proposed language connections they favor have not been accepted in the profession, have at times responded bitterly. For example, we read charges that these rejections are just “clumsy and dishonest attempts to discredit deep recon- structions [proposed macro-families]” (Shevoroshkin 1989a:7, also 1989b:4). Nor is the strong rhetoric just from fans of distant language relationships; for example, Dixon (2002:23) lambasts the so-called “long-rangers”: “at a different level – which transcends scientific worth to such an extent that it is at the fringe of idiocy – there have in recent years been promulgated a number of far-fetched ideas concerning ‘long-distance relationships,’ such as ‘Nostratic,’ ‘Sino-Caucasian’ and ‘Amerind.’” Some proponents of remote relationships have sometimes attempted to give their claims a sense of legitimacy by associating their methods with those of revered founding figures in historical linguistics, in particular those credited with contributions to establishing the Indo-European family of languages. Given 1 21Introduction these claims and the importance assigned to methods in the debates, one of the purposes of this book is to review and evaluate the methods which have been used throughout the history of linguistics to establish language families, that is, the methods for demonstrating genetic relationships among related languages.1 The successful methods employed in the past provide important lessons for current practice. The picture which emerges from this historical survey of how major language families came to be established is very different from that which is often claimed. Therefore, one goal of this book is to set the historical record straight. Our aim, however, is not to dwell on past linguistics, but to assess current claims about past methods and in so doing to contribute by refining current practice.2 The contribution to linguistic historiography is a fortunate by-product of this, but is not our main goal. The broader and more central aim of this book is to contribute to language classification, to research in distant genetic relationships generally by: (1) show- ing how the methods have been employed, (2) revealing which methods, techniques, strategies, rules of thumb and the like have proven successful and which ones have proven ineffective, (3) finding out how particular language families were established – that is, what methods were utilized and proved successful, (4) evaluating a number of the most prominent and more controversial proposals of distant genetic relationship in the light of the methods which prove most ade- quate, and (5) making recommendations for practice in future research. In brief, we hope to contribute significantly

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