Comparative-Historical Linguistics and Lexicostatistics
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Eric Smith, Santa Fe Institute
Dating and Relationships (or...) Computational historical linguistics and long-range reconstruction Eric Smith, Santa Fe Institute Part of the Evolution of Human Languages project at SFI <http://ehl.santafe.edu/> in collaboration with the Tower of Babel project <http://starling.rinet.ru/main.html> Thanks to Murray Gell-Mann, George Starostin, Ilia Peiros, in memory of Sergei Starostin Work done jointly with Tanmoy Bhattacharya, Jon Wilkins, Dan Hruschka, William Croft, Ian Maddieson, Logan Sutton, and Mark Pagel Outline • Goals of historical linguistics • The classical comparative method • Attempts at deep reconstruction • New observations change the landscape • Our attempts at quantitative reconstruction Goals of historical linguistics • To understand how languages change, and how they have changed historically • To identify relations among languages due to common ancestry or cultural contact • To reconstruct the languages of past speakers • To contribute to an understanding of human populations and migrations • To understand what is possible in language as a window on cognitive constraints The interaction of history with process • History-dependent phenomena combine lawful dynamics with historical accident • Accidents make branching processes -- h0ROTO 4URKICv help us infer diachronic relations from synchronic variability • Diachronic relations assign the v correct weights to processes h# h HULYM 3 h7ESTERN ENISEI A 9 Y which act probabilistically h AN v 4URKICv v v UT v LTAI /LD AK 9 ! h h 4URKIC 4 - 1YZ 3 4 8 3 . 8 9 + # $ 3 OFA UV AR AK AK YR ! HOR ALAJ HUV IDDLE# OLGAN ! OTHERCLOSELANGUAGES Y 5 G LTAI/IR A UT AS YL8 LTAI YZ ASH IGHUR AK HULYM AS OT The classical comparative method of historical linguistics: to interpret innovations • A hypothesis of relationship among a set of languages. -
North Caucasian Languages
The Turkish Online Journal of Design, Art and Communication - TOJDAC April 2017 Special Edition COMPARISON OF VARIOUS QUANTITATIVE MEASURES OF PROXIMITY OF LANGUAGES: NORTH CAUCASIAN LANGUAGES Galeev Timur Ildarovich Kazan federal university (KFU), Kazan, Russia [email protected] Solovyev Valery Dmitrievich Kazan federal university (KFU), Kazan, Russia ABSTRACT A comparison of North Caucasian languages is performed in the article according to various measures of proximity constructed using grammatical, lexical and genetic databases. Statistical methods are applied to the study of correlations among these proximity measures, and also between them and both geographical proximity and genealogical kinship. A full correlation has been found among language kinship, geographic situation and genetic kinship of peoples. Also, a high correlation was found between each of them and lexical similarity. In general these correlations persist at different levels – starting at the whole set of studied languages until the level of the smallest groups of related languages. It is shown that a significant factor in the analysis of geographical situation is the existence of a common boundary between the regions of distribution of languages. Keywords: Various Quantitative Measures, geographical situation common boundary, Creativity, languages 1. INTRODUCTION The classification of languages by genetic kinship, developed in the last two centuries within the framework of historical linguistics applying the comparative historical method, offers a qualitative characteristic of language proximity by including them into macrofamilies, families, branches, groups, etc. Glottochronology provides a quantitative measure of proximity that, in particular, allows assessing the age of families and other language groups. Unfortunately, in many cases there is no consensus among experts about languages kinship; it must be said also that lexicostatistical data are controversial. -
The Origin and Evolution of Word Order
The origin and evolution of word order Murray Gell-Manna,1 and Merritt Ruhlenb,1 aSanta Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 87501; and bDepartment of Anthropology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 Contributed by Murray Gell-Mann, August 26, 2011 (sent for review August 19, 2011) Recent work in comparative linguistics suggests that all, or almost man”) and uses prepositions. (Nowadays, these correlations are all, attested human languages may derive from a single earlier described in terms of head-first and head-last constructions.) In language. If that is so, then this language—like nearly all extant light of such correlations it is often possible to discern relic traits, languages—most likely had a basic ordering of the subject (S), such as GN order in a language that has already changed its basic verb (V), and object (O) in a declarative sentence of the type word order from SOV to SVO. Later work (7) has shown that “the man (S) killed (V) the bear (O).” When one compares the diachronic pathways of grammaticalization often reveal relic distribution of the existing structural types with the putative phy- “morphotactic states” that are highly correlated with earlier syn- logenetic tree of human languages, four conclusions may be tactic states. Also, internal reconstruction can be useful in recog- drawn. (i) The word order in the ancestral language was SOV. nizing earlier syntactic states (8). Neither of these lines of inves- (ii) Except for cases of diffusion, the direction of syntactic change, tigation is pursued in this paper. when it occurs, has been for the most part SOV > SVO and, beyond It should be obvious that a language cannot change its basic that, SVO > VSO/VOS with a subsequent reversion to SVO occur- word order overnight. -
Recent Developments in Semitic and Afroasiatic Linguistics Five Teaching Modules at Addis Ababa University, March 10–14, 2014 1
Recent developments in Semitic and Afroasiatic linguistics Five teaching modules at Addis Ababa University, March 10–14, 2014 1. Why is a broader Afroasiatic perspective useful for the study of Semitic March 10, 2014 Lutz Edzard, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg and University of Oslo 1 Introductory remarks: internal classification Even though the topic of this introductory chapter is not genealogical sub- grouping per se, it may be useful to briefly consider both the inner structure of Semitic, which, at least from a synchronic perspective, is by now more or less uncontroversial, and the wider structure of the Afroasiatic1 macro-family, whose inner structure continues to be under discussion. Leaving aside the question of a Semitic Urheimat, which is still highly controversial, one has sug- gested models based on shared innovations or isoglosses such as the one on the following page. Faber (1997: 6), taking up and developing proposals inter alia by Hetzron (1976), Goldenberg (1977), and Huehnergard (1990), provides a model based on the following list of basic isoglosses: – East Semitic is characterized by the development of an adjectival ending -ūt (pl. m.) and by the dative suffixes -kum and -šum; – West Semitic is characterized by the suffix conjugation denoting past tense (as opposed to the Akkadian stative) and a prohibitive negator ʾal; – “Central Semitic” is characterized by a series of pharyngealized consonants, a prefix conjugation without gemination of the second root consonant and the leveling of prefix vowels in this conjugation, -
Current Progress in Altaic Etymology
Blažek : Current Progress in Altaic Etymology Linguistica ONLINE. Added: January, 30th 2006. tjurkskix jazykov: obščetjurkskie i mežtjurkskie leksičeskie osnovy na bukvy "k", "q", http://www.phil.muni.cz/linguistica/art/blazek/bla-004.pdf Moskva: Jazyki russkoj kuľtury 1997). In his publications O. Mudrak especially ISSN 1801-5336 concentrates on two topics, historical phonology of Chuvash (1987, 1989, 1993, 1994) and reconstruction of Jurchen (1985, 1988). I. Gruntov has published an article on the historical phonology of Japanese in the Altaic context (2000). [*] The first version of the present review was finished in May 2005. This new version Current Progress in Altaic Etymology originates to up-to-date the sources on the one hand. The second reason consists in the Václav Blažek unexpected death of the head of the author’s team, Sergei Starostin, on 30th September 2005. Sergei Starostin, Anna Dybo, Oleg Mudrak, with assistance of Ilya Gruntov and Vladi- The Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages (= EDAL) is open by Preface mir Glumov: Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, Part One [A-K], Part (pp. 7-9) where the purposes of the present dictionary and a short history of Altaic Two [L-Z], Part Three [Indices], Leiden-Boston: Brill 2003, published in the prestigeous studies are described. The Introduction (pp. 11-236) starts with the Chapter One devoted series Handbook of Oriental Studies / Handbuch der Orientalistik 8/1-3, edited by Denis to The problem of Interlingual borrowings in Altaic languages (pp. 13-21). Here it is Sinor & Nicola di Cosmo [ISSN 0169-8524]. These three volumes are of a respectable demonstrated, how the phonetic criteria may serve to distinguish the borrowings from size: pp 1-858, 859-1556, 1557-2096 respectively. -
Time Depth in Historical Linguistics”, Edited by Colin Renfrew, April
Time Depth 1 Review of “Time Depth in Historical Linguistics”, edited by Colin Renfrew, April McMahon, and Larry Trask Brett Kessler Washington University in St. Louis Brett Kessler Psychology Department Washington University in St. Louis Campus Box 1125 One Brookings Drive St. Louis MO 63130-4899 USA Email: [email protected] FAX: 1-314-935-7588 Time Depth 2 Review of “Time Depth in Historical Linguistics”, edited by Colin Renfrew, April McMahon, and Larry Trask Time depth in historical linguistics. Ed. by Colin Renfrew, April McMahon, and Larry Trask. (Papers in the prehistory of languages.) Cambridge, England: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2000. Distributed by Oxbow Books. 2 vol. (xiv, 681 p.) paperback, 50 GBP. http://www.mcdonald.cam.ac.uk/Publications/Time-depth.htm This is a collection of 27 papers, mostly presentations at a symposium held at the McDonald Institute in 1999. Contributions focus on two related issues: methods for establishing absolute chronology, and linguistic knowledge about the remote past. Most papers are restatements of the authors’ well-known theories, but many contain innovations, and some do describe new work. The ideological balance of the collection feels just left of center. We do not find here wild multilateral phantasms, reconstructions of Proto-World vocabulary, or idylls about pre-Indo-European matriarchal society. Or not much. These are mostly sober academics pushing the envelope in attempts to reason under extreme uncertainty. One of the recurrent themes was that the development of agriculture may drive the expansion of language families and therefore imply a date for the protolanguage. Colin Renfrew describes his idea that that is what happened in the case of Indo-European (IE): PIE was introduced into Europe at an early date, perhaps 8,000 BC. -
"Evolution of Human Languages": Current State of Affairs
«Evolution of Human Languages»: current state of affairs (03.2014) Contents: I. Currently active members of the project . 2 II. Linguistic experts associated with the project . 4 III. General description of EHL's goals and major lines of research . 6 IV. Up-to-date results / achievements of EHL research . 9 V. A concise list of actual problems and tasks for future resolution. 18 VI. EHL resources and links . 20 2 I. Currently active members of the project. Primary affiliation: Senior researcher, Center for Comparative Studies, Russian State University for the Humanities (Moscow). Web info: http://ivka.rsuh.ru/article.html?id=80197 George Publications: http://rggu.academia.edu/GeorgeStarostin Starostin Research interests: Methodology of historical linguistics; long- vs. short-range linguistic comparison; history and classification of African languages; history of the Chinese language; comparative and historical linguistics of various language families (Indo-European, Altaic, Yeniseian, Dravidian, etc.). Primary affiliation: Visiting researcher, Santa Fe Institute. Formerly, professor of linguistics at the University of Melbourne. Ilia Publications: http://orlabs.oclc.org/identities/lccn-n97-4759 Research interests: Genetic and areal language relationships in Southeast Asia; Peiros history and classification of Sino-Tibetan, Austronesian, Austroasiatic languages; macro- and micro-families of the Americas; methodology of historical linguistics. Primary affiliation: Senior researcher, Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow / Novosibirsk). Web info / publications list (in Russian): Sergei http://www.inslav.ru/index.php?option- Nikolayev =com_content&view=article&id=358:2010-06-09-18-14-01 Research interests: Comparative Indo-European and Slavic studies; internal and external genetic relations of North Caucasian languages; internal and external genetic relations of North American languages (Na-Dene; Algic; Mosan). -
Support for Linguistic Macrofamilies from Weighted Sequence Alignment
Support for linguistic macrofamilies from weighted sequence alignment Gerhard Jäger1 Department of Linguistics, University of Tübingen, 72074 Tübingen, Germany Edited by Barbara H. Partee, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, MA, and approved August 25, 2015 (received for review January 7, 2015) Computational phylogenetics is in the process of revolutionizing more than 6,000 languages and dialects, covering more than historical linguistics. Recent applications have shed new light two-thirds of the world’s living languages. Each entry is given in on controversial issues, such as the location and time depth of a uniform phonetic transcription. language families and the dynamics of their spread. So far, these In this study, I zoomed in on the 1,161 doculects (languages and approaches have been limited to single-language families because dialects) from the Eurasian continent (including neighboring is- they rely on a large body of expert cognacy judgments or grammat- lands but excluding the predominantly African Afro-Asiatic family ical classifications, which is currently unavailable for most language and the predominantly American Eskimo-Aleut family, as well as families. The present study pursues a different approach. Starting the non-Asian parts of Austronesian) contained in the ASJP da- from raw phonetic transcription of core vocabulary items from very tabase. In a first step, pairwise similarities between individual diverse languages, it applies weighted string alignment to track both words (i.e., phonetic strings) were computed using sequence phonetic and lexical change. Applied to a collection of ∼1,000 Eur- alignment. In a second step, these string alignments were used to asian languages and dialects, this method, combined with phyloge- determine pairwise dissimilarities between doculects. -
Tocharian Studies
Tocharian Studies Works 1 This book was kindly reviewed by Ronald Kim & Melanie Malzahn Václav Blažek Tocharian Studies Works 1 Edited by Michal Schwarz Masaryk University Brno 2011 IV This book was published under patronage of the Centre for the Interdiscipli- nar Research of Ancient Languages and Older Stages of Modern Languages (project code: MSM 0021622435) at Masaryk University in Brno and thanks to the grants GAAV No. IAA901640805 & MUNI/21/BLA/2011. All articles are reprinted with kind permission from following journals (in alphabetical order): Archív orientální Historische Sprachforschung Indogermanische Forschungen Journal of Indo-European Studies Lingua Posnaniensis Linguistica Baltica Linguistica Brunensia Tocharian and Indo-European Studies © 2011 Václav Blažek © 2011 Masarykova univerzita ISBN 978-80-210-7645-7 (online : pdf) ISBN 978-80-210-5600-8 (brožovaná vazba) ISBN 978-80-210-5599-5 (Box Set) DOI: 10.5817/CZ.MUNI.M210-5600-2011 V Content Preface (Melanie Malzahn) VIII Introduction and Plan of the Works of Václav Blažek X Chronological list of all Tocharian articles of Václav Blažek XII with editorial notes I. Etymology 1 Tocharian Linguistics During the Last 25 Years. Archív Ori- 2 entální 56 (1988), 77-81. Slavic-Tocharian Isoglosses I. Sl. *kъpъ : Toch. *kwip- 10 “shame”. Tocharian and Indo-European Studies 5 (1991), 123-128. Slavic-Tocharian Isoglosses II. Sl. *čьlnъ : Toch. *kolmo- 15 “ship”. Tocharian and Indo-European Studies 5 (1991), 129- 133. Slavic-Tocharian Isoglosses III. Linguistica Baltica 4 (1995), 19 233-238. Tocharian-Anatolian isoglosses (1-4). Tocharian and Indo-Eu- 25 ropean Studies 7 (1997), 229-233. It is possible to restore Tocharian A ku//// “nave, hub”? Tocha- 30 rian and Indo-European Studies 7 (1997), 234-235. -
ON APPLICATION of GLOTTOCHRONOLOGY for CELTIC LANGUAGES Dedicated to the Memory of Sergei Starostin (March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005)
SBORNÍK PRACÍ FILOZOFICKÉ FAKULTY BRNĚNSKÉ UNIVERZITY STUDIA MINORA FACULTATIS PHILOSOPHICAE UNIVERSITATIS BRUNENSIS A 54, 2006 — LINGUISTICA BRUNENSIA PETRA NOVOTNÁ – VÁCLAV BLAŽEK ON APPLICATION OF GLOTTOCHRONOLOGY FOR CELTIC LANGUAGES Dedicated to the memory of Sergei Starostin (March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005) The present article continues in the series of studies published in this journal, demonstrating the application of lexicostatistics and glottochronology for vari- ous Indo-European branches, namely Germanic (Blažek & Pirochta 2004), Slavic (Novotná & Blažek 2005). Especially in the latter study the various modifications of glottochronology are explained in details. For Celtic languages two main alternative models of their internal classifica- tion were proposed. The traditional, p/q-model, is based especially on phonology, the Insular/Continental dichotomy has been argumented by morphology. Goidelic Goidelic q-Celtic Insular Celtiberian Brittonic Gaulish & Lepontic Gaulish & Lepontic p-Celtic Continental Brittonic Celtiberian (H. Pedersen, K.H. Schmidt) (P. Schrijver, C. Watkins) The lexicostatistic approach for a study of genetic relations of the Celtic lan- guages was introduced by Robert Elsie (1979; 1986; 1990). Applying lexicostatis- tic method with 100–word-list and excluding synonyms, he has got the following results for the Brittonic languages: Breton-Cornish 84.8%, Cornish-Welsh 78.8%, Breton-Welsh 73.7% (Elsie 1979, 48). In the case of the Goidelic languages, Elsie studied in details together 58 various Goidelic dialects and varieties on the basis of 184–word-list. He concludes that Manx is closer to any of the dialect group of Irish than to any of the dialect group of Scottish Gaelic (Elsie 1986, 244). The second attempt to apply the lexicostatistic approach for classification of the Celtic languages was realized, unfortunately not published, by Sergei Staros- tin, who used his own modification of glottochronology. -
Turkic - Indian Lexical Parallels in the Framework of the Nostratic Language's Macrofamily Z
World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Vol:6, No:11, 2012 Turkic - Indian Lexical Parallels in the Framework of the Nostratic Language's Macrofamily Z. E. Iskakova, B. S. Bokuleva, B. N. Zhubatova, and U. T. Alzhanbayeva Altaic family of languages) and Indian (including Dravidian Abstract—From ancient times Turkic languages have been in and Indo-Aryan languages). As soon as the Altaic family of contact with numerous representatives of different language families. languages (which also includes modern Turkic languages) has The article discusses the Turkic - Indian language contact and were been widely investigated in home linguistics we are going to shown promise and necessity of this trend for the Turkic linguistics, pay special attention to the second source of our parallels to were given Turkic - Indian lexical parallels in the framework of the Indian languages. nostratic language's macro family. The research work has done on the base of lexical parallels (LP) - of Turkic (which belong to the Altaic family of languages) and II. DISCUSSION Indian (including Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages). The ancient period of the Indian language’s development is represented by the Veda language (the language of cult and Keywords—Language communications, lexical parallels, cult literature "Veda" which tentatively functioned since XII Nostratic languages, Turkic languages. century B.C) and Sanskrit in some epic variants (widely spread since the first millennium B.C. in Northern India. I. INTRODUCTION Sanskrit was early recognized as a literary prestigious OSTRATIC languages belong to the macrofamily which language (they call it "divine"), it was characterized by strictly Njoins Afro-Asian, Indoeuropean, Kartvel and Ural regulated and unified grammar system. -
Divergence of Altai Macro System Languages and Issues of Their Genetic Relationship O. Sapashev* A. Smailova** B. Zhaksymov
Türkbilig, 2016/31: 109-126. DIVERGENCE OF ALTAI MACRO SYSTEM LANGUAGES AND ISSUES OF THEIR GENETIC RELATIONSHIP O. SAPASHEV* A. SMAILOVA** B. ZHAKSYMOV*** Abstract: Scientists recognize the difficulties associated with final and perfect solution of the problem of origin of the Altai community. The most important issue according to their opinion is a difficulty in differentiation of elements of a possible genetic commonality, the traces of which can be found in all Altaic languages, from the secondary elements of community, developing in different periods of close contacts of various Altaic peoples for at least of two millennia period. Mutual lexical borrowings of not only from single Altaic languages, but also borrowings from non-Altaic languages (the phenomenon of the substrate or super stratum) led to a significant lexical generality of secondary order and gave the reasons for establishment of various kinds of correspondences not relating to common Altaic protolanguage heritage that creates a large difficult to apply comparative- historical method. Keywords: Altaic, macro-system, genetic kinship, language typology, the rudiments Altay Makro Sistemi Dillerinin Farklılıkları ve Onların Genetik İlişkilerine Dair Konular Özet: Altayistik çalışan araştırmacıları, Altay toplumun kökeni sorununun nihai ve mükemmel bir çözümüyle ilişkili olan zorluklar bekler. Araştırmacıların görüşüne göre en önemli konu, olası genetik ortaklık unsurlarının ve Altay dillerinde bulunabilecek izlerin farklılaşması zorluğudur. Bu zorluklar, toplumun ikincil unsurlarından kaynaklanır ve farklı zamanlarda çeşitli Altay topluluklarının en az iki bin yıllık yakın ilişkiler sonucu gelişmiştir. Sadece Altay dilleri ve Altay dilleri dışındaki dillerden karşılıklı sözcük alışverişi (altkatman ve üstkatman olgusu) ikincil seviyede önemli sözcüksel genellemeler ortaya çıkardı ve tarihi-karşılaştırmalı metodun uygulanmasını zorlaştıran ortak proto Altay dil mirasıyla ilgili olmayan bir yapının oluşmasına neden oldu.