Japanese, the Altaic Theory, and the Limits of Language Classification
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Contents Abbreviations of the Names of Languages in the Statistical Maps
V Contents Abbreviations of the names of languages in the statistical maps. xiii Abbreviations in the text. xv Foreword 17 1. Introduction: the objectives 19 2. On the theoretical framework of research 23 2.1 On language typology and areal linguistics 23 2.1.1 On the history of language typology 24 2.1.2 On the modern language typology ' 27 2.2 Methodological principles 33 2.2.1 On statistical methods in linguistics 34 2.2.2 The variables 41 2.2.2.1 On the phonological systems of languages 41 2.2.2.2 Techniques in word-formation 43 2.2.2.3 Lexical categories 44 2.2.2.4 Categories in nominal inflection 45 2.2.2.5 Inflection of verbs 47 2.2.2.5.1 Verbal categories 48 2.2.2.5.2 Non-finite verb forms 50 2.2.2.6 Syntactic and morphosyntactic organization 52 2.2.2.6.1 The order in and between the main syntactic constituents 53 2.2.2.6.2 Agreement 54 2.2.2.6.3 Coordination and subordination 55 2.2.2.6.4 Copula 56 2.2.2.6.5 Relative clauses 56 2.2.2.7 Semantics and pragmatics 57 2.2.2.7.1 Negation 58 2.2.2.7.2 Definiteness 59 2.2.2.7.3 Thematic structure of sentences 59 3. On the typology of languages spoken in Europe and North and 61 Central Asia 3.1 The Indo-European languages 61 3.1.1 Indo-Iranian languages 63 3.1.1.1New Indo-Aryan languages 63 3.1.1.1.1 Romany 63 3.1.2 Iranian languages 65 3.1.2.1 South-West Iranian languages 65 3.1.2.1.1 Tajiki 65 3.1.2.2 North-West Iranian languages 68 3.1.2.2.1 Kurdish 68 3.1.2.2.2 Northern Talysh 70 3.1.2.3 South-East Iranian languages 72 3.1.2.3.1 Pashto 72 3.1.2.4 North-East Iranian languages 74 3.1.2.4.1 -
Journal Vol. LX. No. 2. 2018
JOURNAL OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY VOLUME LX No. 4 2018 THE ASIATIC SOCIETY 1 PARK STREET KOLKATA © The Asiatic Society ISSN 0368-3308 Edited and published by Dr. Satyabrata Chakrabarti General Secretary The Asiatic Society 1 Park Street Kolkata 700 016 Published in February 2019 Printed at Desktop Printers 3A, Garstin Place, 4th Floor Kolkata 700 001 Price : 400 (Complete vol. of four nos.) CONTENTS ARTICLES The East Asian Linguistic Phylum : A Reconstruction Based on Language and Genes George v an Driem ... ... 1 Situating Buddhism in Mithila Region : Presence or Absence ? Nisha Thakur ... ... 39 Another Inscribed Image Dated in the Reign of Vigrahapäla III Rajat Sanyal ... ... 63 A Scottish Watchmaker — Educationist and Bengal Renaissance Saptarshi Mallick ... ... 79 GLEANINGS FROM THE PAST Notes on Charaka Sanhitá Dr. Mahendra Lal Sircar ... ... 97 Review on Dr. Mahendra Lal Sircar’s studies on Äyurveda Anjalika Mukhopadhyay ... ... 101 BOOK REVIEW Coin Hoards of the Bengal Sultans 1205-1576 AD from West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam and Bangladesh by Sutapa Sinha Danish Moin ... ... 107 THE EAST ASIAN LINGUISTIC PHYLUM : A RECONSTRUCTION BASED ON LANGUAGE AND GENES GEORGE VAN DRIEM 1. Trans-Himalayan Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Xiâng, Hokkien, Teochew, Pínghuà, Gàn, Jìn, Wú and a number of other languages and dialects together comprise the Sinitic branch of the Trans-Himalayan language family. These languages all collectively descend from a prehistorical Sinitic language, the earliest reconstructible form of which was called Archaic Chinese by Bernard Karlgren and is currently referred to in the anglophone literature as Old Chinese. Today, Sinitic linguistic diversity is under threat by the advance of Mandarin as a standard language throughout China because Mandarin is gradually taking over domains of language use that were originally conducted primarily in the local Sinitic languages. -
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. -
Tungusic from the Perspective of Areal Linguistics : Focusing on the Bikin Dialect of Udihe
Title Tungusic from the Perspective of Areal Linguistics : Focusing on the Bikin Dialect of Udihe Author(s) 白, 尚燁 Citation 北海道大学. 博士(文学) 甲第12069号 Issue Date 2016-03-24 DOI 10.14943/doctoral.k12069 Doc URL http://hdl.handle.net/2115/61556 Type theses (doctoral) File Information Baek_Sangyub.pdf Instructions for use Hokkaido University Collection of Scholarly and Academic Papers : HUSCAP Tungusic from the Perspective of Areal Linguistics: Focusing on the Bikin Dialect of Udihe (地域言語学的観点から見たツングース諸語―ウデヘ語のビキン方言を中心に) By Sangyub BAEK A Thesis Submitted to Graduate School of Letters, Hokkaido University In Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor in the field of History and Area Studies Table of Contents List of Figures .................................................................................................................................... i List of Tables ................................................................................................................................... iii List of Maps ..................................................................................................................................... vi Preface ........................................................................................................................................... viii Acknowledgement ............................................................................................................................ ix List of Abbreviations ....................................................................................................................... -
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. -
Comparative-Historical Linguistics and Lexicostatistics
COMPARATIVE-HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS AND LEXICOSTATISTICS Sergei Starostin COMPARATIVE-HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS AND LEXICOSTATISTICS [This is a translation, done by I. Peiros and N. Evans, of my paper "Sravnitel'no-istoričeskoe jazykoznanie i leksikostatistika", in "Lingvističeskaja rekonstrukcija i drevnejšaja istorija Vostoka", Moscow 1989. I have introduced, however, a number of modifications into the final English text — basically rewritten it again, since the English version needs English examples and etymologies, not Russian ones.] The last two decades have witnessed a fundamental advance in the techniques of comparative linguistic research. A prolonged period of comparative work with a wide range of language families has laid the foundation for the study of genetic relationships between remotely related languages or language groups. The first step in this direction was taken by V.M. Illich-Svitych in his seminal work 'Towards a comparison of the Nostratic languages' in which, with a combination of rigorous methods and intuitive flare, he begins to demonstrate the relatedness of a number of languages of the Old World. This new level of comparative studies appears completely legitimate. In fact, if we take the theory of language divergence as axiomatic, we have to concede the fact that from around the sixth millenium B.C. to the first millenium B.C. there was quite a number of different reconstructable proto-languages throughout the world. Once the level of reconstruction of various proto-languages is improved, the question inevitably arises: are any of these proto-languages genetically related and, if so, can we prove this relationship? To the first part of this question we must now answer in the affirmative. -
Indo-European Linguistics: an Introduction Indo-European Linguistics an Introduction
This page intentionally left blank Indo-European Linguistics The Indo-European language family comprises several hun- dred languages and dialects, including most of those spoken in Europe, and south, south-west and central Asia. Spoken by an estimated 3 billion people, it has the largest number of native speakers in the world today. This textbook provides an accessible introduction to the study of the Indo-European proto-language. It clearly sets out the methods for relating the languages to one another, presents an engaging discussion of the current debates and controversies concerning their clas- sification, and offers sample problems and suggestions for how to solve them. Complete with a comprehensive glossary, almost 100 tables in which language data and examples are clearly laid out, suggestions for further reading, discussion points and a range of exercises, this text will be an essential toolkit for all those studying historical linguistics, language typology and the Indo-European proto-language for the first time. james clackson is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge, and is Fellow and Direc- tor of Studies, Jesus College, University of Cambridge. His previous books include The Linguistic Relationship between Armenian and Greek (1994) and Indo-European Word For- mation (co-edited with Birgit Anette Olson, 2004). CAMBRIDGE TEXTBOOKS IN LINGUISTICS General editors: p. austin, j. bresnan, b. comrie, s. crain, w. dressler, c. ewen, r. lass, d. lightfoot, k. rice, i. roberts, s. romaine, n. v. smith Indo-European Linguistics An Introduction In this series: j. allwood, l.-g. anderson and o.¨ dahl Logic in Linguistics d. -
Alexander Vovin 1 Curriculum Vitae for Alexander Vovin
Alexander Vovin Curriculum Vitae for Alexander Vovin ADDRESSES home address: work address: 1, rue de Jean-François Lépine EHESS-CRLAO 75018 Paris FRANCE 131, bd Saint-Michel 75005 Paris, FRANCE [email protected] [email protected] PERSONAL DATA Born 01/27/1961 in St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad), Russia US citizen, married (spouse: Sambi Ishisaki Vovin (石崎(ボビン)賛美), two children EDUCATION Leningrad State U. "Kandidat filologicheskikh nauk"(=Ph.D.) 10/29/87 Dissertation: The Language of the Japanese prose of the second half of the XI Century. 189 pp. In Russian. Leningrad State U. "Vysshee Obrazovanie" (=MA) June, 1983 Philological Faculty, Department of Structural and Applied Linguistics. Thesis: The Dictionary Bongo zōmyō (『梵語雑名』) as a Source for the Description of some Peculiarities of the Phonetics of Early 18th Century Japanese. 73 pp. In Russian. EMPLOYMENT 01/01/2014 Directeur d’études, linguistique historique du Japon et de l’Asie du Nord- present Est, EHESS/CRLAO, Paris, France 08/01/2003 - Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures, Department of 01/10/2014 East Asian Languages and Literatures, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, USA 08/01/1997- Associate Professor of Japanese, Department of 07/31/2003 East Asian Languages and Literatures, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, USA 08/01/1995- Assistant Professor of Japanese, Department of 07/31/1997 East Asian Languages and Literatures, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, USA 08/01/1994- Assistant Professor of Japanese, Department of 07/31/1995 German, Russian, and East Asian Languages, Miami University, USA 9/1/1990 - Assistant Professor of Japanese Language & 06/30/1994 Linguistics, Department of Asian Languages & Cultures, University of Michigan, USA 1 Alexander Vovin 6/1/1990 - Visiting Lecturer in Japanese, Department of Asian Languages 8/31/1990 & Cultures, University of Michigan, USA 3/1/1989 - Junior Scientific Researcher, Far East Sector, May, 1990 Japanese Group, Inst. -
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. -
Implications of Macro-Areal Linguistics
DOI: 10.11649/sm.2015.004 Slavia Meridionalis 15, 2015 Instytut Slawistyki PAN Corinna Leschber Institute for Linguistic and CrossCultural Studies in Berlin Implications of Macro-Areal Linguistics While working on difficult etymologies of Balkan words, a repeating pat tern can be observed regarding the geographical occurrence of formally and semantically similar words. Archaic terminology in the Balkans shows roots bearing widespread and deeplevel connections with an intensive time depth. We have tried to show this by means of the example of the widespread root *mand-, as in mandra, as pointed out by Leschber (2011), which has cognates in Romance and Iberian languages, in German languages, in the Balkan languages, in Greek and Turkish, and in Sanskrit. See the Nostratic root *mand- in Dolgopolsky (2008, pp. 1338–1339, No. 1318) *mAǹ(V) “herd, herd animals”, further attested in the HamitoSemitic, Ugric and Altaic languages, and in Dravidian languages as manda, mandi, mande “herd, flock of sheep or goats, cattle herd, herd of buffaloes”. Bomhard (2008, p. 48) agrees with the findings on this reconstructed root. *mokor- The Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Languages (Трубачев, 1992, pp. 115–119) proposes an interrelationship between the Slavic *mogyla, “tumulus”, The work has been prepared at author’s own expense. Competing interests: no competing interests have been declared. Publisher: Institute of Slavic Studies PAS. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 PL License (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/pl/), which permits redistribution, commercial and non commercial, provided that the article is properly cited. -
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.