The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics

777 Pages·2015·4.94 MB·English

The Routledge Handbook of
Historical Linguistics
“Handbooks have formed an important and noble tradition within historical linguistics,
and many great discoveries in our (cid:2) eld have been reported in handbooks. This volume, with the
innovative range of topics it covers and the stellar line-up of authors contained within it, continues
that tradition successfully, offering a compelling, and interesting, overview of the (cid:2) eld.”
Brian D. Joseph, The Ohio State University
“This handbook provides high level scholarship on traditional areas of historical linguistic
research, as well as on areas less frequently inquired by historical linguists, such as sign
language. It also contains different theoretical perspectives on language change and language
reconstruction, along with state-of-the-art surveys on a number of lesser-studied language
families. All these features make up for a welcome addition to the (cid:2) eld of historical linguistics,
and a pro(cid:2) table read both for students and for practicing linguists.”
Sylvia Luraghi, Università di Pavia, Italy
The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics provides a state-of-the-art survey of this
well-established (cid:2) eld of linguistics. Thanks to recent technological advances and the rise in
availability of large-scale datasets, the importance of diachrony as a key to understanding
human language has been reinforced. This Handbook unites an international group of scholars
with expertise in a range of (cid:2) elds relating to the study of language change, and their chapters
encompass:
• an overview of the main current and critical trends
• the methods which underpin current work
• an analysis of the relationship between the diachronic and synchronic study of the topic
• models of language change
• examples from primary data
• the importance of historical linguistics for other sub(cid:2) elds of linguistics and other
disciplines.
Focusing on the synthesis of work on synchrony and diachrony and bringing together diverse
aspects of work that relate to language change, this Handbook is essential reading for
researchers and postgraduate students working in this area.
Claire Bowern is Associate Professor of Linguistics at Yale University.
Bethwyn Evans is Research Fellow in Linguistics at the Australian National University.
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The Routledge Handbook of Linguistics Edited by Ruth Wodak and Bernhard
Edited by Keith Allan Forchtner
The Routledge Handbook
of Historical Linguistics
Edited by
Claire Bowern and Bethwyn Evans
Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 selection and editorial matter, Claire Bowern and Bethwyn Evans; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of the editors to be identi(cid:2) ed as the authors of the editorial matter, and of
the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identi(cid:2) cation and explanation without intent to
infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
The Routledge handbook of historical linguistics / edited by Claire Bowern,
Bethwyn Evans.
pages cm. -- (Routledge handbooks in linguistics)
1. Historical linguistics--Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Bowern, Claire, 1977- (editor)
II. Evans, Bethwyn, (editor) III. Title: Handbook of historical linguistics.
P140.R68 2014
417--dc23
2013049197
ISBN: 978-0-415-52789-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-79401-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman and ITC Stone Sans
by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby
Contents
List of (cid:2) gures viii
List of tables x
List of contributors xii
Acknowledgements xvii
Editors’ acknowledgements xviii
Editors’ introduction: foundations of the new historical linguistics 1
Claire Bowern and Bethwyn Evans
PART I
Overviews 43
1 Lineage and the constructive imagination: the birth of historical linguistics 45
Roger Lass
2 New perspectives in historical linguistics 64
Paul Kiparsky
3 Compositionality and change 103
Nigel Vincent
PART II
Methods and models 125
4 The Comparative Method 127
Michael Weiss
5 The Comparative Method: theoretical issues 146
Mark Hale
6 Trees, waves and linkages: models of language diversi(cid:2) cation 161
Alexandre François
7 Language phylogenies 190
Michael Dunn
v
Contents
8 Diachronic stability and typology 212
Søren Wichmann
PART III
Language change 225
9 Sound change 227
Andrew Garrett
10 Phonological changes 249
Silke Hamann
11 Morphological change 264
Stephen R. Anderson
12 Morphological reconstruction 286
Harold Koch
13 Functional syntax and language change 308
Zygmunt Frajzyngier
14 Generative syntax and language change 326
Elly van Gelderen
15 Syntax and syntactic reconstruction 343
Jóhanna Barðdal
16 Lexical semantic change and semantic reconstruction 374
Matthias Urban
17 Formal semantics/pragmatics and language change 393
Ashwini Deo
18 Discourse 410
Alexandra D’Arcy
19 Etymology 423
Robert Mailhammer
20 Sign languages in their historical context 442
Susan D. Fischer
21 Language acquisition and language change 466
James N. Stanford
22 Social dimensions of language change 484
Lev Michael
vi
Contents
23 Language use, cognitive processes and linguistic change 503
Joan Bybee and Clay Beckner
24 Contact-induced language change 519
Christopher Lucas
25 Language attrition and language change 537
Jane Simpson
PART IV
Interfaces 555
26 Demographic correlates of language diversity 557
Simon J. Greenhill
27 Historical linguistics and socio-cultural reconstruction 579
Patience Epps
28 Prehistory through language and archaeology 598
Paul Heggarty
29 Historical linguistics and molecular anthropology 627
Brigitte Pakendorf
PART V
Regional summaries 643
30 Indo-European: methods and problems 645
Benjamin W. Fortson IV
31 The Austronesian language family 657
Ritsuko Kikusawa
32 The Austroasiatic language phylum: a typology of phonological restructuring 675
Paul Sidwell
33 Pama-Nyungan 704
Luisa Miceli
34 The Paci(cid:2) c Northwest linguistic area: historical perspectives 726
Sarah G. Thomason
Index 737
vii
Figures
6.1 An unordered genealogical tree 164
6.2 A genealogical tree indicating internal subgrouping 164
6.3 Intersecting isoglosses in a dialect continuum or a linkage 169
6.4 A NeighborNet diagram of northern Vanuatu languages, based on rates
of acquired similarity 179
6.5 A glottometric diagram of the Torres–Banks languages 183
7.1 Levenshtein distance: How to turn a ‘Shakespeare’ into ‘Jacques Pierre’
(in broad phonological transcription) with two substitutions, a deletion,
and an insertion, for a Levenshtein distance of four 195
7.2 Likelihood trace MCMC sampling under two models, A and B 198
7.3 Unrooted and rooted trees 200
7.4 Substitution models 200
7.5 Summarising the posterior tree sample 203
8.1 Scatterplots of stability ranks using different metrics 220
10.1 A modular theory for the formalisation of sound changes 256
10.2 The processing-directions for the formalisation of sound changes 257
14.1 Interfaces 336
14.2 Interpretable and uninterpretable features of airplane and build 337
14.3 Reanalyses of the demonstrative pronoun 338
14.4 Reanalyses of the adposition 338
15.1 The traditional conception of meaning in grammar and syntax 349
15.2 The constructional approach to grammar as form–meaning pairings 349
15.3 A reconstruction of the Acc-Gen predicate ‘lust’ in Proto-Germanic 355
15.4 A reconstruction of the argument structure of ‘lust’ in Proto-Germanic 355
15.5 The causative–anticausative relation between Nom-Acc and Acc-only 365
15.6 No relation between the causative and its derivational anticausative 366
18.1 Layering of forms for modal obligation/necessity in English 412
18.2 Distribution of Brazilian Portuguese future temporal reference variants
by century 415
18.3 The tense effect on be like across time in New Zealand English 418
19.1 Internal and external etymologies 433
20.1 JSL ‘Did-you-tell-her?’ 444
20.2 Old version of ASL ‘SWEETHEART’ 449
20.3 Current version of ASL ‘SWEETHEART’ 449
20.4 Old version of ASL ‘HELP’ 449
20.5 Current version of ASL ‘HELP’ 449
viii
Figures
20.6 ASL ‘TOWN’ 452
20.7 Intermediate version of ASL ‘VILLAGE’ 452
20.8 Newer version of ASL’ VILLAGE’ 452
20.9 ASL’ BOY’ 453
20.10 ASL ‘GIRL’ 453
20.11 ASL ‘SAME’ 453
20.12 ASL ‘SISTER’ 453
20.13 ASL ‘BROTHER’ 453
20.14 JSL family ‘TEN’ 454
20.15 JSL family ‘SEVEN’ 454
20.16 JSL family ‘SEVENTEEN’ 454
20.17 TSL ‘WEDNESDAY’ 455
20.18 CSL ‘WEDNESDAY’ 455
20.19 ASL ‘WHO’ 459
20.20 Older ASL ‘#WHO’ 459
20.21 ASL ‘WHY’ 459
20.22 ASL ‘WH-#DO’ (‘what to do?’) 459
21.1 Flege’s (1999) perceptual results for the English spoken by 240 Italians
who had emigrated to Canada at different ages 469
21.2 Transmission and diffusion in Labov (2010: 306) 472
21.3 The Northern Cities Shift and the ‘St. Louis Corridor’ 473
21.4 Percentage of quotative be.like by birth year of West Virginia speakers 475
21.5 A 3-year-old North girl’s Tone 6 pronunciations divided by word 477
24.1 Four types of contact-induced change 525
26.1 ‘Hollow-curve’ graph showing relative language abundance in each
Language family 558
26.2 Histograms showing the latitudinal and longitudinal gradients in
language diversity 568
31.1 Geographical dispersal of Austronesian languages 658
31.2 An Austronesian family tree 659
31.3 Borrowed items in Rotuman and their sources 667
32.1 Geographical distribution of Austroasiatic branches 676
33.1 Location of Pama-Nyungan languages of Australia 705
33.2 Examples of a balanced (A) and unbalanced tree (B) 709
ix