Trask's Historical LinguisticsThis book is an introduction to historical linguistics - the study of language change over time. Written in an engaging style and illustrated with examples from a wide range of languages, the book covers the fundamental concepts of language change, methods for historical linguistics, linguistic reconstruction, sociolinguistic aspects of language change, language contact, the birth and death of languages, language and prehistory and the issue of very remote relations. A minimal knowledge of linguistic concepts is needed and the book is suitable for students approaching the subject for the first time. The exercises will be particularly useful to teachers and students alike. |
Contents
To thereader | |
The fact of language change | |
Lexical and semantic change 2 1 Borrowing | |
Morphological change 5 1 Reanalysis | |
Relatedness between languages | |
The comparative method 8 1 Systematic correspondences | |
Internal reconstruction | |
The originand propagation of change | |
Language andprehistory 12 1 Introduction 12 2 Linguistic palaeontology 12 3 Links with archaeology 12 4 Statistical methods | |
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Common terms and phrases
adjectives andthe appear Basque become Bizkaian borrowed calque canbe century Chapter cognates common consonant construction derived dialects diphthong distinct earlier Englishspeakers ergative example Exercise formerly forms French fricative fromthe gender genetic Germanic languages glottochronology grammatical Greek Greenberg happened hence historical linguists IndoEuropean inflectional internal reconstruction intervocalic inthe inthis isthe itis Labov language change Latin lenition lexical lexical diffusion look Luxembourgish markedness meaning merger modern morpheme morphological nasal native Neogrammarian Nostratic nouns numberof ofthe Old English onthe original OV languages particular pattern perhaps phoneme phonological change plosives plural prestige probably pronounced pronunciation reanalysis regular represent result rhotic Romance languages rule Sanskrit sentence social sociolinguistic sound change Spanish speakers speech spoken standard structure suffix syllable syntactic systematic correspondences Table tense thatthe thefirst tobe Tok Pisin tothe typical varieties velar verb vocabulary voiced voiceless vowel withthe word order Zuberoan