Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship : An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics / Hans Henrich Hock, Brian D. Joseph.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hock, Hans Henrich, author.

Joseph, Brian D., author.

Series:

Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs ; 218.

Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM] ; 218

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Historical linguistics.

Comparative linguistics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (606 p.)

Edition:

Second revised edition.

Place of Publication:

Berlin ; Boston : De Gruyter Mouton, [2009]

Language Note:

English

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

Why does language change? Why can we speak to and understand our parents but have trouble reading Shakespeare? Why is Chaucer's English of the fourteenth century so different from Modern English of the late twentieth century that the two are essentially different languages? Why are Americans and English 'one people divided by a common language'? And how can the language of Chaucer and Modern English - or Modern British and American English - still be called the same language? The present book provides answers to questions like these in a straightforward way, aimed at the non-specialist, with ample illustrations from both familiar and more exotic languages. Most chapters in this new edition have been reworked, with some difficult passages removed, other passages thoroughly rewritten, and several new sections added, e.g. on language and race and on Indian writing systems. Further, the chapter notes and bibliography have all been updated. The content is engaging, focusing on topics and issues that spark student interest. Its goals are broadly pedagogical and the level and presentation are appropriate for interested beginners with little or no background in linguistics. The language coverage for examples goes well beyond what is usual for books of this kind, with a considerable amount of data from various languages of India.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 2. The discovery of Indo-European

Chapter 3. Writing: Its history and its decipherment

Chapter 4. Sound change

Chapter 5. Analogy and change in word structure

Chapter 6. Syntactic change

Chapter 7. Semantic change

Chapter 8. Lexical borrowing

Chapter 9. Lexical change and etymology: The study of words

Chapter 10. Language, dialect, and standard

Chapter 11. Dialect geography and dialectology

Chapter 12. Language spread, link languages, and bilingualism

Chapter 13. Convergence: Dialectology beyond languageboundaries

Chapter 14. Pidgins, creoles, and related forms of language

Chapter 15. Language death

Chapter 16. Comparative method: Establishing language relationship

Chapter 17. Proto-World?: The question of long-distance genetic relationships

Chapter 18. Historical linguistics, history, and prehistory: Linguistic paleontology and other applications of our methods

Chapter notes and suggested readings

Backmatter

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

ISBN:

9786613429018

9781283429016

1283429012

9783110214307

311021430X

OCLC:

1002271113