1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910451485403321

Titolo

The comparative method reviewed [[electronic resource] ] : regularity and irregularity in language change / / edited by Mark Durie, Malcolm Ross

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, : Oxford University Press, 1996

ISBN

1-280-60555-3

0-19-536210-1

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (330 p.)

Altri autori (Persone)

DurieMark <1958->

RossMalcolm

Disciplina

410

Soggetti

Comparative linguistics

Linguistic change

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 301-304) and indexes.

Nota di contenuto

Contents; 1 Introduction; 2 The Comparative Method as Heuristic; 3 On Sound Change and Challenges to Regularity; 4 Footnotes to a History of Cantonese: Accounting for the Phonological Irregularlties; 5 Early Germanic Umlaut and Variable Rules; 6 The Neogrammarian Hypothesis and Pandemic Irregularity; 7 Regularity of Change in What?; 8 Contact-Induced Change and the Comparative Method: Cases from Papua New Guinea; 9 Reconstruction in Morphology; 10 Natural Tendencies of Semantic Change and the Search for Cognates; Subject Index; Language Index; Name Index

Sommario/riassunto

Historical reconstruction of languages relies on the comparative method, which itself depends on the notion of the regularity of change. The regularity of sound change is the famous Neogrammarian Hypothesis: ""sound change takes place according to laws that admit no exception."" The comparative method, however, is not restricted to the consideration of sound change, and neither is the assumption of regularity. Syntactic, morphological, and semantic change are all amenable in varying degrees, to comparative reconstruction, and each type of change is constrained in ways that enable the researche