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Two languages can resemble each other in the categories, constructions, and types of meaning they use, and in the forms they employ to express these. Such resemblances may be the consequence of universal characteristics of language, of chance or coincidence, of the borrowing by one language of another's words, or of the diffusion of grammatical, phonetic, and phonological characteristics that takes place when languages come into contact. Languages sometimes show likeness because they have borrowed not from each other but from a third language. Languages that come from the same ancestor may have similar grammatical categories and meanings expressed by similar forms: such languages are said to be genetically affiliated. This book considers how and why forms and meanings of different languages at different times may resemble one another. Its editors and authors aim (a) to explain and identify the relationship between areal diffusion and the genetic development of languages, and (b) to discover the means of distinguishing what may cause one language to share the characteristics of another.
The introduction outlines the issues that underlie these aims, introduces the chapters which follow, and comments on recurrent conclusions by the contributors. The problems are formidable and the pitfalls numerous: for example, several of the authors draw attention to the inadequacy of the family tree diagram as the main metaphor for language relationship. The authors range over Ancient Anatolia, Modern Anatolia, Australia, Amazonia, Oceania, Southeast and East Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The book includes an archaeologist's view on what material evidence offers to explain cultural and linguistic change, and a general discussion of which kinds of linguistic feature can and cannot be borrowed. The chapters are accessibly-written and illustrated by twenty maps. The book will interest all students of the causes and consequences of language change and evolution.
Two languages can resemble each other in the categories, constructions, and types of meaning they use, and in the forms they employ to express these. Such resemblances may be the consequence of universal characteristics of language, of chance or coincidence, of the borrowing by one language of another's words, or of the diffusion of grammatical, phonetic, and phonological characteristics that takes place when languages come into contact. Languages sometimes show likeness because they have borrowed not from each other but from a third language. Languages that come from the same ancestor may have similar grammatical categories and meanings expressed by similar forms: such languages are said to be genetically affiliated. This book considers how and why forms and meanings of different languages at different times may resemble one another. Its editors and authors aim (a) to explain and identify the relationship between areal diffusion and the genetic development of languages, and (b) to discover the means of distinguishing what may cause one language to share the characteristics of another.
The introduction outlines the issues that underlie these aims, introduces the chapters which follow, and comments on recurrent conclusions by the contributors. The problems are formidable and the pitfalls numerous: for example, several of the authors draw attention to the inadequacy of the family tree diagram as the main metaphor for language relationship. The authors range over Ancient Anatolia, Modern Anatolia, Australia, Amazonia, Oceania, Southeast and East Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The book includes an archaeologist's view on what material evidence offers to explain cultural and linguistic change, and a general discussion of which kinds of linguistic feature can and cannot be borrowed. The chapters are accessibly-written and illustrated by twenty maps. The book will interest all students of the causes and consequences of language change and evolution.
1: Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald and R. M. W. Dixon: Introduction
2: Peter Bellwood: Archaeology and the Historical Determinants of
Punctuation in Language-Family Origins
3: Calvert Watkins: An Indo-European Linguistic Area and its
Characteristics: Ancient Anatolia. Areal Diffusion as a Challenge
to the Comparative Method?
4: R. M. W. Dixon: The Australian Linguistic Area
5: Alan Dench: Descent and Diffusion: The Complexity of the Pilbara
Situation
6: Malcolm Ross: Contact-Induced Change in Oceanic Languages in
North-West Melanesia
7: Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald: Areal Diffusion, Genetic Inheritance,
and Problems of Subgrouping: A North Arawak Case Study
8: Geoffrey Haig: Linguistic Diffusion in Present-Day East
Anatolia: From Top to Bottom
9: Randy J. LaPolla: The Role of Migration and Language Contact in
the Development of the Sino-Tibetan Language Family
10: N. J. Enfield: On Genetic and Areal Linguistics in Mainland
South-East Asia: Parallel Polyfunctionality of 'Acquire'
11: James A. Matisoff: Genetic Versus Contact Relationship:
Prosodic Diffusibility in South-East Asian Languages
12: Hilary Chappell: Language Contact and Areal Diffusion in
Sinitic Languages
13: Gerrit J. Dimmendaal: Areal Diffusion Versus Genetic
Inheritance: An African Perspective
14: Bernd Heine and Tania Kuteva: Convergence and Divergence in the
Development of African Lanaguages
15: Timothy Jowan Curnow: What Language Features can be 'Borrowed'?
Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald is Associate Director of the Research
Centre for Linguistic Typology at La Trobe University in Melbourne.
She has published on the Berber languages of North Africa, the
Manambu language of New Guinea, and the Arawak languages of South
America (grammars of Bare and Warekena have appeared and a
comprehensive study of Tariana is almost complete). She is author
of A Grammar of Modern Hebrew (1990), and her Grammar of
Biblical
Hebrew is in press. Her theoretical publications include work on
evidentiality and Classifiers: A Typology of Noun Categorization
Devices (OUP 2000). She is currently working on language contact
and universals of
borrowings. R. M. W. Dixon, who is Director of the Research Centre
for Linguistic Typology, has written grammars of five Australian
languages -- most notably Dyirbal (1972) and Yidiny (1977) -- and
of Boumaa Fijian (1988), in addition to A New Approach to English
Grammar, on Semantic Principles (OUP 1991). His theoretical
contributions have included work on noun classes, adjective
classes, the volume Ergativity (1994), and his acclaimed essay 'The
Rise and Fall of Languages'
(1997). He is currently completing a full-scale comparative study
of the Australian lingusitic area, and a comprehensive study of the
Jarawara language (Arawá family, Brazil).
extremely rich, competent, and well-edited. Language, ... invaluable volume ... the uniformly high quality of the contributions demonstrates that all contributors know whereof they speak ... The geographical range of the contributions is impressive ... The quality of the production is high. The Journal of The Royal Anthropological Institute ... certainly a book worth acquiring and reading. Journal of Linguistics This book is a pleasure to sample, and will serve as a resource for years to come. The salutary lesson that emerges from every chapter is that diffusion studies are necessarily complementary to genetic studies, and that our methodology for studying various types of contact needs to be extended and refined. Diachronica This book is highly recommended for all those interested in historical linguistics, linguistic typology, language contact and language change ... this book represents a good opportunity to meditate, on the one side, on models of language evolution and, on the other side, on actual phenomena of language change. LINGUIST List
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