Lexical Reconstruction

Lexical Reconstruction

Author: Isidore Dyen

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1974-12-12

Total Pages: 522

ISBN-13: 0521203694

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In this book, lexical reconstruction is used to provide links between cultural and social anthropology and linguistics in Athapaskan languages and dialects.


Lexical Reconstruction in Central Chadic

Lexical Reconstruction in Central Chadic

Author: H. Ekkehard Wolff

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2023-11-23

Total Pages: 479

ISBN-13: 1009346385

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Due to a long history of contact, the Chadic languages are the internally most diverse of the Afroasiatic language families, especially in terms of their sound systems. In this ground-breaking study, the author draws on his extensive research experience to unpack the morpho-phonological principles that underpin the languages' diverse prosody effects, arguing that massive variation results from diachronic processes called 'prosodification' of segmental units. The study compares data from 66 of the 79 known languages from the Central branch of the Chadic language family, most of them unwritten and under-researched. It traces language changes for 228 lexical items that can be reconstructed from the proto-language's basic vocabulary, unearthing typological features that link Central Chadic to its deep Afroasiatic heritage. It is accompanied by a set of online appendixes, providing the full analytical apparatus of all lexical reconstructions, with explicit identification of each of the diachronic sound changes and processes involved.


Lexical Acculturation in Native American Languages

Lexical Acculturation in Native American Languages

Author: Cecil H. Brown

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1999-02-04

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 0195352874

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Lexical acculturation refers to the accommodation of languages to new objects and concepts encountered as the result of culture contact. This unique study analyzes a survey of words for 77 items of European culture (e.g. chicken, horse, apple, rice, scissors, soap, and Saturday) in the vocabularies of 292 Amerindian languages and dialects spoken from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego. The first book ever to undertake such a large and systematic cross-language investigation, Brown's work provides fresh insights into general processes of lexical change and development, including those involving language universals and diffusion.


A Historical Phonology of Central Chadic

A Historical Phonology of Central Chadic

Author: H. Ekkehard Wolff

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-06-02

Total Pages: 495

ISBN-13: 1316519546

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Drawing on extensive field data, this groundbreaking work explores the development of the sound systems of Central Chadic languages.


Linguistic Reconstruction

Linguistic Reconstruction

Author: Anthony Fox

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 394

ISBN-13: 9780198700012

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"Anthony Fox's new textbook is primarily for students with an elementary knowledge of general linguistics who need an up-to-date introduction to historical linguistics, particularly to new developments in the theory and practice of linguistic reconstruction." -- Back cover.


Hawaiki, Ancestral Polynesia

Hawaiki, Ancestral Polynesia

Author: Patrick Vinton Kirch

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2001-03-15

Total Pages: 398

ISBN-13: 9780521788793

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The power of an anthropological approach to long-term history lies in its unique ability to combine diverse evidence, from archaeological artifacts to ethnographic texts and comparative word lists. In this innovative book, Kirch and Green explicitly develop the theoretical underpinnings, as well as the particular methods, for such a historical anthropology. Drawing upon and integrating the approaches of archaeology, comparative ethnography, and historical linguistics, they advance a phylogenetic model for cultural diversification, and apply a triangulation method for historical reconstruction. They illustrate their approach through meticulous application to the history of the Polynesian cultures, and for the first time reconstruct in extensive detail the Ancestral Polynesian culture that flourished in the Polynesian homeland - Hawaiki - some 2,500 years ago. Of great significance for Oceanic studies, Kirch and Green's book will be essential reading for any anthropologist, prehistorian, linguist, or cultural historian concerned with the theory and method of long-term history.


The Lexicon of Proto-Oceanic

The Lexicon of Proto-Oceanic

Author: Malcolm Ross

Publisher: ANU E Press

Published: 2007-03-01

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 1921313196

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This is the second in a series of five volumes on the lexicon of Proto Oceanic, the ancestor of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian language family. Each volume deals with a particular domain of culture and/or environment and consists of a collection of essays each of which presents and comments on lexical reconstructions of a particular semantic field within that domain. Volume 2 examines how Proto Oceanic speakers described their geophysical environment. An introductory chapter discusses linguistic and archaeological evidence that locates the Proto Oceanic language community in the Bismarck Archipelago in the late 2nd millennium BC. The next three chapters investigate terms used to denote inland, coastal, reef and open sea environments, and meteorological phenomena. A further chapter examines the lexicon for features of the heavens and navigational techniques associated with the stars. How Proto Oceanic speakers talked about their environment is also described in three further chapters which treat property terms for describing inanimate objects, locational and directional terms, and terms related to the expression of time.


Grammatical Reconstruction

Grammatical Reconstruction

Author: Don Daniels

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2020-03-09

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 3110616211

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There is still widespread disagreement among historical linguists about how, or whether, syntactic reconstruction can be done. This book presents a comprehensive methodology for syntactic reconstruction, grounded in a constructional understanding of language. The author then uses that methodology to reconstruct Proto-Sogeram, the ancestor to ten languages in Papua New Guinea. Chapters are devoted to phonology, lexicon, verbal morphosyntax, nominal morphosyntax, and syntactic constructions. The work culminates in a sketch of Proto-Sogeram grammar. Based largely on the author's original fieldwork, this is an innovative application of a novel methodology to new data, and the most complete reconstruction of a Papuan proto-language to date. It will be of interest to scholars of language change, language reconstruction, typology, and Papuan languages.


Linguistics and Philosophy

Linguistics and Philosophy

Author: Adam Makkai

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 1985-01-01

Total Pages: 492

ISBN-13: 9027279764

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This volume contains papers by a large number of influencial linguists, written as a tribute to the work of Rulon S. Wells. The volume is subdivided into sections on the Philosophy of Language, Phonology, Syntax, Historical and Typological Linguistics, and Diachronic and Synchronic Derivation.