1. Historical Linguistics is the branch of
linguistics concerned with:
1. The study of language
change and stability.
2. The reconstruction of
earlier stages of
languages.
3. The discovery and implementation of
research methodologies by which
genetic relationships amond languages
can be put forward.
The linguist is interested in a dynamic vision of
language. The main difference between
Descriptive and Historical Linguistcs:
Descriptive Linguistics: describes a particular
stage of a language.
Historical Linguistics: address why languages look the way they do,
how the changes show how they relate to each to each other and
whether a parent language can be propounded for different
languages.
They use the Comparative Method. Thus, Historical and
Comparative Linguistics are interconnected.
Linguists go back to stages where an old and a current form
of a language are distinctly different. These forms are dead
languages and no speakers can be used in the study.
Linguists rely on extant written evidence in the form
of manuscripts, inscriptions on stones or pieces of
jewellery.
We may say that a diachronic analysis always
follows a synchronic analysis, but for Bynon
this methodology will not catch the continuous
changing nature of language.
(Bynon) 2 factors internal to
linguistics have stood in the way of
the study of linguistic variation:
Synchronic studies use idealisations of a language in
order to describe it. Due to the fact that variation in
a specific moment is too large to be apprehended in
a synchronic grammar.
Structuralism and Generativism use strong
generalisation of the actual linguistic system.
The belief that the way languages are transmitted is
responsible for a majority of linguistic changes
Bynon thinks that to attribute linguistic change to the improper learning
of the language by children is a simplistic view of the phenomena.
Further, improper learning is counteracted by speakers that struggle to
keep the integrity of the linguistic system.
Thus, she suggest a twofold strategy to study linguistic change:
Focus on different grammars from different time spans
of a language and contrast them with other related
languages. The changes found should lead to the
extrapolation of diachronic rules.
Do not separate linguistic variation from sociological
factors: contact between languages plays an important
role.
2. Origins of Historical Linguistics
Contrastive study of Greek and Latin in the
Renaissance period.
More technically, 19th century: when Sanskrit was object of
study in Europe. They found that Sanskrit, Greek and Latin
had some similarities.
Achievement 1: the acknowledgement of the
ubiquity of linguistic change.
Achievement 2: the development of the
Comparative Method.
Why the development of Comparative Linguistics did not
take place earlier? Beekes gives 3 reasons:
1) Greeks were not sufficiently acquainted with
other languages.
2) People had to learn that languages
change.
3) Greeks never compared words
cross-linguistically.
But tracing genetic relatedness is not that easy
because sometimes languages evolve in a way that it
is impossible to identify any correspondence.
A common procedure was the comparison of cognates, which
allowed historical linguists to identify certain phonological
patterns which signalled that all these words come from the
same ancestral parent language.
Anotações:
Cognate: a term with the same etymological origin but different phonological, and often semantic, evolution.
3. The Comparative
Method
Developed in the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European and used in the analysis of other
language families. The basis: the regular principle of phonological change (introduced as a
linguistic rule by the Neogrammarians).
Phonological changes had not been considered rules, but tendencies. Patterns in phonological change
were studied in terms of sound laws.
Grimm's Law
Verner's Laws
Also, Saussure's Laryngeal
Theory hypothesised for the
Indo-European.
CM's steps:
1) Isolation of a set of cognates
2) Extraction of a number of phonological correspondences
3) The use of sound laws in order to reconstruct a series of phonemes
Criticism
The reconstructed forms are the result of comparing attested
cognates, but they cannot be taken as bearing a 100%
correspondence.
Taken for granted that all languages are born from a parent
language. Therefore, what happens with the parent language?
Belief that once 2 languages have split from their ancestor, they diverge until
they do not bear any resemblance. But there is not just one single direction:
they can converge again.
4. The Wave Theory
In order to overcome the shortcomings of the CM
and the Family-tree metaphor.
Bynon: the family-tree metaphor is a a situation of continuity
in the course of time, an ideal temporal-spatial frame, a
"relative chronology".
Johannes Schmidt: changes in language would spread as waves in the water from a
politically or historically important centre, but not all changes reach the same place.
Bynon offers different ideal cases:
A political, commercial, cultural, etc., centre appears
inside a linguistic territory.
Some innovations occur and they only reach part of the
territory where the language is spoken, while the rest
of the territory is ruled by the pre-existing centre
Isoglosses start to rise until the speakers lose mutual
intelligibility and 2 different languages remain.
2 independent languages start sharing certain features.
If territories become integrated under a political force with a single
administrative and cultural centre, some isoglosses will start to
disappear and a common traits will be shared.
5. Proto-language: a hypothetical reconstruction of the earlier
form of a language. No written records exist so the reconstruction
draws upon the comparison of related words and expressions of
the different languages derived from it. The reconstruction
depends on the evidence available.
6. Linguistic Genealogies: ways to classify
language (not mutually exclusive)
Typological: based on similarities in the linguistic
structure (frequent in the case of unwritten
languages). It draws upon grammar structure.
Isolating (analytic): words made up of a single
morpheme. Classical Chinese and Vietnamese.
Agglutinative: words consist of a series of
morphemes, each of them representing a single
grammatical category. Japanese, Turkish, and Finnish.
Inflectional (Synthetic): a single morpheme in one
word may represent several grammatical
categories. Greek, Latin and Sanskrit.
Genetic: lead to the establishment of language
families, language stocks which are related by
common origin because of cognates.
Phylum: it encompasses a
number of language families.
Language isolate: a language family
made up of just one language.
7. The Neogrammarians
Group of young German linguists that defended the
view that phonological change was always regular;
apparent exceptions did not have an explanation yet.
The linguist's work is to find the rules
behind those apparent exceptions.
Karl Verner found an explanation for the apparent
exceptions to Grimm's Law, and showed they were
conditioned by the phonological environment.
8. Internal Reconstruction (Method)
Focuses on the analysis of
irregular linguistic patterns.
Main tenet: irregular linguistic patterns
have developed from earlier regular forms.
Called 'internal' because it is not necessary to examine other
languages to reconstruct the earlier stages of a given one.
Example: English participles. The English regular verbs form
the PP by the addition of -ed: love/loved, paint/painted...
A number of strong verbs construct
the PP by using -en: write/written,
take/taken...
This pattern is not productive anymore
(new verbs follow the -ed pattern).
BUT some old verbs maintain the -ed suffix for their PP and
the -en suffix for adjectival forms: shaved/clean-shaven,
melted/molten lead, mowed/new-mown...
Conclusion: the original forms of the PP showed the -en pattern as strong
verbs, but by analogy with the weak verbs the regular forms -ed displaced
the original strong pattern. However, the adjectival form was not affected.