عنوان

Iranian Dialectology and Dialectometry

Number

TL5pv6f9g9

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

Iranian Dialectology and Dialectometry

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Cathcart, Chundra Aroor

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

Garrett, Andrew

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2015

Body granting the degree

Garrett, Andrew

Text preceding or following the note

2015

Text of Note

This dissertation investigates the forces at work in the formation of a tightly knit but ultimately non-genetic dialect group. The Iranian languages, a genetic sub-branch of the larger Indo-European language family, are a group whose development has been profoundly affected by millennia of internal contact. This work is concerned with aspects of the diversification and disparification (i.e., the development of different versus near-identical features across languages) of this group of languages, namely issues pertaining to the development of the so-called West Iranian group, whose status as a legitimate genetic subgroup has long remained unclear. To address the phenomena under study, I combine a traditional comparative-historical approach with existing quantitative methods as well as newly developed quantitative methods designed to deal with the sort of linguistic situation that Iranian typifies. The studies I undertake support the idea that West Iranian is not a genetic subgroup, as sometimes assumed; instead, similarities between West Iranian languages that give the impression of close genetic relatedness have come about due to interactions between contact and parallel driftlike tendencies. I develop new methodologies which make it possible to demonstrate which similarities are due to contact and which are due to drift.

Gardner, Amy Harriet

Cathcart, Chundra Aroor

UC Berkeley

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y