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.
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SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
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 r.
OTHER EDITION IN ANOTHER MEDIUM
Title
Comparative method reviewed.
International Standard Book Number
9780195066074
TOPICAL NAME USED AS SUBJECT
Comparative linguistics.
Linguistic change.
Comparative linguistics.
Historische taalwetenschap.
LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES-- Linguistics-- Historical & Comparative.