Historical Linguistics - Theory And Method

• An original and engaging introduction to the subject of historical linguistics

• Presents controversial but compelling ideas in developing a clear understanding as to why historical linguistics has had significant success in some domains, such as phonological history, and why it is considerably less successful in others

• Explores the relationship between fundamental concepts in historical linguistics, topics such as 'language' and 'change', and corresponding notions in contemporary (synchronic) linguistic theory

• Features extensive discussion of traditional and theoretically-oriented historical work in the domains of phonology and syntax.

Part I: “Language” and “Language Change”: Preliminaries.

1. What is “Language”?.

2. Linguistic Artifacts: Philology.

3. What is a “Descent” Relationship?.

Part II: Phonological Change.

4. Galilean-Style Phonology.

5. The Traditional Approach.

6. In-Depth Consideration of Selected Issues.

7. The Regularity of Sound Change.

Part III: Syntactic Change.

8. What is Syntactic Change?.

9. The Diachrony of Clitics: Phonology and Syntax.

Part IV: Reconstruction Methodology.

10. Reconstruction Methodology.

Part V: Concluding Remarks.

11. Synchronic and Diachronic Linguistics.

References.

Index