Copies Versus Cognates in Bound Morphology

When two or more languages have bound morphology in common, it is generally either because the languages are daughters of a common parent language, and so inherit the morphology; or because contact between the languages has led to the morphology spreading from one to the other or others. Inherited morphemes are cognates, and borrowed ones are copies. Here linguists balance internal and external explanations for shared morphology, and work out criteria for distinguishing between cognates and copies. They begin with theoretical and typological issues, then look at case studies in America and Eurasia. Among the topics are non-borrowed but non-cognate parallels in bound morphology, a variationist solution to apparent copying across related languages, morphological borrowing in Sierra Populuca, the origin of absolutes in Old and Middle English, and the likelihood of morphological borrowing in Korean and Japanese. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Lars Johanson, is professor in Turcology at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the University of Mainz, Germany. He has published extensively on synchronic and diachronic linguistics, especially in the domains of aspect-mood-tense, language contact, and language typology.
Martine Robbeets, Ph.D. (2003), University of Leiden, holds a DFG fellowship at the University of Mainz. Her research is on morphological reconstruction and on the genealogical relationship of Japanese with the Transeurasian languages, areas in which she has several publications.