Sound Correspondence and the Comparative Study of Miao-Yao Languages (語音對應與苗瑤語比較研究)

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feng Wang (汪鋒) ◽  
Wen Liu (劉文)
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Relationship ◽  
Similar Pattern ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Genetic Position ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Comparative Study

Rigorous sound correspondence is fundamental to historical linguistics. It serves as a solid start in studying genetic relationship. Regarding the genetic position of Miao-Yao languages, Li (1937) proposed a hypothesis that the Sino-Tibetan language family consists of Chinese, Tibeto-Burman, Kam-Tai, and Miao-Yao. Benedict (1942; 1975) excluded Miao-Yao from the Sino-Tibetan language family since sound correspondences between Miao-Yao and Chinese were considered to be caused by language contact. The key point in this debate has been ignored for a long time: are the related morphemes proposed in this debate supported by rigorous sound correspondence? In this paper, related morphemes across 11 Miao-Yao languages have been first identified under the requirement of complete sound correspondence, and then analyzed by the Rank Method. The result of the genetic relationship between the 11 Miao-Yao languages has been confirmed. The same procedure has been applied to Sino-Miao-Yao related morphemes, and similar pattern has been found. The Sino-Miao-Yao related morphemes were recognized to be inherited from the common ancestor of Chinese and Miao-Yao. Combined with the result from the perspective of pervasive sound correspondence (Wang 2015), the proposal of a genetic relationship between Chinese and Miao-Yao has been supported. The Inexplicability Principle has been used to weaken the possibility of Sino-Miao-Yao related morphemes being induced by borrowing from Chinese to Miao-Yao, since some sound correspondences are unlikely to be explained by natural phonetic mechanisms. Moreover, related morphemes in Chinese and Miao-Yao have been examined from the perspective of Old Chinese, and such an examination also supports the hypothesis of a genetic relationship between Chinese and Miao-Yao languages. 嚴格的語音對應是歷史比較的基礎，也是判定語源關係的必要條件。在苗瑤語的語源問題研究中，李方桂（1937）提出漢藏語系四語族學說，即漢語、藏緬語、侗台語和苗瑤語。Benedict（1942、1975）則將苗瑤語從漢藏語系中劃分出去，理由是苗瑤語和漢語有對應關係的語素是由接觸造成的。苗瑤語系屬問題的爭議焦點在於苗瑤語和漢語音近義同的一批關係語素是否有嚴格的語音對應支持，然而這一問題一直以來不被重視。本文基於完全對應得到苗瑤語族內部11個語言的關係語素，隨後應用詞階法分析，結果如願所示，這11個語言之間具有發生學關係。同樣的程序應用于漢-苗瑤語關係語素，結果與上述呈現的模式相同，即這些關係語素是來自漢語和苗瑤語共同的祖語，而非語言接觸的產物。結合普遍對應的研究（Wang 2015），漢語和苗瑤語的發生學關係可以得到支持。不可釋原則也顯示漢-苗瑤語關係語素是由苗瑤語從漢語借用的可能性較小，因為二者間的部分語音對應不可能通過自然音變來解釋。此外，從上古漢語的角度對漢-苗瑤語關係語素的校驗也支持二者的同源關係。

scholarly journals Contact or Inheritance? Criteria for distinguishing internal and external change in genetically related languages

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Na’ama Pat-El
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Practical Problem ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Test Cases ◽  
Common Language ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Source Language ◽  
Linguistic Form ◽  
Semitic Language ◽  
Internal Change

Several prominent scholars have recently doubted whether it is possible to differentiate borrowing from internal change, to the point that in some cases subgrouping is not feasible or is restricted (Dench, 2001; Dixon, 2001). Since a situation of prolonged and intense contact between closely related languages is very common, language contact and its results are a major problem if not a real hazard to historical linguistics. The main practical problem is how to differentiate internal changes, changes motivated by internal processes, from external changes, changes due to language contact, when the structure of the languages is so similar. In other words, how do we know which linguistic form is the source of the change: one of the attested languages, or the mother of both of them? In this paper, I suggest two preliminary criteria to isolate the source language in cases of contact: 1) the existence of intermediary stages, and 2) an even spread of the change across categories. I will show, using test cases from the Semitic language family that these criteria can help us distinguish between internal and external changes.

scholarly journals Paleobiolinguistics of New World Crops and the Otomanguean Language Family

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecil H. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Common Bean ◽  
New World ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Chili Pepper ◽  
Language Family ◽  
World Language ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Language Groups ◽  
The Common

Several studies recently published in Ethnobiology Letters treat respectively the paleobiolinguistics of chili pepper, manioc, maize, and the common bean in New World language families. This includes the Otomanguean family of Mexico, one of the oldest language groups of the hemisphere, whose parent language may have been spoken at the latest around 6500 years ago. This communication addresses the possibility that Otomanguean paleobiolinguistics should be considered tentative since languages of the grouping are not yet conclusively demonstrated to be descended from a common ancestor. This challenges the proposal that words for chili pepper, manioc, and maize were in vocabularies of languages spoken two thousand or more years before development of a village-farming way of life in the New World.

scholarly journals Dogon pronominal systems their nature and evolution

1994 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-344
Author(s):  
Cristopher Culy ◽  
Kungarma Kodio
Keyword(s):  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Binding Properties ◽  
The Common ◽  
Pronominal System ◽  
Insight Into

The Dogon language family has received little attention in the linguistics literature to date. In this paper we examine the binding properties of the pronominal systems of three Dogon languages, Donno S:>, T:>r:> S:>, and Togo Ka. We also posit the pronominal system of their common ancestor, and the changes from the common ancestor to the contemporary languages. In doing so, we find two ways in which languages can lose logophoricity: (1) the logophoric pronoun becomes a subject oriented reflexive, and (2) the logophoric pronoun is lost without any reflex. The Dogon languages thus give us insight into the nature of pronominal systems and how they evolve.

Languages of the Balkans

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor A. Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Language Family ◽  
European Language ◽  
Linguistic Terms ◽  
Contact Linguistics ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Significant Length ◽  
Core Lexicon

The Balkan languages were the first group of languages whose similarities were explained in modern linguistic terms as a result of language contact rather than as a result of descent from a common ancestor. Nikolai Trubetzkoy coined the term Sprachbund ‘linguistic league’ (as opposed to Sprachfamilie ‘language family’) to describe this relationship. Balkan linguistics, as both a subset of and precursor to contact linguistics, is, at its base, an historical linguistic discipline. It seeks to explain similarities among the relevant languages as the result of diffusion rather than of either transmission or of putative universal, typological properties of human language (which latter assumes parallel developments whose causation is ahistorical, i.e., unconnected with either contact or ancestry). The relevant languages are, with the exception of Turkic, all part of the Indo-European language family, but they belong to five distinct groups that are known to have been separated for a significant length of time (presumably millennia). Moreover, for four out of five Indo-European groups as well as for Turkic, there exists documentation that goes back more than a millennium, and in some cases several millennia. The Balkan languages are thus the oldest example of a well-documented and still living Sprachbund. The primary questions that Balkan linguistics seeks to answer are these: What are the results of language contact in the Balkan languages, and how did they come about? The Balkan languages are traditionally defined as Albanian, Modern Greek, Balkan Romance (Romanian, Aromanian, and Meglenoromanian), and Balkan Slavic (Bulgarian, Macedonian, and the southernmost dialects of the former Serbo-Croatian). In recent decades, it has been recognized that the relevant dialects of Romani, Judezmo, and Turkish and Gagauz also participate in at least some of the convergent processes that are taken as definitive of the Balkan linguistic league. While the language family is defined by regular sound correspondences, which in turn help define shared morphology and a core lexicon, the Balkan linguistic league is defined principally by shared morphosyntactic developments and a shared lexicon of borrowings often called “cultural.” In the Balkan linguistic league, phonological developments are sometimes shared among different languages at the dialectal level, but there are no such features that characterize the Balkan languages as a group. Just as in the language family not every diagnostic item is represented in every branch, so, too, in the Balkan linguistic league not every feature is equally represented in all languages and dialects. Among the most characteristic morphosyntactic features are the following: (1) replacement of infinitives by analytic subjunctives, (2) the use of a particle derived from etymological ‘want’ to mark the future, (3) replacement of synthetic gradation of adjectives with analytic constructions, (4) replacement of conditionals by anterior futures, (5) resumptive clitic pronouns for certain direct and indirect objects, (6) various simplifications in the declensional system, (7) postposed definite articles (for Balkan Slavic, Balkan Romance, and Albanian), (8) grammaticalized evidentials (Balkan Slavic, Albanian, Turkic, and to some extent Balkan Romance and Romani). While some of these convergences began in the ancient or medieval periods, the Balkan linguistic league took its definitive modern shape during the centuries of the Ottoman Empire (14th to early 20th centuries).

Telling general linguists about Altaic

1999 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEFAN GEORG ◽  
PETER A. MICHALOVE ◽  
ALEXIS MANASTER RAMER ◽  
PAUL J. SIDWELL
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Relationship ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Language Family ◽  
The Real ◽  
Strong Body ◽  
The Relationship

The hypothesis of an Altaic language family, comprising the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean and, in most recent versions, Japanese languages continues to be a viable linguistic proposal, despite various published claims that it is no longer accepted. A strong body of research continues to appear, developing and refining the hypothesis, along with publications that argue against a demonstrated relationship among these languages. This paper shows that many of the arguments against a genetic relationship fail to address the criteria demanded in modern historical linguistics, while many of the responses from proponents of the Altaic theory have failed to address the criticisms raised. We hope that arguments focusing on the real issues of phonological correspondences and morphological systems will shed greater light on the relationship among these languages.

scholarly journals The Uralic-Yukaghir lexical correspondences: genetic inheritance, language contact or chance resemblance?

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 (62) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ante Aikio
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Relationship ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Genetic Inheritance ◽  
Historical Phonology ◽  
Systematic Comparison ◽  
Held Back

The Uralic language family has often been hypothesized to be related to Yukaghir, even though no widely accepted evidence for this theory has been presented so far. The study of Uralic-Yukaghir relations has in part been held back by the scarcity of basic documentary and comparative work on the Yukaghir languages. The publication of A Historical Dictionary of Yukaghir (2006) by Irina Nikolaeva, however, has raised Yukaghir lexicology and historical phonology to a level that allows systematic comparison of Proto-Yukaghir and (Proto-)Uralic to be easily carried out. This paper discusses the lexical correspondences between Uralic and Yukaghir languages, and examines to what extent they can be explained as evidence of genetic relationship, products of language contact, or mere chance resemblances. It is argued that there is no clear lexical evidence supporting a genetic connection between the two families, and that no regular sound correspondences between the two proto-languages can be established. A majority of the Uralic-Yukaghir lexical comparisons suggested in earlier references seem to be chance resemblances, but a smaller corpus of probable loanwords supporting contacts between (Pre-)Proto-Samoyed and Proto-Yukaghir can be established.

HEALTHCARE CHALLENGES IN GILGIT BALTISTAN: THE WAY FORWARD

1970 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-116
Author(s):  
Amimah Fatima Asif
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Healthcare Delivery ◽  
Medical Personnel ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Quality Healthcare ◽  
Accident And Emergency ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Common ◽  
Gilgit Baltistan ◽  
And Child Health

Quality healthcare delivery is the bedrock to exponentially accelerate the development of a country. Unfortunately, in Pakistan healthcare has been neglected since a long time, with the common man bearing the brunt of this acute situation. There are critical challenges in health care, with paucity of trained human resource and deficit of regulated infrastructure and service delivery being the predominant dilemmas. Primary and secondary healthcare are in an unseemly state, to say the least. Maternal and child health care, accident, and emergency departments and mental health are among the most undermined and forsaken areas of healthcare, primarily in the far flung Gilgit Baltistan region of Pakistan. The only way forward is if the political regime, administration and the medical personnel work in concurrence to revise the health infrastructure of the country.

The Application of the Cold Atmospheric Plasma-Activated Solutions in Cancer Treatment

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 769-775 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dayun Yan ◽  
Jonathan H. Sherman ◽  
Michael Keidar
Keyword(s):  
Cancer Treatment ◽  
Atmospheric Plasma ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Cold Atmospheric Plasma ◽  
Anti Cancer ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Key Topics ◽  
The Common

Background: Over the past five years, the cold atmospheric plasma-activated solutions (PAS) have shown their promissing application in cancer treatment. Similar as the common direct cold plasma treatment, PAS shows a selective anti-cancer capacity in vitro and in vivo. However, different from the direct cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) treatment, PAS can be stored for a long time and can be used without dependence on a CAP device. The research on PAS is gradually becoming a hot topic in plasma medicine. Objectives: In this review, we gave a concise but comprehensive summary on key topics about PAS including the development, current status, as well as the main conclusions about the anti-cancer mechanism achieved in past years. The approaches to make strong and stable PAS are also summarized.

The Possible Common Origin of tRNA and 5S rRNA

1983 ◽  
Vol 38 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 501-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mária Ujhelyi
Keyword(s):  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Common Origin ◽  
5S Rrna ◽  
Mitochondrial Trna ◽  
Trna Molecule ◽  
The Common

Seryl tRNA (anticodon GCU) from mammalian mito­chondria shows in comparison to other mitochondrial tRNAs additional special features differing from the generalized tRNA model. When arranged in the tradi­tional cloverleaf form, eight bases fall within the TΨC loop, and the entire dihydrouridine loop is lacking. This seryl tRNA molecule is therefore shorter than other tRNAs. It was originally thought to represent a mito­chondrial analogon of 5 S rRNA and its precise classifica­tion is still disputed. The present studies suggest that this mitochondrial tRNA represents a fossil molecule which is related to the common ancestor of the present tRNA and 5 S rRNA molecules.

Latins and Greeks in Debate over Purgatory, 1230–1439

1984 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Ombres
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Agenda

By the 1230s Latins and Greeks were riot short of issues for debate or polemic, but the topic of purgatory did have a novel feel about it. The doctrine seems to emerge on the common agenda fairly suddenly, finding no place, for example, in the wide-ranging list of 104 points of divergence drawn up by the Byzantine prelate, Constantine Stilbès, in the wake of the cruel sack of Constantinople by the Latins in 1204. The subject did, however, establish itself as a hardy perennial, and it is proposed to trace its main ramifications up to the death of Emperor Michael viii in 1282, and then to concentrate on the Council of Ferrara–Florence (1438–9). Without a doubt the debates and the constant attempts at reunion were not conducted in isolation from wider cultural, political and military considerations, the kind of considerations that in 1400 would lead the Byzantine emperor to journey as far as England. But here the emphasis will fall on the theological aspects. Moreover, there were also in play forces of inertia, ignorance and mutual incomprehension difficult to assess rationally. The thirteenth-century friar, Humbert of Romans O.P., in discussing what would make for reunion with the Greeks noted how a schism might be continued simply because it had existed for a long time, just like the feud between Guelf and Ghibelline.

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