scholarly journals Serbian historical linguistics at the beginning of the 21st century

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 163-205
Author(s):  
Slobodan Pavlovic
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistic ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Linguistic Typology ◽  
Research Orientation ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Language Studies

The article provides an overview of the key theoretical, methodological and thematic approaches applied in Serbian historical language studies at the beginning of the 21st century. This is a time in which alongside the philological and (or) structural linguistic research orientation, there are also explanatory studies conducted within the framework of cognitive linguistics and linguistic typology. While philological and structural linguistic descriptions may ask what happened in a language, explanatory (cognitive and typological) studies seek to ask why and how something happened. Explanatory historical linguistic studies, therefore, set out to explain the causes and mechanisms of language changes.

scholarly journals Bantu Lexical Reconstruction

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koen Bostoen ◽  
Yvonne Bastin
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistic ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Intermediate Step ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Phonological Reconstruction ◽  
The Relationship

Lexical reconstruction has been an important enterprise in Bantu historical linguistics since the earliest days of the discipline. In this chapter a historical overview is provided of the principal scholarly contributions to that field of study. It is also explained how the Comparative Method has been and can be applied to reconstruct ancestral Bantu vocabulary via the intermediate step of phonological reconstruction and how the study of sound change needs to be completed with diachronic semantics in order to correctly reconstruct both the form and the meaning of etymons. Finally, some issues complicating this type of historical linguistic research, such as “osculance” due to prehistoric language contact, are addressed, as well as the relationship between reconstruction and classification.

scholarly journals A Szepes vármegyére vonatkozó középkori oklevelek filológiai tanulságai

2020 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 81-108
Author(s):  
Róbert Kenyhercz
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistic ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Linguistic Study ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Proper Name ◽  
Ultimate Objective

Philological Findings from the Historical Linguistic Study of Medieval Charters from Szepes County My paper introduces the philological findings derived from the linguistic analy-sis of medieval charters for Szepes County. During the discussion of various fac-tors, my ultimate objective is to find out how the proper name data of the charters may be used for the purposes of research in historical linguistics and onomastics. Although the observations and hypotheses are based on the study of sources from Szepes specifically, I believe that the issues addressed in my paper also carry broader relevance and thus may be used both when interpreting remnants of char-ters and in the process of historical linguistic research based on these. Keywords: Szepes County, medieval charters, linguistic prestige, Latinization

A Pipeline for Computational Historical Linguistics

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydia Steiner ◽  
Michael Cysouw ◽  
Peter Stadler
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistic ◽  
South America ◽  
Molecular Phylogenetics ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Current Approach ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Linguistic Data ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Lexical Data

AbstractThere are many parallels between historical linguistics and molecular phylogenetics. In this paper we describe an algorithmic pipeline that mimics, as closely as possible, the traditional workflow of language reconstruction known as the comparative method. The pipeline consists of suitably modified algorithms based on recent research in bioinformatics, which are adapted to the specifics of linguistic data. This approach can alleviate much of the laborious research needed to establish proof of historical relationships between languages. Equally important to our proposal is that each step in the workflow of the comparative method is implemented independently, so language specialists have the possibility to scrutinize intermediate results. We have used our pipeline to investigate two groups of languages, the Tsezic languages of the Caucasus and the Mataco-Guaicuruan languages of South America, based on the lexical data from the Intercontinental Dictionary Series (IDS). The results of these tests show that the current approach is a viable and useful extension to historical linguistic research.

Eva Parra-Membrives/Albrecht Classen (Hrsg. / Eds.): Literatur am Rand: Perspektiven der Trivialliteratur vom Mittelalter bis zum 21. Jahrhundert // Literature on the Margin: Perspectives on Trivial Literature from the Middle Ages to the 21st Century. Tübingen. Narr-Verlag, 2013.

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 295-296
Author(s):  
Peter Pabisch
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Comparative Studies ◽  
The Third ◽  
Language Studies ◽  
The Middle Ages ◽  
Literature And Language

Abstract The three scholarly works of recent years illuminate the versatility of their main editor Albrecht Classen in the interdisciplinary world of comparative studies, in literature and language studies. Together with his colleague Eva Parra-Membrives he offers insights on trivial literature also in view of bestsellers concerning the first two works under discussion here. The third work on multilingualism in the middle ages he edited alone. For all the works he found an impressive number of contributors who fill the chalice of offerings in a most versatile canon of topics.

How to use typological databases in historical linguistic research

Diachronica ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 373-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Søren Wichmann ◽  
Arpiar Saunders
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistic ◽  
Native American ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Native American Languages ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Heuristic Procedures ◽  
The Stability

Several databases have been compiled with the aim of documenting the distribution of typological features across the world’s languages. This paper looks at ways of utilizing this type of data for making inferences concerning genealogical relationships by using phylogenetic algorithms originally developed for biologists. The focus is on methodology, including how to assess the stability of individual typological features and the suitability of different phylogenetic algorithms, as well as ways to enhance phylogenetic signals and heuristic procedures for identifying genealogical relationships. The various issues are illustrated by a small sample of empirical data from a set of Native American languages.

Language and the National Past in Napoleonic France: Reassessing the Académie celtique, 1805–1813

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian B Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Historical Linguistic ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Folklore Studies ◽  
French Nation

Abstract This article reassesses the Académie celtique (1805–13), an antiquarian society concerned with investigating the origins of the French nation, and the progenitor of the current Société nationale des antiquaires de France. While most prior scholarship has focused on the Académie as an innovator in the field of French folklore studies, it is argued here that the Académie’s main scholarly concern was with language, specifically the use of historical linguistic research for tracing the origins of European nations. Underpinning the Académie’s research programme was a belief that the ancient Celts—based in Gaul—once dominated Europe and spoke a language from which most European tongues descended, and was perhaps preserved in modern Breton. The article therefore also presents a coherent view of the importance of Celtic ancestry for the developing French nation in the early nineteenth century.

Subgrouping the Sogeram languages

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Daniels ◽  
Danielle Barth ◽  
Wolfgang Barth
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistic ◽  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
The Way

Abstract Historical Glottometry is a method, recently proposed by Kalyan and François (François 2014; Kalyan & François 2018), for analyzing and representing the relationships among sister languages in a language family. We present a glottometric analysis of the Sogeram language family of Papua New Guinea and, in the process, provide an evaluation of the method. We focus on three topics that we regard as problematic: how to handle the higher incidence of cross-cutting isoglosses in the Sogeram data; how best to handle lexical innovations; and what to do when the data do not allow the analyst to be sure whether a given language underwent a given innovation or not. For each topic we compare different ways of coding and calculating the data and suggest the best way forward. We conclude by proposing changes to the way glottometric data are coded and calculated and the way glottometric results are visualized. We also discuss how to incorporate Historical Glottometry into an effective historical-linguistic research workflow.

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