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Morphology and Language History
In honour of Harold Koch
This volume aims to make a contribution to codifying the methods and practices linguists use to recover language history, focussing predominantly on historical morphology. The volume includes studies on a wide range of languages: not only Indo-European, but also Austronesian, Sinitic, Mon-Khmer, Basque, one Papuan language family, as well as a number of Australian families. Few collections are as cross-linguistic as this, reflecting the new challenges which have emerged from the study of languages outside those best known from historical linguistics. The contributors illustrate shared methodological and theoretical issues concerning genetic relatedness (that is, the use of morphological evidence for classification and subgrouping), reconstruction and processes of change with a diverse range of data. The volume is in honour of Harold Koch, who has long combined innovative research on understudied languages with methodological rigour and codification of practices within the discipline.
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 298] 2008. x, 364 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 19 September 2008
Published online on 19 September 2008
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
- Contributors' addresses | pp. vii–ix
- IntroductionClaire Bowern, Bethwyn Evans, Grace Koch and Luisa Miceli | pp. 1–11
- Part I. Genetic relatedness
- 1. Western Torres Strait language classification and developmentBarry Alpher, Geoffrey O’Grady and Claire Bowern | pp. 15–30
- 2. The classification of Pinikura, Western AustraliaPeter Austin | pp. 31–41
- 3. Bound pronominals in the West Papuan languagesMark Donohue | pp. 43–58
- 4. Alawa and its neighbours: Enigma variations 1 and 2Margaret Sharpe | pp. 59–69
- 5. Reconstructing pre-Warumungu pronominalsJane Simpson | pp. 71–87
- Part II. Reconstruction
- 6. Splitting vs. lumping in morphological analysis: Evidence from GreekAvery D. Andrews | pp. 91–97
- 7. Pronominal accretions in Pama-NyunganPaul Black | pp. 99–106
- 8. Associated eating and movement: further examination of Yuwaalaraay Gamilaraay verb suffixesJohn Giacon | pp. 107–121
- 9. The origin of conjugation markers in Australian languagesMark Harvey | pp. 123–137
- 10. Some remarks on negatives in Southeastern AustraliaLuise Hercus and Stephen Morey | pp. 139–154
- 11. *gṷes-, *(z)g ṷes-, *(s)g ṷesh2-? The PIE root for 'extinguish/go out'Jay H. Jasanoff | pp. 155–166
- 12. The language of Central Australian Aboriginal songsGrace Koch and Myfany Turpin | pp. 167–183
- 13. The origin of noun classes in Worrorran languagesWilliam B. McGregor | pp. 185–200
- 14. Hittite duwān (parā)H. Craig Melchert | pp. 201–209
- 15. Morphological reconstruction and Australian languagesLuisa Miceli | pp. 211–219
- 16. Warlpiri verb roots in comparative perspectiveDavid Nash | pp. 221–234
- 17. Oujiang Wu tones and acoustic reconstructionPhil Rose | pp. 235–250
- 18. Issues in the morphological reconstruction of Proto-Mon-KhmerPaul J. Sidwell | pp. 251–265
- Part III. Processes of change
- 19. Case selection Old and New BasqueCathryn Donohue | pp. 269–280
- 20. Third person plural as a morphological zero: Object marking in MarovoBethwyn Evans | pp. 281–298
- 21. The morphological development of the perfect in Jersey Norman FrenchAnthony J. Liddicoat and Timothy Jowan Curnow | pp. 299–312
- 22. Grand-daddy morphs: The importance of suffixes in reconstructing Pama-Nyungan kinshipPatrick McConvell | pp. 313–327
- 23. Morphology of the eggs, and what it can tell us about Romanian nominal inflectionKim Schulte | pp. 329–339
- 24. The refunctionalisation of first person plural inflection in TiwiJohn Charles Smith | pp. 341–348
- 25. A chain vowel raising in the early history of ChineseXiaonong Zhu | pp. 349–354
- Index of languages | pp. 355–359
- Index of subjects | pp. 361–364
“Comparative studies of Australian languages have recurrently suffered either from a lack of methodological rigour, or from the belief that the comparative method simply does not apply on this continent. Over three decades Harold Koch's patient and painstaking work, by bringing an Indo-Europeanist training to bear on what appear to be intractable problems, is a welcome corrective to these trends. The papers in this volume pay a suitable tribute to his work, ranging over a number of philological problems in Australian languages with a leavening of other reconstructive work on Hittite, Papuan, Mon-Khmer, Basque and Sino-Tibetan. There is a particular emphasis on morphological reconstruction, which is at the same time a still-underdeveloped aspect of the comparative method and the likely key to many problems in comparative Australian linguistics.”
Nick Evans, Professor of Linguistics, Australian National University
Cited by (6)
Cited by six other publications
Jahanbani, Zahra & Jalal Tabashir
Alves, Mark
Browne, Mitchell
Kailuweit, Rolf
Stockigt, Clara
2015. Early Descriptions of Pama-Nyungan Ergativity. Historiographia Linguistica 42:2-3 ► pp. 335 ff.
Robbeets, Martine & Walter Bisang
2014. Chapter 1. When paradigms change. In Paradigm Change [Studies in Language Companion Series, 161], ► pp. 1 ff.
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