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Language Contacts in Prehistory: Studies in Stratigraphy. Papers from the Workshop on Linguistic Stratigraphy and Prehistory at the Fifteenth ... 2001
Papers from the Workshop on Linguistic Stratigraphy and Prehistory at the Fifteenth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Melbourne, 17 August 2001
Every language includes layers of lexical and grammatical elements that entered it at different times in the more or less distant past. Hence, for periods preceding our earliest historical documentation, linguistic stratigraphy — the systematic study of such layers — may yield information about the prehistory of a given tradition of speaking in a variety of ways. For instance, irregular phonological reflexes may be evidence of the convergence of diverse dialects in the formation of a language, and layers of material from different source languages may form a record of changing cultural contacts in the past. In this volume are discussed past problems and current advances in the stratigraphy of Indo-European, African, Southeast Asian, Australian, Oceanic, Japanese, and Meso-American languages.
Every language includes layers of lexical and grammatical elements that entered it at different times in the more or less distant past. Hence, for periods preceding our earliest historical documentation, linguistic stratigraphy — the systematic study of such layers — may yield information about the prehistory of a given tradition of speaking in a variety of ways. For instance, irregular phonological reflexes may be evidence of the convergence of diverse dialects in the formation of a language, and layers of material from different source languages may form a record of changing cultural contacts in the past. In this volume are discussed past problems and current advances in the stratigraphy of Indo-European, African, Southeast Asian, Australian, Oceanic, Japanese, and Meso-American languages.
292 pages, Hardcover
First published April 28, 2003
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March 20, 2013
Language Contacts in Prehistory: Studies in Stratigraphy collects 11 papers originally presented at a workshop during the Fifteenth International Conference on Historical Linguistics in 2001. One paper from that workshop, Theo Vennemann on his wacky "Semitic superstrate in Germanic" theory, appeared elsewhere.
The volume has contributions on several different language families and areas: Indo-European (Bernard Mees, Henning Andersen, Bridget Drinka), Africa (Christopher Ehret, B.F.Y.P. Masele, Derek Nurse), SE Asia (Anthony Diller), Australia (Patrick McConvell, Michael Smith), Oceania (Hans Schmidt), Japan (J. Marshall Unger) and Mezo-America (Karin Dakin).
Not everything from this volume is within my own field or those other fields I try to keep up with, so I’ll limit my comments to four papers.
Bernard Mees’s "Stratum and Shadow: A genealogy of stratigraphy theories from the Indo-European west" offers a summary of attempts to explain Germanic, Celtic and Italic mysteries through super- or substratum relationship. You’ll learn about such entertaining sideshows of Indo-European studies as De Jubainville’s elaborate theory of Germanic warriors serving Celtic overlords.
Henning Andersen’s "Slavic and the Indo-European migrations" looks at inconsistent reflexes in the Slavic and Baltic languages (centum-satem mixing, syllable resonants becoming either -iR- or uR, etc.). Andersen suggests that these two language families spread over another population that was living in the area and, surprisingly, spoke an Indo-European language.
Bridget Drinka contributes "The development of the perfect in Indo-European". Drinka has been one of the foremost scholars calling for a recognition that many IE grammatical features cannot be reconstruction for the protolanguage, but rather spread areally after the breakup of Proto-Indo-European. (Her doctoral thesis on the spread of the sigmatic aorist is good reading.) In this case she looks at the distribution of perfect constructions and suggests that originally PIE formed the perfect only with o-grade roots, while reduplication is a later development limited to certain groups. Furthermore, those groups settled on different vowels for the reduplicating syllable.
Finally, J. Marshall Unger’s "Substratum and adstratum in prehistoric Japan" argues for a genetic relationship between Korean and Japanese. Unger claims that the large differences between these languages, which seem strange if they separated only 2500 years ago, can be ascribed to the different languages Korean and Japanese entered into contact with in the peninsula and on Honsu, respectively. I find Unger’s thesis unconvincing, but he does cite a number of other publications that sound interesting, so it’s worth it for the bibliography alone.
The volume has contributions on several different language families and areas: Indo-European (Bernard Mees, Henning Andersen, Bridget Drinka), Africa (Christopher Ehret, B.F.Y.P. Masele, Derek Nurse), SE Asia (Anthony Diller), Australia (Patrick McConvell, Michael Smith), Oceania (Hans Schmidt), Japan (J. Marshall Unger) and Mezo-America (Karin Dakin).
Not everything from this volume is within my own field or those other fields I try to keep up with, so I’ll limit my comments to four papers.
Bernard Mees’s "Stratum and Shadow: A genealogy of stratigraphy theories from the Indo-European west" offers a summary of attempts to explain Germanic, Celtic and Italic mysteries through super- or substratum relationship. You’ll learn about such entertaining sideshows of Indo-European studies as De Jubainville’s elaborate theory of Germanic warriors serving Celtic overlords.
Henning Andersen’s "Slavic and the Indo-European migrations" looks at inconsistent reflexes in the Slavic and Baltic languages (centum-satem mixing, syllable resonants becoming either -iR- or uR, etc.). Andersen suggests that these two language families spread over another population that was living in the area and, surprisingly, spoke an Indo-European language.
Bridget Drinka contributes "The development of the perfect in Indo-European". Drinka has been one of the foremost scholars calling for a recognition that many IE grammatical features cannot be reconstruction for the protolanguage, but rather spread areally after the breakup of Proto-Indo-European. (Her doctoral thesis on the spread of the sigmatic aorist is good reading.) In this case she looks at the distribution of perfect constructions and suggests that originally PIE formed the perfect only with o-grade roots, while reduplication is a later development limited to certain groups. Furthermore, those groups settled on different vowels for the reduplicating syllable.
Finally, J. Marshall Unger’s "Substratum and adstratum in prehistoric Japan" argues for a genetic relationship between Korean and Japanese. Unger claims that the large differences between these languages, which seem strange if they separated only 2500 years ago, can be ascribed to the different languages Korean and Japanese entered into contact with in the peninsula and on Honsu, respectively. I find Unger’s thesis unconvincing, but he does cite a number of other publications that sound interesting, so it’s worth it for the bibliography alone.
Displaying 1 of 1 review