Historical Linguistics: Toward a Twenty-First Century Reintegration

by Don Ringe, Joseph F. Eska

Bringing the advances of theoretical linguistics to the study of language change in a systematic way, this innovative textbook demonstrates the mutual relevance of historical linguistics and contemporary linguistics. Numerous case studies throughout the book show both that theoretical linguistics can be used to solve problems where traditional approaches to historical linguistics have failed to produce satisfying results, and that the results of historical research can have an impact on theory. The book first explains the nature of human language and the sources of language change in broad terms. It then focuses on different types of language change from contemporary viewpoints, before exploring comparative reconstruction - the most spectacular success of traditional historical linguistics - and the problems inherent in trying to devise new methods for linguistic comparison. Positioned at the cutting edge of the field, the book argues that this approach can and should lead to the re-integration of historical linguistics as one of the core areas in the study of language.

Genres: Language, Linguistics, Nonfiction, History

325 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 2012

About the author

Don Ringe is a linguistics professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don Ringe and Joseph F. Eska's Historical Linguistics: Towards a Twenty-First Century Reintegration seeks to familiarize historical linguists -- working with a methodology and basic literature that has hardly changed in many decades -- with recent advances in other branches of the field, shedding light on difficult problems and making historical reconstructions more confident. Assuming that a reader has already worked through a rigorous basic introduction (I would recommend a common textbook followed by Hock's Principles of Historical Linguistics), Ringe & Eska's book is a helpful follow-up.

The state-of-the-art concepts that the authors seek to impart include William Labov's studies of sociolinguistic variation, Native Language Acquisition phenomena (so e.g. phonological changes and morphological restructuring can be seen as results of learner errors), Distributed Morphology and Kroch's Grammars in Competition Hypothesis. The field of computional cladistics is mentioned, but only references are given since the authors believe the field is too big to go into here. The authors choose not to work with Optimality Theory "because it does not seem well adapted to the description of phonological change".

All of these are applied to case studies from traditional historical-comparative linguistics. Reflecting the author's backgrounds, most of the examples are from the history of English, Greek and other ancient Indo-European languages, and German dialects. However, they also include sound changes from Algonquin languages, and a complex reconstruction spanning many pages towards the end of the book deals with dialects of Mansi (Finno-Ugrian).

While those studying or working within historical linguistics will gain a great deal from Ringe & Eska's synthesis, it is not without its flaws. It is strange that in the final chapter, "Reconstruction", the authors go back to discussing basics of historical linguistics that surely most readers would already be familiar with. The authors might also be too willing to sign on to the latest claims: at one point they claim that Ket has probably been securely linked to Na-Dene, but Lyle Campbell's 2011 critique of a proposed Dene-Yeniseian family is severe.