Historical Linguistics and the Comparative Study of African LanguagesThis advanced historical linguistics course book deals with the historical and comparative study of African languages. The first part functions as an elementary introduction to the comparative method, involving the establishment of lexical and grammatical cognates, the reconstruction of their historical development, techniques for the subclassification of related languages, and the use of language-internal evidence, more specifically the application of internal reconstruction. Part II addresses language contact phenomena and the status of language in a wider, cultural-historical and ecological context. Part III deals with the relationship between comparative linguistics and other disciplines. In this rich course book, the author presents valuable views on a number of issues in the comparative study of African languages, more specifically concerning genetic diversity on the African continent, the status of pidginised and creolised languages, language mixing, and grammaticalisation. |
Contents
| 1 | |
Part II The linguistic manifestation of contact | 177 |
Part III Studying language change in a wider contex | 281 |
| 373 | |
Appendix | 407 |
| 409 | |
| 419 | |
Other editions - View all
Historical Linguistics and the Comparative Study of African Languages Gerrit Jan Dimmendaal No preview available - 2011 |
Historical Linguistics and the Comparative Study of African Languages Gerrit Jan Dimmendaal No preview available - 2011 |
Common terms and phrases
African languages Afroasiatic alternative Arabic areal argued attested Bantu languages Benue-Congo borrowing Chadic Chapter classification cluster cognate common comparative method consonants constituent order constitute creoles creolised Cushitic dialects diflerent Dimmendaal Eastern Nilotic Eastern Sudanic English Ethiopian example find first forms fricative grammatical grammaticalisation Greenberg 1963 guages Hausa Indo-European inflectional influence innovations involving Kalenjin Khoisan language contact language families latter lexical linguistic Maasai marker Mbugu Michif modified morphemes morphological nasal neighbouring Neogrammarian Niger-Congo Nilo-Saharan Nilotic languages Northern noun noun classes noun-class Nuba Mountains Nyamwezi occur ofthe Omotic Omotic language phonetic phonological phylum pidgins prefixes Proto-Bantu reconstructed reflect reflexes related languages restructuring result role root semantic Semitic shift similar so-called Songhay sound changes sound correspondences Southern Nilotic speakers specific speech community spoken structure subgroup suffixes Surmic Surmic languages Swahili synchronic syntactic Tima Turkana typological verb vowels Western Nilotic languages whereas words