Chronological Description

3 Key excerpts on "Chronological Description"

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  Linguistics in the Netherlands 1977–1979

  • Wim Zonneveld, Fred Weerman, Wim Zonneveld, Fred Weerman(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter Mouton

    (Publisher)

  Thus, together with historical linguistics also comparative linguistics receded into the background, i.e. the way in which languages are compared on the basis of genetic affinity between those languages, for other ways of com-paring languages such as language typology and Contrastive Linguis-tics are of a synchronic nature. For although historical and compara- 184 tive linguistics should be distinguished from each other, they are nevertheless two inseparable components of general linguistics. They are closely interrelated and neither can exist independently of the other. Historical linguistics, which must come first, can be charac-terized as a certain special form of comparative linguistics, inas-much as it involves the comparison of language forms which occur in chronologically successive stages within a particular language. Conversely the comparison of related languages must always - as far as possible - involve studying the history of those languages, be-cause it is precisely in the earlier stages of language, when diver-gences are not very great, that the inter-relationships between lan-guages are usually more obvious. With the advent of Structuralism it has become clear that the diachronic description in any case must always be based upon the synchronic description of the stages to be compared historically, as it is always the change from one coherent system into another that is involved. Yet structuralism could not provide any adequate description of the phenomenon of language change, as has been pointed out so clearly by J. van Marie in a Spektator article.In the middle of the nineteen-sixties there are however signs of a marked swing in opinion as to the place of the diachronic and the synchronic approach in linguistics.

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  Comparative Semitic Linguistics

  A Manual

  • Patrick R. Bennett(Author)
  • 1998(Publication Date)
  • Eisenbrauns

    (Publisher)

  3 Part 1 Basics of Descriptive Linguistics What’s in a Name? Before proceeding with the comparison of Semitic languages, the reader will need to understand the meanings of some basic linguistic terminology. The study of LINGUISTICS encompasses many diˆerent ˜elds. Linguistics may be the study of “language”—the human communication process, focusing on what we all share: the organs involved in speech, the speech areas in the brain, whatever language structures are “wired in” and universal. Linguistics may also be the study of “languages”—the speci˜c culture-bound systems of speech behavior. We will assume the latter de˜nition. This type of linguistics studies languages synchronically or diachronically. SYNCHRONIC LINGUISTICS examines a single language as spoken at a given time. DIACHRONIC LINGUISTICS is the study of a single language, tracing its development through time, looking at the similarities and diˆerences in several languages at the same time, or combining the two, studying the de- velopment of a language family from its common ancestor to the languages of today. Most of what we do in this manual will be diachronic, though the Semitist may have to do a synchronic study of a Semitic language at some point. Some of the activities that can be grouped as diachronic linguistics have their own names. DIALECTOLOGY is the diachronic study of dialects of a single language. COMPARATIVE LIN- GUISTICS applies to studies of two or more related languages; CONTRASTIVE LINGUISTICS de- scribes diˆerences between languages (related or not). It is important to note here that there are many schools of linguistics and many diˆerent traditions of diachronic linguistics, even within Semitics. Semitic languages are described in different traditions with very diˆerent terminology.

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  The Handbook of Historical Linguistics

  • Brian Joseph, Richard Janda, Brian Joseph, Richard Janda(Authors)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  Regarding the latter concept, we would like to stress that, as reflected in chapter 5 by nichols , it is just as important – even if this is traditionally a lesser concern for historical linguists – to consider what in a language does not change through time, not just what does change. Juxtaposing historical and history , we note that a linguistic diachronician may encounter both of the expressions “historical linguistics” and “language history” (on the earlier use of latter term, albeit from a slightly different van-tage point from that assumed here, consult Malkiel 1953). According to one On Language, Change, and Language Change 87 common view, doing historical linguistics in the sense of looking at earlier linguistic stages and making comparisons between and among them can also lead to studying language history: that is, the history of a particular language or languages – a kind of glosso(bio)graphy, so to speak. Such information generally forms the basis for our understanding of language change in general. There thus necessarily exists a link between language change and language history, even though the study of language change can be pursued without any need to venture very far, temporally, from the present – as shown by the work of Labov (along with his students and other collaborators) on urban American English in the latter half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. That is, one does not have to be very historical (much less historic; see below) to be a historical linguist. The field is open (as it should be) to both studies of language history and studies of language change. 96 We might then say that historical linguistics is about the linguistics of history and the history of languages, and includes all that those two areas encompass.

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