Languages & Linguistics
Comparative Method
The comparative method in linguistics involves analyzing similarities and differences between languages to uncover their historical relationships and reconstruct their common ancestral forms. By comparing vocabulary, grammar, and phonological features, linguists can trace the evolution of languages and identify their shared origins. This method is essential for understanding language families and the historical development of languages.
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9 Key excerpts on "Comparative Method"
- Clifton Pye(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- University of Chicago Press(Publisher)
The current practice of crosslinguistic research on language acquisition is unsystematic in two fundamental ways. Crosslinguistic studies do not control the languages that are investigated or identify the contexts of use for the linguistic elements in each language. The lack of attention to the language sample typically introduces a bias toward data from European languages that have obligatory subjects, accusative agreement, and verb suffixes that mark tense and agreement. The categories used to analyze children’s language (e.g., subject, tense, pronoun, verb) are derived from the investigation of European languages and lack equivalent units in other languages. Researchers continue to mistake the results derived from the investigation of a few languages for evidence of universal features of language development. In the absence of a systematic framework for crosslinguistic research, investigators cannot construct a comprehensive picture of language acquisition.In this chapter, I outline the Comparative Method of crosslinguistic research that addresses these concerns. The investigation of familiar languages will enable readers who lack a background in historical linguistics to understand the Comparative Method more easily. By focusing on a small feature of the languages, the number of extraneous factors can be reduced. The most important of these factors is the context of use for the linguistic elements. Extensive investigation is often required to determine the contexts of use in each language, and few acquisition studies provide descriptions of these contexts. The goal of the Comparative Method is to illuminate how children acquire the complex symphony of the adult language rather than looking for a single universal feature or constraint. We need a full description of children’s linguistic accomplishments before we can begin to understand how they acquire a language.3.1 The Comparative Method of Historical LinguisticsHistorical linguists use the Comparative Method to reconstruct the sounds, words, and grammar of an ancestral language from the linguistic features retained by the descendant languages (Campbell 1998; Paul 1889). In historical linguistics, the Comparative Method begins by assembling lists of words from genetically related languages. Table 3.1 shows a classic example of the Comparative Method using the words for ‘house’ and ‘one’ in three Mayan languages. These words are similar enough to one another to infer that the Proto-Mayan language had words for ‘house’ and ‘one’.The forms of the words in Proto-Mayan can be reconstructed by comparing the sounds that occur in each position. The lexical positions of the phonemes constitute the contexts of use for each sound. Table 3.2 shows the correspondence sets for these sounds. There is a complete correspondence for the vowels in both words, so we can infer that the Proto-Mayan words had the vowels *a and *u (historical linguists use asterisks to indicate a reconstructed form). The consonants for the word jun ‘one’ are also the same in the three languages and show that Proto-Mayan had the consonants *j and *n. The initial consonants in the word for ‘house’ have a correspondence that differs from the consonants in the word for ‘one’. Historical linguists use discrepancies between correspondence sets to infer that the Proto-Mayan consonant in the word for ‘house’ was different from the consonants in the word for ‘one’. Since we already have total correspondence sets for *j and *n, one option in the case of the word for ‘one’ is to assume that the original consonant was *nh. Reconstructing the sounds for these words enables us to infer that the Proto-Mayan word for ‘house’ was *nha and the Proto-Mayan word for ‘one’ was *jun
- Henry M. Hoenigswald(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
THE Comparative Method HENRY M. HOENIGSWALD The term 'comparative' has been applied to linguistics in a number of ways. If it were being coined nowadays it would presumably describe an approach under which languages are classified, according to some taxonomic framework, by similarities and differences. It is well known that there is no general agreement on any such frame-work; as different criteria are selected different classifications are obtained. Still, a presumption is forming that certain principles may be more natural than others. One could, for instance, ask by what means different languages live up to the requirement for the possession of such overt properties as may be thought to have been established as universal. Or one might wish to classify the systems of rules which lead from one, possibly universal, concealed structure to the multiplicity of surface structures that is in fact encountered. These and other possible instances of 'comparison' are not only worthwhile but central both to linguistics as a whole and to what has come to be called, through the accidents and vicissitudes of the history of scholarship, 'com-parative' linguistics in the special, technical sense of the word. To avoid confusion it is best to distinguish typological comparison of languages from applications of the 'Comparative Method'' in the more technical sense just alluded to. We shall here be concerned with this 'comparative' method. Although this distinction has not always been sharp, the idea of using the compari-son, that is, the matching of items in two or more languages with a view to reconstruc-ting their common ancestry, has been present ever since Friedrich von Schlegel, in analogy to comparative anatomy, first spoke of comparative grammar in 1808.
eBook - PDF- Mary R. Haas(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
14 INTRODUCTION of that language (and provided of course that the language has more than one descendant with which to work). The usual tech-nical term for this method is simply the 'Comparative Method' and the usual technical term for what can be reconstructed of the an-cestor language is 'protolanguage'. Such a protolanguage may have been spoken from one to several thousands of years ago. The nineteenth century is celebrated in the history of linguistics because of its development of the Comparative Method and its successful application of the method to that family of languages known as Indo-European which comprises many of the languages of India and most of the languages of Europe. The method has also, been applied with great success to several branches of the Indo-European family, such as Romance, Germanic, and Slavic. 1.2 REGULARITY OF SOUND CHANGE The most important breakthrough in the development of the com-parative method came when it was discovered that, among lan-guages which are related to one another, it is possible to work out a series of statements about the sounds of these languages such that every x in language A corresponds to y in language B and to z in language C. (This subincludes the possibilities that y and z are identical with x, that y or z is identical with x, and that y is identical with z but not with x). This principle, which came to be known as 'the regularity of sound change', is one of the truly great dis-coveries in the history of linguistics. The importance of this discovery was far-reaching. For, as Bloomfield emphasized in a late essay, 1 ... a new mastery of historical perspective brought about, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the development of comparative and historical linguistics. The method of this study may fairly be called one of the triumphs of nineteenth century science.
eBook - PDF- Hans Henrich Hock(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
18. Comparative Method: Establishing linguistic relationship 'The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists: there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick and the Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family, if this were the place for discussing any question concerning the antiquities of Persia.' This quotation from Sir William Jones's 'Third Anniversary Discourse, on the Hindus' of 1786 has a double significance for the history of linguistics. On one hand, it provided one of the most important stimuli for research in comparative Indo-European linguistics, a field which soon became the most thoroughly investigated area of historical and comparative linguistics and which to the present day has remained the most important source for our understanding of linguistic change. At the same time, however, Jones's statement is important also for the fact that perhaps for the first time, it offered a very succinct and quite explicit summary of what have turned out to be the basic assumptions and motivations of comparative linguistics: accounting for similarities which cannot be attributed to chance, by the assumption that they are the result of descendancy from a common ancestor, i.
eBook - PDFLanguage History, Language Change, and Language Relationship
An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics
- Hans Henrich Hock, Brian D. Joseph(Authors)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
Introduction 427 Chapter 16 Comparative Method: Establishing language relationship The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquis-itely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists: there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick and the Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family, if this were the place for discussing any question concerning the antiquities of Persia. (Sir William Jones, Third Anniversary Discourse, on the Hindus, Royal Asiatic Society, 1786) 1. Introduction The epigraph above, which readers will remember from Chapter 2, has had a double significance for the history of linguistics. On one hand, it provided one of the most important stimuli for research in comparative Indo-European lin-guistics, a field which soon became the most thoroughly investigated area of historical and comparative linguistics and which to the present has remained the most important source for our understanding of linguistic change. This is the issue that we pursued in Chapter 2. On the other hand, Jones’s statement is important because, perhaps for the first time, it offered a succinct and explicit summary of what have turned out to be the basic assumptions and motivations of comparative linguistics: ac-counting for similarities which cannot be attributed to chance, by the assump-tion that they are the result of descent from a common ancestor.
eBook - PDFThe European Background of American Linguistics
Papers of the Third Golden Anniversary Symposium of the Linguistic Society of America
- Henry M. Hoenigswald(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
LINGUISTICS AS A SCIENCE: THE CASE OF THE Comparative Method RULON WELLS The topic proposed to me was 'Linguistics as a science in Europe and America 1 . In the course of considering what I might usefully say on this topic, I made two discoveries. One was that I had more to say about science than about Europe and America; and I am glad to find that my colleagues in this symposium have made up for my neglect. My other discovery was that, in order to discuss the science of language in a unified way, my best policy would be to concentrate on some theme, some strand, that would be less than the whole and yet would represent the whole. I chose the topic of the Comparative Method. And I have been able to take advantage of a timely circumstance. The volume on 'traditions and paradigms' heroically edited by Dell Hymes 1 appeared not long ago; it was natural for me to make some comments on its findings. And the frequent mention of Thomas Kühn served my purposes all the better: Linguistics furnishes, to my mind, excellent examples to show some faults and some limitations in his account of scientific activity. First thoughts on reading Hymes. The participants in the Hymes symposium of 1964 were supposed to address themselves to Kuhn's paradigm of a paradigm. Some complied, some didn't; those that did came out in the main with negative findings. One impression that strikes quickly and lingers long is that there were anticipations of this or that idea, e.g. of the Comparative Method. Of course, to chronicle anticipations is a familiar way of writing history; but some attempts to find anticipations have a heavier yield than others. The Hymes volume has a fairly heavy yield of anticipations, and the 1 The Hymes volume consists, for the most part, of papers presented to the Newberry Library Conference in February 1968.
eBook - PDFLanguage History, Language Change, and Language Relationship
An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics
- Hans Henrich Hock, Brian D. Joseph(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110613285-016 Chapter 16: Comparative Method: Establishing language relationship The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists: there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick and the Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family, if this were the place for discussing any question concerning the antiquities of Persia (Sir William Jones, Third Anniversary Discourse, on the Hindus, Royal Asiatic Society, 1786) 1 Introduction The epigraph above, which readers will remember from Chapter 2, has had a double significance for the history of linguistics. On one hand, it provided an important stimulus for research in comparative Indo-European linguistics, a field which soon became the most thoroughly investigated area of historical and comparative linguistics and which to the present has remained the most impor-tant source for our understanding of linguistic change. This is the issue that we pursued in Chapter 2. More important yet, Jones’s statement is significant because it offers a suc-cinct and explicit summary of what have turned out to be the basic assumptions and motivations of comparative linguistics: accounting for similarities which cannot be attributed to chance, by the assumption that they are the result of descent from a common ancestor.
eBook - PDF- Frans van Coetsem, Herbert L. Kufner, Frans van Coetsem, Herbert L. Kufner(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter(Publisher)
Methode of comparative Germanic linguistics 39 7. Methods of grouping and subgrouping 7.1 Dialectal division of Germanic 7.1.1 Sub -proto -languages Subgrouping of proven members of a language family is one task of comparative linguistics (2.6). One basis for such groupings is the compari-son of the individual languages and their geographic position. Thus, es-sentially the methods of dialectal geography are used both in synchronic contrasting and in diachronic interpretation of the spatial distribution of the compared features as shown by the isoglosses (4.3). In the comparison of features shared and not shared, the lack of any systematic technique of quantification is keenly felt. There is agreement, however, that certain differences are more significant than others, e.g., differences of inflectional morphology or of the phonemic pattern versus lexical (vocabulary) differences. From the point of view of comparative genetic linguistics, the essential distinction does not involve the relative importance of phonological, morphological, syntactical, and lexical differences (isoglosses) but rather the basic difference between features of the individual languages that are of later origin (innovations) and those which are retained features of the proto-language. There are the following possible explanations for shared features: preservation from the proto-language (versus loss elsewhere); later development of innovations through independent parallel origin; borrowing from one language by others; development in a common language community, i.e., in a 'sub-proto-language.' Thus, grouping the Gmc. languages according to their respective similarities involves also possibly setting up sub-proto-languages, which were so freely assumed for Romance by Hall (1960), and rejected by Pulgram (1961), who accepts only one final proto-language. The division cannot ignore the time (period)-element, particularly since the data from our oldest Gmc.
eBook - PDF- Paul L. Garvin(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
And — this concerns criterion c) — old loan items that have been subject to regular sound developments of the borrowing language will be included in groups with what may be quite frequently recurring correspondence features. The second type of special relationship causing agreement between two and more languages is genetic relationship. If an agreement between forms of two different languages can be ascribed neither to chance nor to borrowing, it has to be assumed that the two languages represent developments from a common source. Statements about non-chance, non-borrowing relationships between two or more different lan-guages therefore imply the claim that these languages are related in a very specific way involving the split of a more unified language into two or more differentiated languages in the course of an at least initially unspecified period of time. Comparative state-ments of this sort are by their very nature ultimately always diachronic statements. We consider now the steps taken to evaluate material suspected to be genetically related; we will concentrate on phonological materials. The central notion that determines the working procedures of a comparativist is that of systematic recurrence. When he finds systematically recurring correspondences, he will for all practical purposes be protected against interference from chance resemblance between un- BASIC PRINCIPLES OF THE Comparative Method 149 related items, and if the correspondences happen to recur with sufficient frequency and with an internal patterning, also from the interference of resemblance due to borrowing. Systematic recurrence means that a correspondence found in a set A must recur in the sets A', A, etc., unless it can be shown that special conditions prevailed in these sets that prevented the occurrence of the correspondence found in set A.
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