Feb. 14-23: Linguistic reconstruction

• Read: Ch. 7-9 of Trask.
• Assignment 5: due Feb. 21.
• Assignment 6: due Feb. 28.

1. Language relationships.
   • Dialect geography. Dialects of English.
   • The concept of genetic relationship between languages.
   • Subgrouping. Shared innovations and shared retentions.
   • The tree model.
   • Dialect chains, convergence, contact, and the wave model.
   • Pidgins and creole languages.
   • Obsolescence, death, and revival of languages. Standardization.
   • Major language families of the world.

2. Comparative-historical linguistics: establishing language relationships.
   • Method 1: Word comparison.
     • Shared vocabulary as evidence for genetic relationships.
     • Greenberg's method of mass comparison.
     • Lexicostatistics and glottochronology.
     • Problems and pitfalls.

   • Method 2: Morphological comparison.
     • Shared morphological idiosyncrasies as evidence for genetic relationships.
     • Problems and pitfalls.

   • Method 3: The modern comparative method.
     • How the comparative method works and why: regularity of sound change, arbitrariness of the sign, the uniformitarian principle.
     • An example: reconstructing the Indo-European consonant system. Grimm's Law, Verner's Law, Grassmann's Law.
     • Reconstructing split and merger.
     • Naturalness, typology, universals.
     • The reality of proto-languages.

3. Internal reconstruction
   • Using synchronic alternations as evidence for earlier changes.
   • An example: the Indo-European vowel system and laryngeal theory.