Comparative Indo-European linguistics : an introduction

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Bibliographic Information

Comparative Indo-European linguistics : an introduction

Robert S.P. Beekes ; [translated by Paul Gabriner]

J. Benjamins, c1995

  • : eur : hb
  • : us : hb
  • : eur : pbk
  • : us : pbk

Other Title

Vergelijkende taalwetenschap

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Note

"This book is a revision of the original book, Vergelijkende taalwetenschap, which was published in 1990 by Het Spectrum (Aula paperback), in Utrecht, the Netherlands."--Foreword

Bibliography: p. [284]-300

Includes indexes

Description and Table of Contents

Description

The book gives a comprehensive introduction to Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, the first to appear in English. It starts with a presentation of the languages of the family (from English and the other Germanic languages, the Celtic and Slavic languages, Latin, Greek and Sanskrit through Armenian and Albanian) and a discussion of the culture and origin of the Indo-Europeans, the speakers of the Indo-European proto-language, who are considered to have lived in what is today the Ukraine.The book gives an introduction into the nature of language change and the methods of reconstruction of older language stages, with many examples (from the Indo-European languages). A full description is given of the sound changes, which makes it possible to follow the origin of the different Indo-European languages step by step. This is followed by a discussion of the development of all the morphological categories of Proto-Indo-European. The book presents the latest in scholarly insights, like the laryngeal and glottalic theory, the accentuation, the ablaut patterns, and these are systematically integrated into the treatment. While the book presents a large amount of material and discusses many principles and the relevant terminology, it is written in a very readable and lucid style. Use of the book is facilitated by an appendix on phonetics, a glossary, full indexes, and an extensive bibliography. The book can be used as a first introduction to the field, and at the same time brings the reader to the current moment of research.

Table of Contents

  • Part 1 General section: introduction - historical and comparative linguistics, comparative linguistics, comparative linguistics and other forms of linguistics, the language families of the world
  • the Indo-European family of languages - the genesis of comparative linguistics, the discovery of the Indo-European family of languages, the Indo-European languages, the splitting up of proto-Indo-European (dialects), Krahe's "Old European", extinct Indo-European languages (Pelasgian), relations of the Indo-European family (the Nostratic theory)
  • the culture and origin of the Indo-Europeans - the culture of the Indo-Europeans, poetry, the arrival of the Indo-Europeans, the origin of the Indo-Europeans
  • language change
  • sound change - the sound law, sporadic sound changes, the sound laws (conditioning, formulation and distinctive features), phonemicization of changes, types of sound change and the phonemic system, phonetic classification of sound changes (consonants, short vowels, long vowels and diphthongs), causes of sound change
  • analogy - proportional analogy, non-proportional analogy (levelling), replacement, secondary function and split, analogy and sound law, model and motive, the regularity of analogy (direction, change or no change), the limits of analogy
  • other form-changes, such as the accent - additions, adopted forms, the creation of new formations, accent shift
  • vocabulary changes - the disappearance of old words and the appearance of new ones, changes of meaning, causes
  • morphological and syntactic change - morpological change, syntactic change, causes
  • internal reconstruction
  • the comparative method. Part 2 Comparative Indo-European linguistics: the sounds and the accent - the PIE Phonemic System, preliminary remarks on the ablaut, preliminary remarks on the laryngeal theory, the stops, PIE, the sonants, the vowels, the diphthongs, the laryngeals, accentuation, from proto-Indo-European to English
  • introduction - the structure of the morphemes, ablaut, word types
  • the substantive - word formation, inflection
  • the adjective - stems, feminine and neuter, inflection, comparison
  • the pronoun - the non-personal and the personal
  • the numerals - the cardinal numbers, the ordinal numbers, collective adjectives, adverbs, compounds
  • indeclinable words - adverbs, negation particles, particles, conjunctions, interjections
  • the verb - the present, the aorist, the perfect, the middle, the dual, the static inflection, the Moods, the nominal forms, the PIE verbal system, a paradigm as example
  • from proto-Indo-European to Albanian
  • phonetics.

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