Linguistic Reconstruction. An Introduction to Theory and Method

Häftad bok. Oxford University Press. 1:a uppl. 1995. 372 sidor.

Mycket gott skick. Ägarsignatur på insidan av frampärmen. Språk: Engelska. "Anthony Fox's new textbook is primarily for students with an elementary knowledge of general linguistics who need an up-to-date introduction to historical linguistics, particularly to new developments in the theory and practice of linguistic reconstruction. How and why are languages constantly changing? Historical linguistics seeks to find out by going beyond the history of individual languages to discover the general principles which underlie language change. But our evidence is severely limited. Most of the world's languages are still unwritten, and even in areas with long written traditions, such as Europe and the Near East, documentary evidence streches only a little way back along the path of the historical development of languages. How, then, can we uncover our long linguistic prehistory, and what can it tell us about language change? Recent textbooks in historical linguistics concentrate more on the theory of change than on the methods of linguistic reconstruction. Anthony Fox redresses the balance, providing an accessible general guide to the methods by which linguists recover the prehistory of languages, and the theoretical bases of linguistic construction. His comprehensive survey covers both the orthodox techniques of the comparative method and internal reconstruction, and newer, less well-established principles such as the application of linguistic universals and language typology, and quantitiative techniques. In the final chapter he reviews the principles for establishing language relationships and for uncovering information about the homelands and cultures of the prehistoric speakers of reconstructed languages".