Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time

Etukansi
University of Chicago Press, 1992 - 358 sivua
Scholars have long sought to discover whether there is a detectable genetic relationship among the world's languages, whether linguistic methods can demonstrate that all of the world's languages evolved from a single "mother tongue". In this book, Johanna Nichols offers original and important material that is likely to change significantly the way this exploration is conducted. For over a century, the comparative method has been the principle analytic tool in the reconstruction of prehistoric languages from which historically attested languages have developed. This method looks for regular laws which govern sound correspondences among the cognate words of related languages. The problem with cross-linguistic work based on theories of sameness is that it is necessarily limited to seeking genetic relatedness and reducing structural variety to types. It is restricted to shallow time depths and cannot draw inferences from diversity. But unless it is fairly well understood in what ways languages may group and differ over great depths of time within a geographical area, speculation about whether a certain isolated shared feature signals a genetic relationship is futile. In this groundbreaking book, Nichols proposes means of describing, comparing, and interpreting linguistic diversity, both genetic and structural, and thereby provides the foundations for a theory of diversity based upon population science. Using a database of 174 languages representing the world's linguistic families and surveying a number of structural features and grammatical categories as well as geographical distribution, Nichols establishes the relative frequencies and markedness of grammatical properties, theirinteraction with each other, their relative diachronic stability, and their correlations with geographical location and type of linguistic area. Maps, tables, appendices, and a reproduction of the sample and database will enable readers to test Nichols's conclusions, explore further hypotheses, expand existing databases, and assign cross-linguistic problems to students. This book will be of critical interest to linguists, archaeologists, population specialists, and anyone interested in ways of classifying mankind.
 

Sisältö

H points in NP +
7
Favored and Disfavored Grammatical Patterns
45
Nounpronoun splits
78
Support for correlations of NP and D marking and S and
84
Frequencies of alignment patterns among parts of speech
90
Correlations between Types
97
Complexity and headdependent type
99
Word order and headdependent type
105
Conformity to preference for Aaffecting or Oaffecting valence changes
177
Departures from modal type
179
Departures from modal type
180
Departures from modal type
182
Structural Affinities between Areas
184
Means and frequencies of headdependent marking and complexity by area
186
Dominant alignment by area
187
Distributions required for significance on the test of Dryer 1989a
188

Word order and amount of headmarking morphology on the verb
106
Areal frequencies
107
Complexity and alignment
110
Mean complexity of dominant alignment types by area
111
Complexity and word order
112
Twoway breakdown
113
Summary of correlations for type features
114
Correlations of Structural Types with Grammatical Categories
116
Inalienable possession and marking of the NP
119
Inalienable possession and dominant alignment
122
Geography and inalienable possession
123
Geography and inclusiveexclusive oppositions
124
Concord subclass gender and macrogender in Chechen
126
Loci of class marking relative to the classbearing noun
128
Gender hotbeds and outliers
132
Plurality neutralization by part of speech and continent
148
Alignment and plurality neutralization languages with nonzero D and H
149
Valenceaffecting processes by area
155
Valenceincreasing + and decreasing voice systems and alignment
156
Aaffecting and Oaffecting voice systems and head dependent marking
157
Locus of marking and category of agreement or classification
161
Genetic and Areal
163
Genetic vs areal stability
165
Numerical values of gross types
166
Hierarchy of features based on number of gross types per stock
167
Conformity to majority type within groups
171
Valencechanging directionalities exhibited by groups
174
Conformity to preference for valence increase + decrease or both within groups
176
Significance levels for difference in frequency of HD type and alignment by area and type of area
189
Languages with high levels of complexity
193
Average range and degree of complexity by kind of area
194
Levels of significance for word order differences
196
Inclusiveexclusive oppositions
197
Number and percent of languages having noun classes by area
198
Number of languages having numeral classifiers by area
199
Significance levels for areal differences in frequency of noun classes and numeral classifiers
200
Plurality neutralization
201
Inalienable possession
202
Number of languages having PPs by area
203
Global clines
206
Significance levels for areal differences in frequency of three clinally distributed properties
207
Mean headdependent proportions in rank order
218
Analysis 1
220
Analysis 4
222
Summary of correlations between and within areas 12 areas
223
Occurrence of high and low likeness and nearness values
225
Propensity for affinity in decreasing order
226
Percentage of types by area
227
Geographical Distribution
231
Conclusions
254
Sample Languages
283
Alphabetical List of Languages
302
References
319
Indexes
343
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