Cover not available
Part of
Paradigm Change: In the Transeurasian languages and beyond
Edited by Martine Robbeets and Walter Bisang
[Studies in Language Companion Series 161] 2014
► pp. 61–88

Chapter 3. Derivational paradigms in diachrony 
and comparison

 | University of California, Berkeley
Wordlists used for subgrouping and long-range comparison under-utilize the verbal lexicon, and comparative work of all kinds makes more use of lexical roots and inflectional morphology than word formation. This chapter is a first attempt to utilize derivational morphology of verbs, in particular typologies of derivational processes and derivational bases, in subgrouping and external comparison of several language families of Eurasia. The basic method has four steps: set up a closed list of well-defined lexemes; set up a derivational type or paradigm or space and situate each word in that paradigm; determine which, if any, of the words or word forms in the paradigm is basic; and utilize what can be known about how the base determines the evolution of the whole set. It turns out that properties of the base plus the structure of the paradigm, together with some minimal information about the cognacy and/or segmental structure of the root, can yield a surprisingly good subgrouping from a small wordlist. Addition of this approach to the usual set of comparative procedures could increase the rigor of external comparison.
Published online: 8 October 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.161.08nic
References (29)
References
Anthony, David W. 2007. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Donohue, Mark, Musgrave, Simon, Whiting, Bronwen & Wichmann, Søren. 2011. Typological feature analysis models linguistic geography. Language 87(1): 369–383. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dunn, Michael, Terrill, Angela, Reesink, Ger P., Foley, Robert A. & Levison, Stephen C. 2005. Structural phylogenetics and the reconstruction of ancient language history. Science 309: 2072–2075. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, Joseph H. 1960. An Afro-Asiatic pattern of gender and number agreement. Journal of the American Oriental Society 80: 317–321. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1987. Language in the Americas. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Huson, Daniel H. & Bryant, David. 2006. Application of phylogenetic networks in evolutionary studies. Molecular Biology and Evolution 34(3): 254–267.Google Scholar
Janhunen, Juha. 2001. Indo-Uralic and Ural-Altaic: On the diachronic implications of areal typology. In Early Contacts between Uralic and Indo-European: Linguistic and Archaeological Considerations, Christian Carpelan, Asko Parpola & Petteri Koskikallio (eds), 207–220. Helsinki: Finno-Ugrian Society.Google Scholar
Johanson, Lars. 1998. The history of Turkic. In The Turkic Languages, Lars Johanson & Éva Ágnes Csató (eds), 81–125. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Joki, Aulis J. 1973. Uralier und Indogermanen: Die älteren Berührungen zwischen den uralischen und indogermanischen Sprachen. Helsinki: Société Finno-Ougrienne.Google Scholar
Koivulehto, Jorma. 2000. Finno-Ugric reflexes of Northwest Indo-European and early stages of Indo-Iranian. In Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, Karlene Jones-Bley, Martin E. Huld & Angela Della Volpe (eds), 21–44. Washington DC: Institute for the Study of Man.Google Scholar
. 2001. The earliest contacts between Indo-European and Uralic speakers in the light of lexical loans. In Early Contacts between Uralic and Indo-European: Linguistic and Archaeological Considerations, Christian Carpelan, Asko Parpola & Petteri Koskikallio (eds), 235–263. Helsinki: Suomalais-ugrilainen Seura.Google Scholar
Kulikov, Leonid. 2009. Valence-changing categories in Indo-Aryan and Indo-European: A diachronic typological portrait of Vedic Sanskrit. In Multilingualism. Proceedings of the 23rd Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics, Ajnu Saxena & Ake Viberg (eds), 75–92. Uppsala: Uppsala University.Google Scholar
Kurylowicz, Jerzy. 1947. La nature des procès dits analogiques. Acta Linguistica 5: 17–34.Google Scholar
. 1964. The Inflectional Categories of Indo-European. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.Google Scholar
Luraghi, Silvia. 2012. Basic valence orientation and the middle voice in Hittite. Studies in Language 36(1): 1–32. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nakhleh, Luay, Ringe, Don & Warnow, Tandy. 2005. Perfect phylogenetic networks: A new methodology for reconstructing the evolutionary history of natural languages. Language 81: 382–420. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nichols, Johanna. 1996. The comparative method as heuristic. In The Comparative Method Reviewed: Regularity and Irregularity in Language Change, Mark Durie & Malcolm D. Ross (eds), 39–71. Melbourne: OUP.Google Scholar
Nichols, Johanna, Peterson, David A. & Barnes, Jonathan. 2004. Transitivizing and detransitivizing languages. Linguistic Typology 8(2): 149–211. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nichols, Johanna. 2006. Quasi-cognates and lexical type shifts: Rigorous distance measures for long-range comparison. In Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages, James Clackson, Peter Forster & Colin Renfrew (eds), 57–65. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
. 2009. Expanding character sets for phylogeny: A Slavic test case. In Discovering History Through Language: Papers in Honor of Malcolm Ross, Bethwyn Evans (ed), 127–151. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Pokorny, Julius. 1959. Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch. Bern: Francke.Google Scholar
Ringe, Don, Warnow, Tandy & Taylor, Ann. 2002. Indo-European and computational cladistics. Transactions of the Philological Society 100: 59–129. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rix, Helmut. 2001. Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben. Die Wurzeln und ihre Primärstammbildungen. Wiesbaden: Reichert.Google Scholar
Sapir, Edward. 1913. Wiyot and Yurok, Algonkin languages of California. American Anthropologist 15: 617–646. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Slobin, Dan I. 2004. The many ways to search for a frog: Linguistic typology and the expression of motion events. In Relating Events in Narrative, Vol. 2: Typological and Contextual Perspectives, S. Stroemqvist & L. Verhoeven (eds), 219–257. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Talmy, Leonard. 1985. Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In Language Typology and Lexical Description, Vol. 3: Grammatical Categories and the Lexicon, Tim Shopen (ed.), 36–149. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
von Waldenfels, Ruprecht & Nichols, Johanna. 2013. Better characters for better phylogenies: Slavic test cases. Presented at ICHL 21 , Oslo.Google Scholar
Watkins, Calvert. 2011. The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. Boston MA: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Grünthal, Riho & Johanna Nichols
2016. Transitivizing-detransitivizing typology and language family history. Lingua Posnaniensis 58:2 ► pp. 11 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.