The Natural Science Background to the Development of Historical-Comparative Linguistics

Koerner, E. F. K.

doi:10.1075/cilt.106.02koe

Search citation statements

Order By: Relevance

Paper Sections

Select...

The Comparative Methods and Internal Reconstruction1

Citation Types

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Year Published

2003

2015

Publication Types

Select...

Other1

Article1

Relationship

Self Cite0

Independent2

Authors

Journals

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Fox 1995: 17-33). In general, the well-known parallelism in terminology and methodology between comparative linguistics and the natural sciences is intriguing (see Koerner 1993), although, as pointed out by Andersen (2006), the fundamental difference between historical linguistics and a field like evolutionary biology should not be ignored.…”

Section: The Comparative Methods and Internal Reconstructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Proto-Slavic Inflectional Morphology

Olander

2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: The Comparative Methods and Internal Reconstructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Proto-Slavic Inflectional Morphology

Olander

2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Die ursprünglichen fragestellungen hinter August schleichers Stammbaum-Theorie und Johannes Schmidts Wellen-Metapher

Pottelberge

2003

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

SummaryAugust Schleicher’s genealogical tree (Stammbaum) and Johannes Schmidt’s wave metaphor (Welle) are very well known linguistic concepts. At the same time there has been a widespread misunderstanding about their original meaning and the questions they were intended to deal with. Both were originally classificatory concepts, not models of language change. Schleicher, on the one hand, introduced theStammbaumby transforming hierarchical classes of Indo-European languages into successive historical stages. Schmidt, on the other hand, rejected the idea of subgrouping Indo-European languages as required by Schleicher’sStammbaum. Instead, he assumed an original continuum of languages. He described this continuum metaphorically in terms of concentric ‘waves’. The interpretation of the wave image as a metaphor for the geographical spread of linguistic innovations (as has become common) is the result of later adaptations in dialectology.

show abstract

The Natural Science Background to the Development of Historical-Comparative Linguistics

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Proto-Slavic Inflectional Morphology

Proto-Slavic Inflectional Morphology

Die ursprünglichen fragestellungen hinter August schleichers Stammbaum-Theorie und Johannes Schmidts Wellen-Metapher

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About