Linguistik-Klassifikation: Sprachtypologie / Language typology
4 search hits
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General linguistics and Indo-European reconstruction
(2002)
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Frederik H. H. Kortlandt
- There is good reason to be ambivalent about the usefulness of general considerations in linguistic reconstruction. As a heuristic device, a theoretical framework can certainly be helpful, but the negative potential of aprioristic considerations must not be underestimated. E.g., there is a whole range of phenomena which receive a natural explanation when we assume that glottalization is ancient in Germanic. The methodological question is: why have scholars been reluctant to identify the vestjysk stød with the English glottalization as a historical reality which may have been inherited from the proto-language? The role of general linguistics is to provide an idea of what can be expected in linguistic development, not by theoretical reasoning but by inspection of what actually happens.
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Japanese aru, iru, oru 'to be' : [oru ist bin aru]
(2007)
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Frederik H. H. Kortlandt
- Among the Japanese expressions for 'to be', the verbs aru (unmarked), iru (animate subject) and oru (humble variant of iru) are of special interest (cf. Martin 1975: 194f. for a descriptive account). We may look for cognates of these verbs in the (other) Altaic languages.
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Nivkh as a Uralo-Siberian language
(2007)
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Frederik H. H. Kortlandt
- In his magnificent book on the language relations across Bering Strait (1998), Michael Fortescue does not consider Nivkh (Gilyak) to be a Uralo-Siberian language. Elsewhere I have argued that the Indo-European verbal system can be understood in terms of its Indo-Uralic origins (2001). All of these languages belong to Joseph Greenberg’s Eurasiatic macro-family (2000). In the following I intend to reconsider the grammatical evidence for including Nivkh into the Uralo-Siberian language family. The Indo-Uralic evidence is of particular importance because it guarantees a time depth which cannot otherwise be attained.
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Indo-European E-, A-, O- in Slavic
(2005)
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Frederik H. H. Kortlandt
