General linguistics and Indo-European reconstruction
- 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.
| Author: | Frederik H. H. KortlandtGND |
|---|---|
| URN: | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30-1156555 |
| URL: | http://www.kortlandt.nl/publications/art130e.pdf |
| Document Type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Date of Publication (online): | 2010/07/07 |
| Year of first Publication: | 2002 |
| Publishing Institution: | Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg |
| Release Date: | 2010/07/07 |
| GND Keyword: | Historische Sprachwissenschaft |
| Volume: | 2 |
| Page Number: | 15 |
| First Page: | 1 |
| Last Page: | 15 |
| Note: | Postprint, korrigierte Version, zuerst in: Rask, 2.1995, S. 91-109 |
| Source: | http://www.kortlandt.nl/publications/art130e.pdf ; (in:) Rask, 2, 1995, S. 91-109 |
| HeBIS-PPN: | 246710470 |
| Dewey Decimal Classification: | 4 Sprache / 40 Sprache / 400 Sprache |
| Sammlungen: | Linguistik |
| Linguistik-Klassifikation: | Linguistik-Klassifikation: Sprachtypologie / Language typology |
| Licence (German): |  Deutsches Urheberrecht |
