Historical Linguistic Research Research Articles

PROTO-SLAVONIC COMPOUND WORDS WITH *SLAV- ʻFAMEʼ, ʻGLORYʼ, ʻRUMOURʼ: SYSTEM RECONSTRUCTION OF «GLORIOUS NAMES» PARADIGM

The paper focuses on the study of historical linguistic research of Proto-Slavonic anthroponyms composites with the stem *slav-. The topicality of this paper is determined by a declining interest in research of Old Slavonic lexical heritage in Slavonic historical and modern anthroponymy. The purpose of study is the description of the structure and semantics of anthroponymic composites with Proto Slavonic component *slav-. The object of the research is Nomina Personalia, taken from Slavonic written sources (namely, collections of Slavonic personal names, to a lesser extent — monuments of different times), which are formed by the way of compounding. Etymological, morphological and lexical-semantic peculiarities of Slavonic proper names as well as reconstructed Proto-Slavonic prototypes constitute the subject of the investigation. As the result of our research, the fragments of the paradigm of Proto-Slavonic compound words with exponent *slav-/*-slavъ are reconstructed; etymological ambiguity of some compound proper names is commented; morphological and semantical (ideological) peculiarities of archaic Slavonic dithematic anthroponyms are highlighted. Conclusions. Proto Slavonic binominal Nomina Propria with the exponent *slav-/*-slavъ are attested as prepositive determinatives as well as a postpositive defined word. Preliminary results of the group recondtruction of the units, which belonged to the viewed lingistical object, indicate the high degree of the stem *slav- productivity. In particular Proto Slavonic vocabulary may be supplemented with 230 prototypes; it is possible to expand geography for a number of previously proposed Proto-Slavonic words. High productivity of the paradigm with the exponent *slav- impels us to make the conclusion about significant culture role of *slav-anthroponyms in the life of Old Slavonic peoples. Lake some other exponents of Proto-Slavonic anthroponymic vocabulary, *slav- was a lexical unit of archaic poetic language used in ritualized actions. Examples of poetic speech demonstrate syntactic counterparts of dithematic personal mames on the basis of which the analyzed anthroponyms perhaps arose. The perspectives for further research are to uncover the system of structurally and etymologically identical dithematical anthroponyms in onomastic vocabulary of Baltic and Iranian languages and comparative analyzis of their cultural semantics.

A diachronic analysis of Spanish alg- series and n- series items in negated clauses

Abstract While previous studies have analyzed the changing nature of polarity items (PIs) in Latin (see Gianollo 2018, 2020) and the licensing conditions of PIs in modern languages (see Homer 2021), less research has analyzed the diachronic behavior of PIs in the development of the Spanish language. The present study takes a quantitative approach to historical corpus data in showing that in older varieties of Spanish, there was an increased degree of competition between items of the alg- series (i.e., alguno ‘some’) and items of the n- series (i.e., ninguno ‘none’) in negated clauses which later decreased as the language entered its modern age. We find that the competition between these items in negated clauses is influenced by factors such as register, the syntactic role of the PI, and activation status (following Larrivée 2012, 2017). These data provide quantitative support for Martins (2000), who suggested that earlier forms of Spanish exhibited more versatile licensing conditions of PIs, and that this variation gradually decreased over time due to a greater salience of the n- series in negated clauses. In total, the present work aims to use corpus data to connect historical linguistic research to theoretical approaches regarding the contemporary usage of PIs.

Słownik terminologii lekarskiej polskiej z 1881 roku jako przedmiot badań historyka języka polskiego

Wiek XIX należy do przełomowego w dziejach polskiej terminologii medycznej. Powstał wówczas, opublikowany w 1881 roku w wyniku licznych dyskusji, głównie środowiska lekarskiego, najważniejszy leksykon krakowski Słownik terminologii lekarskiej polskiej. Chociaż jego terminologia reprezentuje szkołę krakowską, to wpływy innych polskich ośrodków naukowych są w nim również widoczne, ponieważ na ostatnim etapie przygotowań leksykonu krakowscy autorzy słownika konsultowali się z warszawskimi, poznańskimi i lwowskimi lekarzami. Materiał w tym przekładowym słowniku jest różnorodny i nierzadko przekracza granice ówczesnej medycyny. Jest bogatym źródłem dla historyka języka polskiego do badania nie tylko stanu polskiej terminologii medycznej w XIX stuleciu (np. liczebności, pochodzenia terminów), terminologii wówczas porządkowanej i uzupełnianej w sposób zorganizowany i świadomy, lecz także – charakterystycznych w niej zjawisk (np. synonimii i polisemii) na tle innych epok w dziejach polskiej terminologii medycznej. Celem artykułu jest nie tylko zrelacjonowanie stanu dotychczasowych badań historycznojęzykowych, lecz także wskazanie możliwości, jakie te badania dają kolejnym badaczom polszczyzny.

Continuity and change in the evolution of French yes-no questions

AbstractThis present study contributes to research on the structure of yes-no questions in French. Informed by previous historical linguistic research tracing developments from the Old French period onwards, we focus on qualitative analysis of grammatical commentary and variationist analysis of Acadian French spoken-language data. We compare the evolution of yes-no questions in Acadian, Metropolitan, and Quebec French, reconstructing the history of variants up to the present. While in most cases we encounter slow-moving change, we do find inter-varietal differences in degree of retention of individual variants, including outright loss; in development of stylistic differentiation; and in analogically based innovation. We also find inter-varietal differences in grammatical constraints governing usage and in the fine detail regarding sentential polarity, illuminated in terms of the semantico-pragmatic functions of negative yes-no questions. The overall results underline the importance of considering sociolinguistic histories, including histories of dialect contact, along with local linguistic markets.

Leiden University Resolutions Appendici Corpus (1575–1811)

Abstract The Appendici to the Leiden University Resolutions of Curators and Mayors form a rich collection of documents from different genres, including letters, statutes and testimonies. Spanning the period between the founding of Leiden University in 1575 until its temporary dissolution in 1811, these documents are well-suited for historical linguistic research of Dutch in general, and for those interested in the relationships between norm and language in particular, as the period covers a key period in the codification of Dutch (ca. 1550–1804). In this data paper, the author introduces and describes the Leiden University Resolutions Appendici Corpus (lurac), a single-domain (i.e., context of interaction), multi-genre diachronic corpus of 103,451 words, consisting of samples of the Appendici to the Leiden University Resolutions for ten time periods of 25 years between 1575 and 1811. Both raw data and metadata are available.

Greek Place Names in The Charter of Foundation of the Abbey of Tihany

The exploration of the direct Greek (Byzantine)–Hungarian linguistic relations is a long-standing debt of Hungarian historical linguistic research. In linguistic studies on Hungarian place names sparsely mentioned in the charter of foundation of the Abbey of Tihany (1055), the possibility of Greek etymologies has hardly been taken into consideration so far. This paper starts from the archeologically supported assumption that Byzantine Greek monks lived in the Tihany Peninsula in the eleventh century. This is witnessed by two place names occurring in contemporary documents. One of these is p&ra ‘Petra’, localizable near the Abbey of Tihany, and the other is tichon ‘Tihany’ itself. The Greek origin of Petra is supported by the fact, established by archaeological research, that the place it refers to was a monastery hewn into a living rock, founded by Greek monks and constructed according to their customs. In addition, the place chosen (an island) and the name (monasteries called Petra ‘rock-cavity’ can be found elsewhere in the period) both suggest rather a Greek, than a Slavic foundation. This assumption is further supported by ecclesiastical and legal historical evidence. The name Tihany, assumed earlier to be of Slavic origin and directly derived from a personal name and ultimately from the word ticho ‘silence’, was merely connected to the family of names like Tihomir, Tihoslav by folk etymology. In fact, it is the participle of the Greek verb τυγχάνω, turned into a personal name. In the Eastern Church, St. Tychon of Cyprus († 425), the Bishop of Amathus was especially revered; his active missionary work, he may have made him particularly suitable to become the patron of a monastery founded by Greek (or Greek and Slavic) monks.

11. századi nyomok az 1019. évi hamis Zalavári oklevélben

The Zalavár charters (1019, 1024) are the least viable sources of information for historical linguistics and historical onomastics regarding the 11th century among the charters of King Saint Stephen forged in the Middle Ages. This is mainly because the Zalavár charters were likely not based on documents from the reign of Saint Stephen. The charters can be classified into three chronological layers through the vernacular elements contained in them. However, the current study aims to prove that the 1019 Zalavár charter does contain information valuable to historical onomastics and linguistics research into the early 11th century, albeit to a lesser degree than than the two other forged chartes of the era (the Pécsvárad and Bakonybél charters). The hypothesis is verified by examining a few place names listed in the census of the forged charter from the end of the 11th century and the Latin context of all the names contained in the document.

Szempontok Anonymus gesztájának helyesírás-történeti feldolgozásához

Considerations for the Study of Anonymous’ Gesta From the Perspective of Historical Orthography Anonymous’ Gesta Hungarorum has been studied by both historians and linguists for a long time. Both disciplines have produced an extensive set of scholarly publications relying on a great variety of approaches that study the gesta and its mysterious author. I examine the Hungarian remnants (and Latin language elements of Hungarian relevance) of the gesta from the perspective of historical linguistics. In this paper I focus on the aspect of historical orthography more specifically. In my study I start out from the dating of the linguistic record at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries which is claimed to be most probable by linguists and it facilitates my work that there are several important linguistic records available from this age that are contemporaries of the gesta and which are clearly authentic and include abundant Hungarian language data. The certificate of confirmation of crusaders of Székesfehérvár from 1193 and the Tihany Survey of 1211 are the primary sources in this respect but the historical-orthographic features of the Funeral Sermon and Prayer may also be used in the comparison. Although the genre differences between charters and the narrative historical work obviously result in a different source value in terms of legal authenticity and thus also “onomastic authenticity”, research in historical linguistics in the broader sense of the term is only slightly influenced by this circumstance (or not at all). Meanwhile, I also compare the orthography in Anonymous’ gesta with the general orthographic attributes of the era(s) that are seen as possible dates for the creation of the gesta (around 1217 and in the 1160s-70s) so as to provide additional linguistic arguments for one or the other possible date. After the articulation of the findings of my research, I finally formulate general lessons learned that are related to the source value of different genres of linguistic records (including gestas) from the Árpád Era in terms of historical orthography, while also shedding light on certain details of contemporary written culture.

Automated phylogeny of Palaung dialects

Improved methods in automatic cognate detection have recently been used by historical linguists to help determine the subgrouping of a clade of languages or dialects, capitalizing on the efficiency of computers when handling substantial amounts of data. In this paper, 16 Palaung dialects are examined using various methods of automatic cognate detection. Partial (List, 2016) and whole cognate detection are used together with Lexstat and Sound Class Alignment to generate a phylogenetic tree of these dialects. The results of these methods are compared to the results using cognate detection decided by human experts (Deepadung et al., 2015). These results are substantially similar, suggesting that automatic cognate and phylogeny detection using algorithms is a viable complement to historical linguistic research. Accompanying this paper is a tutorial for the automated cognate detection and phylogeny procedure that was used. By following the steps, users can create results based on segmenting the morphemes of Palaung dialects differently.

Historical genre studies and the history of language: The place and role of text types in German and Russian historical linguistic research

The article presents a critical analysis of both domestic and foreign works on text linguistics where researchers try to reveal a minimum classification unit. More specifically, the article focuses on the term “Textsorte”. While it is widely employed in German linguistics, its content is not clearly defined in the works of Russian and foreign scholars. Here, it is shown how the term is approached in different fields of research — in information aesthetics, semiotics, text theory, and historical linguistics. The article is aimed at assessing the potential certain text types, recorded in various periods of the life of language, have for an extended description of language history. The authors analyze texts of oral folklore, and namely charms. Therefore, works on the history and typology of folklore genres are taken into account and thoroughly reviewed. These are mainly linguistic genre studies and scrutinizing them provides an opportunity to touch upon problems pertinent to the research of text genres, to consider the discussion around “text genre” and “text type” in foreign and domestic linguistics, to define the place and role of given text types in historical linguistic and cultural studies, and to reveal both trends in researching folklore texts and the relationship of folklore with text linguistics. The authors come to the conclusion that a comprehensive description of a given text type allows one to formulate general principles of diachronically oriented research and make a significant contribution to the development of historical linguistics.

Language and the National Past in Napoleonic France: Reassessing the Académie celtique, 1805–1813

Abstract This article reassesses the Académie celtique (1805–13), an antiquarian society concerned with investigating the origins of the French nation, and the progenitor of the current Société nationale des antiquaires de France. While most prior scholarship has focused on the Académie as an innovator in the field of French folklore studies, it is argued here that the Académie’s main scholarly concern was with language, specifically the use of historical linguistic research for tracing the origins of European nations. Underpinning the Académie’s research programme was a belief that the ancient Celts—based in Gaul—once dominated Europe and spoke a language from which most European tongues descended, and was perhaps preserved in modern Breton. The article therefore also presents a coherent view of the importance of Celtic ancestry for the developing French nation in the early nineteenth century.

Creativity, reuse, and regularity in music and language

AbstractA recent strand in research in historical linguistics has argued that language change often involves constructional routinization (e.g., Traugott and Trousdale 2013), while recent psycholinguistic work has also suggested parallels between alignment, routinization, and change (Garrod and Pickering 2013) — such routines have been shown to emerge in conversational flow as a product of interaction between speakers and hearers. Similar claims have been made for the development of musical routines in improvisation: much improvisational work involves the use of prefabricated routines (Torrance and Schumann 2018). This article seeks to contribute to the debate on creativity by providing an analysis of some of the similarities and differences between musical and linguistic conventions, including a comparison of creative improvisation in music and innovation in language. The discussion is couched in a cognitive linguistic framework with a particular focus on linguistic constructions (see the overview in Hoffmann and Trousdale 2013) and a reflection of how this might be extended to consider aspects of the cognitive representation of musical structures.

Nаmаngаn shevalаridа unlilаr bilаn bоg‘liq fоnеtik qоnuniyatlаr

At present, there are all opportunities and opportunities for the Uzbek linguistics in the implementation of reforms for the development of our society. At the same time, the study of the features of Uzbek dialects based on theoretical foundations of range linguistic research has been identified as one of the priority areas of historical-comparative and ethno linguistic research. The field consists of imperfect, simple descriptive and visual aspects, and there is an urgent need to study and fill the abstract positions on the basis of new perspectives.The study of the Turkic language initiated by Mahmud Kashghariy by means of iral-typological and are-linguistic methods, the study of the poems, their peculiarities, is the starting point of any linguistic theories and concepts. The emergence of Areal linguistics has opened the way for a new assessment and solution of new problems and concepts in the field of dialectology. The fact that historical, comparative and ethno linguistic research has been identified as one of the priority areas for integrating the language system into the theoretical foundations of dialects and dialects imposes new responsibilities on Uzbek linguistics and Uzbek linguists.The article discusses the peculiarities of Namangan kipchak and early dialects, the historical genesis of the vowel system, the distribution and range of action. The phonetic-phonological linguistic characteristic of dialect and the processes of occurrence of regularities are described in comparative-historical terms. It contains thoughts on the singularize of the kipchak dialects related to the Turkish vowels and the events of umlaut in the dialects of old age.

A Szepes vármegyére vonatkozó középkori oklevelek filológiai tanulságai

Philological Findings from the Historical Linguistic Study of Medieval Charters from Szepes County My paper introduces the philological findings derived from the linguistic analy-sis of medieval charters for Szepes County. During the discussion of various fac-tors, my ultimate objective is to find out how the proper name data of the charters may be used for the purposes of research in historical linguistics and onomastics. Although the observations and hypotheses are based on the study of sources from Szepes specifically, I believe that the issues addressed in my paper also carry broader relevance and thus may be used both when interpreting remnants of char-ters and in the process of historical linguistic research based on these. Keywords: Szepes County, medieval charters, linguistic prestige, Latinization

Multilingual Texts as a Reflection of Code-Switching in Medieval England: Sermons and Beyond

The multilingualism of medieval England especially in the Middle English period, has for long been the subject of research in historical linguistics, literature, and medieval studies, to name but a few. It is particularly visible in the monolingual texts in the different medieval languages of literacy (Latin and Old English in the Old English period, and French, Latin and English in the Middle English period), where it has left traces in the lexicon and grammar of English. More recently, the numerous multilingual texts from medieval England have attracted increased attention, not least because they can be seen as written evidence for code-switching, a well-known discourse strategy in multilingual societies. Multilingual sermons are among the best-known text types showing this mixing of languages, and they are found from the Old English period onwards, though they are particularly well attested from the later Middle English period. The present paper will look at the main types of multilingual sermons from medieval England, both from the Old English and the Middle English periods. It will, however, go beyond this and place such sermons in the context of other medieval multilingual text types. Based on the analysis of a range of medieval multilingual texts, we will show that multilingual sermons, especially the so-called »macaronic sermons«, are not as unique as sometimes claimed in sermon studies. After a critical discussion of the traditional criteria for defining »macaronic« texts, we will argue that such texts can be better accounted for on the basis of functional classifications as provided by modern code-switching theories. Such an approach in no way reduces the special nature of »macaronic sermons«, but it firmly places them in the wider bilingual context of medieval England and the multilingual strategies regularly used by its speakers and writers in a variety of text types. The contextualisation of multilingual sermons in this wider context of written multilingual texts will hopefully lead to a better understanding of multilingual sermons from medieval England and possibly also those from other European countries.

The evolving Japanese: the dual structure hypothesis at 30.

The population history of Japan has been one of the most intensively studied anthropological questions anywhere in the world, with a huge literature dating back to the nineteenth century and before. A growing consensus over the 1980s that the modern Japanese comprise an admixture of a Neolithic population with Bronze Age migrants from the Korean peninsula was crystallised in Kazurō Hanihara's influential 'dual structure hypothesis' published in 1991. Here, we use recent research in biological anthropology, historical linguistics and archaeology to evaluate this hypothesis after three decades. Although the major assumptions of Hanihara's model have been supported by recent work, we discuss areas where new findings have led to a re-evaluation of aspects of the hypothesis and emphasise the need for further research in key areas including ancient DNA and archaeology.

Siberian-American cognitive and cultural interface through eco-ethnic lexicon

Abstract The focus of this paper is a possible Siberian link with the Na-Dene Languages, based on cognitive lexical semantics. Dene-Yeniseian is a proposed language family consisting of the Yeniseian languages of Central Siberia and the Na-Dene languages of North-Western North America (Campbell 2011; Trombetti 1923; Vajda 2010, 2011, 2018). The paper connects semantic universals, Ket and Dene folklore, and also comparative historical linguistic research. In analyzing a group of cognates, the paper’s aim is to discuss the cultural, cognitive and pragmatic reasons that enabled these cognates to survive for several thousand years. Our main point is that factors such as the relative importance of linguistic signs in a language community, lingual conservatism of semantic universals and the distinctiveness of its referents, probable frequency with which these words were used, and their cultural symbolism in relatively similar environments significantly contributed to their survival in ethnic groups belonging to the proposed language family. Our cross-disciplinary study helps us identify the essential place of eco-ethnic material in interpreting cross-continental similarities and emphasizes the integrative role of culture. It will be argued that the eco-ethnic lexicon reflected by the Dene-Yeniseian cognates reveals several thousand years of diachronic cognitive processes.

Model evaluation in computational historical linguistics

Abstract This is a reply to the comments by Hammarström et al. (This volume) and List (This volume) on the target article Computational Historical Linguistics (This volume). There I proposed several methodological principles for research in Computational Historical Linguistics pertaining to suitable techniques for model fitting and model evaluation. Hammarström et al. debate the usefulness of these principles, and List proposes a novel evaluation measure specifically aimed at the task of proto-form reconstruction. This reply will focus on the role of model evaluation in our field.

Exploring the history of pronouns in South America with computer-assisted methods

AbstractPronouns as a diagnostic feature of language relatedness have been widely explored in historical and comparative linguistics. In this article, we focus on South American pronouns, as a potential example of items with their own history passing between the boundaries of language families, what has been dubbed in the literature as ‘historical markers’. Historical markers are not a direct diagnostic of genealogical relatedness among languages, but account for phenomena beyond the grasp of the historical comparative method. Relatedness between pronoun systems can thus serve as suggestions for closer studies of genealogical relationships. How can we use computational methods to help us with this process? We collected pronouns for 121 South American languages, grouped them into classes and aligned the phonemes within each class (assisted by automatic methods). We then used Bayesian phylogenetic tree inference to model the birth and death of individual phonemes within cognate sets, rather than the typical practice of modelling whole cognate sets. The reliability of the splits found in our analysis was low above the level of language family, and validation on alternative data suggested that the analysis cannot be used to infer general genealogical relatedness among languages. However, many results aligned with existing theories, and the analysis as a whole provided a useful starting point for future analyses of historical relationships between the languages of South America. We show that using automated methods with evolutionary principles can support progress in historical linguistics research.

Quantitative historical linguistics: A corpus framework by Gard B. Jenset and Barbara McGillivray

Reviewed by: Quantitative historical linguistics: A corpus framework by Gard B. Jenset and Barbara McGillivray Dirk Geeraerts Quantitative historical linguistics: A corpus framework. By Gard B. Jenset and Barbara McGillivray. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. xiii, 229. ISBN 9780198718178. $88 (Hb). The early twenty-first century has witnessed a major shift toward quantitative approaches in the methodology of linguistics. Specifically, whereas quantitative methods have long been a staple of sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic research, the past two decades have seen their expansion toward descriptive and theoretical grammar. In usage-based approaches to language in particular, like cognitive and probabilistic linguistics, a ‘quantitative turn’ has occurred that applies the statistical testing of hypotheses to data derived from text corpora. The central inspiration for Gard B. Jenset and Barbara McGillivray’s book is the observation that this turn toward quantitative corpus studies has not yet penetrated historical linguistics to the same extent as some other subfields of linguistics. It accordingly sets out to introduce ‘the framework for quantitative historical linguistics’. The seven chapters fall roughly into two parts. In Chs. 1 to 3, a general argumentation in support of quantitative historical linguistics is developed, whereas Chs. 4 to 7 deal with the implementation of the ensuing program. The discussion of ‘why’ thus leads naturally to a discussion of ‘how’. Two threads run through the first part of the text: a specification of the kind of quantitative historical linguistics that the authors intend to propagate, and an argumentation in favor of the model in question. Important features of this argumentation are a description of the actual situation in historical linguistics and a conceptual defense of the approach against potential objections. Organizationally, Ch. 1 introduces both threads, Ch. 2 develops the first thread, and Ch. 3 the second. With regard to the first thread, the first chapter introduces the authors’ notion of quantitative research in historical linguistics by means of a double contrast. On the one hand, quantitative research differs from the conventional use of evidence in historical linguistics that rests on example-based categorical judgments about the existence of specific linguistic phenomena but does not look into probabilistic, distributional data about trends of variation and change of the phenomenon in question. On the other hand, quantitative historical research needs to go beyond raw frequencies, in the sense that the multidimensional nature of language requires a multivariate statistical approach. In the second chapter, this conception is further developed in terms of the distinction between corpus-based and corpus-driven approaches. Whereas the former turn to corpora primarily for illustration and confirmation, the latter use corpus data at two stages of the empirical process: corresponding to the distinction between exploratory and confirmatory statistics, quantitative distributional evidence is initially used to generate hypotheses, and subsequently for testing them. With regard to the second thread, the text provides quantitative data (appropriately, one could say) to the effect that such a method is less entrenched in historical linguistics than other fields of linguistics. This argumentation rests on a comparison of the 2012 volume of Language with six journals with a (not necessarily unique) focus on language change, such as Diachronica, Folia Linguistica Historica, and Language Variation and Change. As an explanation for the observation that historical linguistics seems to be lagging behind, the book invokes early negative experiences with glottochronology, plus the influence of structuralist and generative theories (though this is of course a factor that is not specific to historical linguistics). At the same time, it is demonstrated how the rise of quantitative linguistics goes hand in hand with the growing availability of electronic corpus materials—a trend that obviously creates an opportunity for historical linguistics just as for the other branches of linguistics. [End Page 190] Next to the ‘the time is ripe, we shouldn’t lag behind’ argument, the plea for quantitative corpus research in historical linguistics includes a ‘nothing is wrong with it’ type of argumentation, in the form of a systematic rejection of potential objections. Section 3.7 skillfully refutes counterarguments from convenience, from redundancy, from scope limitations, from principle, and from pseudoscience. Crucially, it is argued that a quantitative approach is not incompatible with a categorial...