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Language Classification

How are relationships established among the worlds languages? This is one of

the most topical and most controversial questions in contemporary linguistics.

The central aims of the book are to answer this question, to cut through the

controversies, and to contribute to research in distant genetic relationships. In

doing this the authors show how the methods have been employed, revealing

which methods, techniques, and strategies have proven successful and whichones have proven ineffective. The book seeks to determine how particular lan-

guage families were established and offers an evaluation of several of the most

prominent and more controversial proposals of distant genetic relationship

(such as Amerind, Nostratic, Eurasiatic, Proto-World, and others). Finally,

the authors make recommendations for practice in future research. This

book will contribute significantly to understanding language classification in

general.

Ly l e C a m p b e l lis Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Linguis-

tics at the University of Utah.

W i l l i a m J . P o s e r is Adjunct Professor of Linguistics in the Department

of Linguistics at the University of British Columbia.

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Language Classification

History and Method

Lyle Campbell and William J. Poser

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c a m b r i d g e u n i v e r s i t y p r e s s

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Delhi

Cambridge University Press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org

Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521880053

CLyle Campbell and William J. Poser 2008

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,

no reproduction of any part may take place without

the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2008

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data

Campbell, Lyle.

Language classification: history and method / by Lyle Campbell and William J. Poser.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-521-88005-3 (hardback)

1. Comparative linguistics. 2. Language and languagesClassification. I. Poser,

William John. II. Title.

P143.C36 2007

401.2dc22 2007048556

ISBN 978-0-521-88005-3 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of

URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and

does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or

appropriate.

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Contents

1 Introduction: how are languages shown to be related to

one another? 1

2 The beginning of comparative linguistics 13

3 Asiatic Jones, Oriental Jones: Sir William Jones role

in the raise of comparative linguistics 32

4 Consolidation of comparative linguistics 48

5 How some languages were shown to belong to

Indo-European 74

6 Comparative linguistics of other language familiesand regions 87

7 How to show languages are related: the methods 162

8 The philosophicalpsychologicaltypological

evolutionary approach to language relationships 224

9 Assessment of proposed distant genetic relationships 234

10 Beyond the comparative method? 297

11 Why and how do languages diversify and spread? 330

12 What can we learn about the earliest human language

by comparing languages known today? 364

13 Conclusions: anticipating the future 394

Appendix: Hypothesized distant genetic relationships 404

References 416

Index 508

v

List of figures, tables, and charts page vi

Acknowledgments vii

Preface ix

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Figures, tables, and charts

Figures

5.1 The Indo-European family tree page84

6.1 The Uralic family tree 89

6.2 The Austronesian family tree 100

Tables

7.1 Matching forms of the verb to be across Indo-European

languages 181

7.2 QuechuaFinnish accidental morphological similarities 185

7.3 Coincidences between Proto-Eastern Miwokan and Late

Common Indo-European 188

7.4 The f i r e word family in SahaptianKlamathTsimshian

comparison 2117.5 Borrowings of Salishan pronominal suffixes into Alsea 220

9.1 Greenbergs Indo-Pacific pronominal markers for each person 291

10.1 Misassigned and underrepresented numeral classifiers in

Nichols (1992) 314

12.1 Comparison of English, Hindi, and Maori forms 382

Charts

11.1 Larger and smaller languages in the same geographical area 33511.2 Spread and non-spread language families with and without

agriculture 340

vi

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank a number of friends and colleagues for answering

specific questions, for providing comments and feedback on particular issues,

or for helping us to obtain access to materials. We do not mean, however, to

imply that any of them is necessarily in agreement with what we have written,

and certainly all mistakes are our own. We sincerely thank:

M. Lionel Bender

Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy

Rodolfo Cerron-Palomino

Terry Crowley

Alan Dench

Nick Evans

Andrew Garrett

Ives Goddard

Matt GordonVeronica Grondona

Alice Harris

Bernd Heine

Jane Hill

Juha Janhunen

Jay Jasanoff

Brian Joseph

Harold Koch

Joe KruskalJames Matisoff

David Nash

Elisabeth Norcliffe

Andrew Pawley

Robert Rankin

Don Ringe

Aryon Rodrigues

Malcolm Ross

vii

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viii Acknowledgments

Tapani Salminen

Joe Salmons

Pekka Sammallahti

Larry Trask

We also acknowledge the support of a Marsden grant from the Royal Society

of New Zealand, awarded to Lyle Campbell, which aided significantly in thepreparation of this book.

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Preface

We began talking together and thinking about the subject matter of this book

when we prepared a paper for the Spring Workshop in Reconstruction in 1991,

held at the University of Pittsburgh. We later decided to write this book, but

were not able to do that until now due to other obligations. With respect to

the division of labor, William Poser is primarily responsible for the writing of

Chapter5, part of Chapter3, and parts of Chapter4(especially sections4.8and

4.11). Lyle Campbell is the principal author of the other chapters and sections

of this book.

ix

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