Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship: An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics

Citation

Hock, H. H., & Joseph, B. D. (2019). Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship: An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics (3rd ed.). De Gruyter Mouton.

Chapter Summary

The book is a large general introduction of about 575 pages. It has eighteen chapters, an appendix on phonetics after Chapter 1, a section of chapter notes and suggested readings (pp. 486–512), references, a language index and a general index. The publisher describes it as aimed at the non-specialist, with ample illustrations from familiar and more exotic languages, and with a considerable amount of data from languages of India. Its chapters can be read as four stretches: the basics of change and of Indo-European (Chapters 1–3), the mechanisms of change in sound, form, syntax and meaning (Chapters 4–7), words and the social setting of change (Chapters 8–15), and the comparative method with its wider extensions (Chapters 16–18).

Chapters 1–3: Introduction; The discovery of Indo-European; Writing: Its history and its decipherment

Chapter 1 begins with the fact that language keeps changing, outlines types of linguistic change and the idea of language relationship, adds "a word of caution, or 'Long live the speaker'", and ends with a note on transcription and terminology. An appendix (about ten pages) covers phonetics, phonetic symbols and other symbols. Chapter 2 introduces language relationship, Proto-Indo-European and a tour of the Indo-European languages. Chapter 3, about 47 pages, covers the history of writing, the decipherment of ancient scripts, the phonetic interpretation of written records and writing in the rest of the world.

Chapters 4–7: Sound change; Analogy and change in word structure; Syntactic change; Semantic change

Chapter 4 moves from Grimm's Law through Verner's Law to the regularity hypothesis and the neogrammarians, then to types of sound change, the question "why sound change?" and a return to regularity. Chapter 5 treats analogy, both systematic and sporadic, its relation to phonology, hypercorrection and morphological change. Chapter 6 asks which changes count as syntactic, weighs syntax against analogy, and follows word-order change in English and related languages. Chapter 7 covers the inherent fuzziness of meaning (polysemy, semantic overlap and metaphor), synonymy and homonymy, the relationship between sound and meaning, and the factors and effects of semantic change.

Chapters 8–9: Lexical borrowing; Lexical change and etymology

Chapter 8 treats the substance of borrowing, nativization, "hyper-foreignization", the motivations for borrowing and its effects. Chapter 9 is about the study of words: coinage, proper names as a case study in lexical origins, and coinage in argots, jargons and slang.

Chapters 10–15: Language, dialect, and standard; Dialect geography and dialectology; Language spread, link languages, and bilingualism; Convergence; Pidgins, creoles, and related forms of language; Language death

This group places change in its social and geographical setting. Chapters 10 and 11 move from language and dialect, social dialects, standard languages and diglossia to patterns of dialect interaction, isoglosses and dialect leveling. Chapters 12 and 13 take up link languages, interference, code switching, substratum, koines, and convergence illustrated by Kupwar, the Balkans, South Asia and Europe. Chapter 14 covers foreigner talk, pidgins, trade jargons, creoles and decreolization. Chapter 15, about six pages, is a short chapter on language death.

Chapters 16–18: Comparative method; Proto-World?; Linguistic palaeontology

Chapter 16 sets out how language relationship is established: ruling out chance similarity, onomatopoeia and contact, then systematic correspondences, shared idiosyncrasies, reconstruction and the limits of reconstruction, with a section on language families other than Indo-European. Chapter 17 asks about long-distance relationships, lexical mass comparison and the origin of language. Chapter 18 uses reconstructed vocabulary for religion, society, material culture, economy, horses and wheels, the Urheimat of Proto-Indo-European, genetics, genomics and "race", and the relation between ideology and comparative linguistics.

Key Concepts

• Regularity of sound change: Grimm's Law, Verner's Law and the neogrammarian hypothesis (Chapter 4).
• Analogy: systematic and sporadic analogy and hypercorrection as sources of change in word structure (Chapter 5).
• Semantic change and lexical borrowing: shifts in meaning and their causes (Chapter 7), and the borrowing and nativization of words (Chapter 8).
• Dialect geography and isoglosses: the mapping of regional variation (Chapter 11).
• Convergence and pidgin/creole formation: language contact producing shared features or new languages (Chapters 13–14).
• Comparative method and reconstruction: from systematic correspondences to reconstruction (Chapter 16).
• Linguistic palaeontology: the use of reconstructed language for prehistory (Chapter 18).

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Written for beginners. The publisher says the level and presentation suit interested beginners with little or no background in linguistics, and Chapter 1 includes an appendix on phonetics and symbols.
• Unusually wide scope. Beside the usual sound, analogy, syntax and meaning, the book has chapters on writing systems, borrowing, etymology, dialectology, convergence, pidgins and creoles, language death, long-distance relationships and linguistic palaeontology.
• Language coverage. The publisher highlights a considerable amount of data from languages of India, which broadens the examples beyond the usual European ones, and the book has a language index.
• Edition improvements. Most chapters have been reworked, difficult passages removed or rewritten, and new sections added, including one on the regularity of sound change; the chapter notes and bibliography have been updated.
• Further reading. About 27 pages of chapter notes and suggested readings are included.

Limitations

• Method comes late. The comparative method is in Chapter 16, at page 398, after a long run of topics; a course centred on reconstruction may reorder the book.
• Length. About 575 pages is long for a one-term introduction, and a course will need to select chapters.
• Little practice material is visible in the contents. The contents list chapter notes and suggested readings but no exercises or datasets as separate sections, so problem practice may have to come from elsewhere.
• Heavy Indo-European weight. Chapters 2 and 18 are about Indo-European, and non-Indo-European families have one section in Chapter 16.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is a wide-ranging general introduction to historical linguistics. Crowley and Bowern's An Introduction to Historical Linguistics is a more compact book with a methods emphasis and a separate datasets section, while Trask and Millar's Trask's Historical Linguistics is another introductory textbook with exercises for each topic. Aitchison's Language Change: Progress or Decay? is a short readable book that requires no background.

For a deeper treatment, Campbell's Historical Linguistics: An Introduction covers sound change, grammatical change, classification, the comparative method and reconstruction in methodological depth, and Ringe and Eska's Historical Linguistics: Toward a Twenty-First Century Reintegration treats change with the tools of modern theoretical linguistics. Hock and Joseph is a good first book to read for the story of languages, dialects and contact, then move to a methods text.

How to Use This Book

The book is meant for beginners, so a general introductory linguistics course is helpful but not required. Readers who are unfamiliar with phonetic symbols should begin with the appendix to Chapter 1.

A practical plan:

• Core: Chapters 1, 2, 4, 5 and 16, which cover the essentials of change, Indo-European and the comparative method.
• Then: Chapters 6 and 7 on syntactic and semantic change, and Chapters 8–9 on borrowing and words.
• Social and contact topics: Chapters 10–14 form a unit on dialects, contact and new languages; they suit courses that connect historical and sociolinguistics.
• Optional: Chapter 3 on writing, Chapter 15 on language death, and Chapters 17–18 on long-distance relationships and prehistory.
• Practice: use the chapter notes and suggested readings for follow-up reading, and add problems from a methods text for reconstruction practice.