The origin and stages of development of the comparative historical method in linguistics. Topic: Comparative-historical method in linguistics
COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL METHOD
IN LINGUISTICS
CONTENT
INTRODUCTION 3
1. SOME STAGES OF DEVELOPING A COMPARATIVE
HISTORICAL METHOD IN LINGUISTICS 7
2. COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL METHOD
IN THE FIELD OF GRAMMAR. 12
3. METHODS OF LANGUAGE RECONSTRUCTION – BASICS 23
4. COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL METHOD IN
AREAS OF SYNTAX 26
5. RECONSTRUCTION OF ARCHAIC MEANINGS OF WORDS 29
CONCLUSION 31
BIBLIOGRAPHY 33
INTRODUCTION
Language is the most important means of human communication. There is not a single type of human activity in which language is not used to express their thoughts, feelings and will to achieve mutual understanding between them. And it is not surprising that people became interested in language and created a science about it! This science is called linguistics or linguistics.
Linguistics studies all types, all changes of language. He is interested in everything related to amazing ability speak, convey your thoughts to others using sounds; This ability throughout the world is characteristic only of man.
Linguists want to find out how people who have mastered this ability created their languages, how these languages live, change, die, and what laws their lives are subject to.
Along with living ones, they are occupied by “dead” languages, that is, those that no one speaks today. We know quite a few of them. Some have disappeared from human memory; A rich literature has been preserved about them, grammars and dictionaries have reached us, which means that the meaning of individual words has not been forgotten. There is just no one who now considers them their native languages. This is “Latin,” the language of Ancient Rome; such is the ancient Greek language, such is the ancient Indian "Sanskrit". One of the languages closest to us is “Church Slavonic” or “Old Bulgarian”.
But there are others - say, Egyptian, from the times of the Pharaohs, Babylonian and Hittite. Two centuries ago, no one knew a single word in these languages. People looked with bewilderment and trepidation at the mysterious, incomprehensible inscriptions on rocks, on the walls of ancient ruins, on clay tiles and half-decayed papyri, made thousands of years ago. No one knew what these strange letters and sounds meant, what language they expressed. But man's patience and wit have no limits. Linguistic scientists have unraveled the secrets of many letters. This work is dedicated to the subtleties of unraveling the mysteries of language.
Linguistics, like other sciences, has developed its own research techniques, its own scientific methods, one of which is comparative historical (5, 16). Etymology plays a large role in the comparative historical method in linguistics.
Etymology is the science that deals with the origin of words. Trying to establish the origin of a particular word, scientists have long compared data from different languages. At first these comparisons were random and mostly naive.
Gradually, thanks to etymological comparisons of individual words, and then entire lexical groups, scientists came to the conclusion about the kinship of Indo-European languages, which was later definitively proven through the analysis of grammatical correspondences.
Etymology has a prominent place in the comparative historical method of research, which in turn opened up new opportunities for etymology.
The origin of many words in any given language often remains unclear to us because in the process of language development, ancient connections between words were lost and the phonetic appearance of words changed. These ancient connections between words, their ancient meaning can very often be discovered with the help of related languages.
Comparing the most ancient linguistic forms with the archaic forms of related languages, or using the comparative historical method, often leads to revealing the secrets of the origin of the word. (3, 6, 12)
The foundations of the comparative historical method were laid on the basis of comparison of materials from a number of related Indo-European languages. This method continued to develop throughout the 19th and 20th centuries and gave a powerful impetus to further development various areas linguistics.
A group of related languages is a collection of languages between which there are regular correspondences in sound composition and in the meaning of word roots and affixes. Identifying these natural correspondences that exist between related languages is the task of comparative historical research, including etymology.
Genetic research represents a set of techniques for studying the history of both individual languages and groups of related languages. The basis for genetic comparison of linguistic phenomena is a certain number of genetically identical units (genetic identities), by which we mean the common origin of language elements. For example, e in Old Church Slavonic and other Russians - sky, in Latin - nebula"fog", German - Nebel"fog", ancient Indian - nabhah"cloud" roots restored in general form *nebh– are genetically identical. The genetic identity of linguistic elements in several languages makes it possible to establish or prove the relationship of these languages, since genetic, identical elements make it possible to restore (reconstruct) a single form of the past linguistic state. (4, 8, 9)
As mentioned above, comparatively historical method in linguistics is one of the main ones and is a set of techniques that make it possible to study the relationships between related languages and describe their evolution in time and space, and establish historical patterns in the development of languages. Using the comparative historical method, the diachronic (that is, the development of a language over a certain period of time) evolution of genetically close languages is traced, based on evidence of their common origin.
The comparative-historical method in linguistics is associated with descriptive and general linguistics in a number of issues. European linguists, who became acquainted with Sanskrit at the end of the 18th century, consider comparative grammar to be the core of this method. And they completely underestimate the ideological and intellectual discoveries in the field scientific philosophy And natural sciences. Meanwhile, it was these discoveries that made it possible to make the first universal classifications, to consider the whole, to determine the hierarchy of its parts and to assume that all this is the result of some general laws. Empirical comparison of facts inevitably led to the conclusion that external differences, there must be an internal unity that needs interpretation. The principle of interpretation for science of that time was historicism, that is, the recognition of the development of science over time, carried out naturally, and not by divine will. A new interpretation of the facts has occurred. This is no longer a “ladder of forms”, but a “chain of development”. Development itself was thought of in two versions: along an ascending line, from simple to complex and improved (more often) and less often as degradation from better along a descending line - to worse (3, 10).
1. SOME STAGES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL METHOD IN LINGUISTICS
The science of languages not only experienced the fruitful influence of the general methodology of the sciences, but also itself took an active part in the development of general ideas. A major role was played by Herder’s work “Studies on the Origin of Language” (1972), which, along with his article “On the Ages of Language,” was one of the most serious approaches to the future of historical linguistics. Herder opposed the dissemination of theses about the originality of language, its divine origin and immutability. He became one of the first heralds of historicism in linguistics.
According to his teaching, natural laws determined the need for the emergence of language and its further development; A language, connected in its development with culture, improves in the course of its development, as does society. W. Jones, having become acquainted with Sanskrit and discovering its similarities in verbal roots and grammatical forms ah with Greek, Latin, Gothic and other languages, in 1786 he proposed a completely new theory of linguistic kinship - about the origin of the languages of their common parent language.
In linguistics, the relationship of languages is a purely linguistic concept. The kinship of languages is not determined by the concept of racial and ethnic community. In the history of Russian progressive thought N.G. Chernyshevsky noted that the classification of language has little overlap with the division of people by race. He expressed a fair idea that the language of every people is flexible, rich, and beautiful.
When comparing languages, you can discover easily perceptible correspondences that catch the eye even of the uninitiated. It is easy for a person who knows one of the Romance languages to guess the meaning of French - un , une, Italian – uno , una, Spanish – uno , una – one. The correspondences will be less clear if we consider languages more distant in time and space. There will be only partial matches that will not yield anything for the researcher. More than one particular case should be compared with other particular cases. Since each fact of a language belongs to the entire language as a whole, the subsystem of one language - phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic - is compared with the subsystem of another language. In order to establish whether the languages being compared are related or not, that is, whether they come from one common language of a certain language family, whether they are in a relationship of partial (allogenetic) relationship, or are not related in any way by origin (2, 4).
Ideas of linguistic kinship had been put forward before (16th century “On the kinship of language” by Gwillelm Postellus), but they did not produce results, since not only related languages were involved in the comparison. Comparative tables of languages played a very important role in the development of the comparative historical method in linguistics. Northern Europe, North Caucasus, thanks to which a classification of the Uralic and Altai languages was created, albeit in a preliminary version.
The merit of highlighting linguistics as new science historical cycle, belongs to Humboldt (“On the comparative study of languages, in relation to different eras of their development,” 1820).
Humboldt's merit was the identification of linguistics as a new science of the historical cycle - comparative anthropology. At the same time, he understood the tasks extremely broadly: “... language and the goals of man in general, comprehended through it, the human race in its progressive development and individual peoples are the four objects that, in their mutual connection, should be studied in comparative linguistics.” Paying great attention to such key problems for comparative-historical linguistics as internal form, the connection between sound and meaning, linguistic typology, etc. Humboldt, unlike many specialists in the field of comparative-historical linguistics, emphasized the connection of language with thinking. Thus, the principle of historicism in linguistics received an understanding that goes far beyond the framework of comparative historical grammars.
Science owes Ball to the creation of the first comparative-historical grammar of Indo-European languages (1833-1849), which opened a series of similar grammars of large language families; development of a method for consistent comparison of forms in related languages.
Of particular importance was the appeal to Sanskrit, which in space and time was the most distant from European languages, had no contacts with them in its history, and, nevertheless, preserved its ancient state with particular completeness.
Another scientist, Rusk, developed a technique for analyzing grammatical forms that are correlated with each other and demonstrating various degrees of relationship between languages. Differentiation of kinship by degree of proximity was a necessary prerequisite for constructing a diagram of the historical development of related languages.
Such a scheme was proposed by Grimmois (30-40s of the 19th century), who examined historically three stages of the development of Germanic languages (ancient, middle and modern) - from Gothic to New English. At this time, the formation of comparative historical linguistics, its principles, methods and research techniques takes place!
Comparative historical linguistics, at least from the 20-30s. XIX century clearly focuses on two principles - “comparative” and “historical”. Sometimes preference is given to the “historical” beginning, sometimes to the “comparative” one. Historical – defines the goal (history of language, including the pre-literate era). With this understanding of the role of the “historical”, another principle – “comparative” rather determines the affinity with the help of which the goals of the historical study of a language or languages are achieved. In this sense, research in the genre of “history of a specific language” is typical, in which external comparison (with related languages) can be practically absent, as if relating to the prehistoric period of development of a given language and replaced by internal comparison of earlier facts with later ones; one dialect with another or with a standard form of a language, etc. But such internal comparison often turns out to be disguised.
In the works of other researchers, it is comparison that is emphasized, the focus is on the relationship of the compared elements that form the main object of research, and the historical conclusions from it remain unemphasized, postponed for subsequent studies. In this case, comparison acts not only as a means, but also as a goal, but it does not follow from this that such a comparison does not produce results valuable for the history of language.
The object of comparative historical linguistics is language in the aspect of its development, that is, that type of change that correlates directly with time or with its transformed forms.
For comparative linguistics, language is important as a measure of time (“linguistic” time), and the fact that time can be changed by language (and its various elements, and in different ways each time) is directly related to the broad problem of forms of expressing time.
The minimum measure of “language” time is the quantum of language change, that is, the unit of deviation of the language state A 1 from language condition A 2. Language time stops if there are no language changes, at least zero. Any units of language can act as a quantum of linguistic change, if only they are capable of recording linguistic changes in time (phonemes, morphemes, words (lexemes), syntactic constructions), but such linguistic units as sounds (and later phonemes) have acquired special significance ); based on minimal shifts ("steps") of which type (sound X >at) chains of historical sequences were built (such as A 1 >A 2 >A 3 …>A n, where A 1 is the earliest of the reconstructed elements, and A n – latest in time, that is, modern) and matrices of sound correspondences were formed (such as sound X language A 1 corresponds to sound at at the tongue IN, sound z at the tongue WITH and so on.)
With the development of phonology, especially in its variant where the level of phonological differential features - DP is highlighted, it becomes relevant to take into account even more convenient quantum of linguistic changes in the DP themselves (for example, a change d > t is explained not as a shift by one phoneme, but as a softer shift per DP; voicedness > deafness). In this case, we can talk about the phoneme as the minimum linguistic fragment (space) on which a temporary shift in the composition of the DP can be recorded.
This situation reveals one of the main features of comparative historical linguistics, most clearly manifested in comparative historical grammar. The clearer the morphemic structure of a language, the more complete and reliable the comparative historical interpretation of this language turns out to be and the greater the contribution this language makes to the comparative historical grammar of a given group of languages (8, 10, 14).
2. COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL METHOD IN THE FIELD OF GRAMMAR.
The comparative historical method is based on a number of requirements, compliance with which increases the reliability of the conclusions obtained by this method.
1. When comparing words and forms in related languages, preference is given to more archaic forms. A language is a collection of parts, ancient and new, formed at different times.
For example, in the root of the Russian adjective new new - n And V preserved from ancient times (cf. lat. novus, skr. navah), and the vowel O developed from an older one e, which changed in O before [v], followed by a back vowel.
Every language changes gradually as it develops. If there were no these changes, then languages going back to the same source (for example, Indo-European) would not differ from each other at all. However, in fact, we see that even closely related languages differ significantly from each other. Take Russian and Ukrainian, for example. During the period of its independent existence, each of these languages underwent various changes, which led to more or less significant differences in the field of phonetics, grammar, word formation and semantics. Already a simple comparison of Russian words place , month , knife , juice with Ukrainian misto , month , lower , sik shows that in a number of cases the Russian vowel e And O will correspond to Ukrainian i .
Similar discrepancies can be observed in the field of word formation: Russian words reader , listener , figure , sower appear with a suffix actor – tel, and the corresponding words in the Ukrainian language are reader , listener , diyach , With icell– have a suffix – h(cf. Russian - weaver , talker etc.).
Significant changes have also occurred in the semantic field. For example, the above Ukrainian word misto it means "city" and not "place"; Ukrainian verb I marvel means “I look”, not “I’m surprised”.
Much more complex changes can be found when comparing other Indo-European languages. These changes took place over many millennia, so that people who speak these languages, which are not as close as Russian and Ukrainian, have long ceased to understand each other. (5, 12).
2. Precise application of the rules of phonetic correspondences, according to which a sound that changes in a certain position in one word undergoes similar changes in the same conditions in other words.
For example, Old Slavonic combinations ra , la , re pass in modern Russian into -oro- , -olo- , -ere-(cf. steal – king , gold – gold , breg – shore).
Over the course of thousands of years, Indo-European languages have developed a large number of various phonetic changes, which, despite all their complexity, were of a pronounced systemic nature. If, for example, a change To V h happened in case hand - pen , river - small river then it should appear in all other examples of this kind: dog - dog , cheek - cheek , pike - pike etc.
This pattern of phonetic changes in each language led to the emergence of strict phonetic correspondences between the sounds of individual Indo-European languages.
So, the initial European bh[bh] in Slavic languages it became simple b , and in Latin it changed to f[f]. As a result, between initial Latin f and Slavic b certain phonetic relationships were established.
Latin Russian language
faba[faba] "bean" – bean
fero[fero] “carrying” – I'll take it
fiber[fiber] "beaver" – beaver
fii(imus)[fu:mus] “(we) were” – were etc.
In these examples, only the initial sounds of the given words were compared with each other. But the other sounds related to the root are also completely consistent with each other. For example, Latin long [y: ] coincides with Russian s not only at the root of words f-imus – were , but also in all other cases: Latin f - Russian You , Latin rd-ere [ru:dere] – scream, roar – Russian sob and etc.
Not all words that sound the same or almost the same in two related languages reflect ancient phonetic correspondences. In some cases, we are faced with a simple coincidence in the sound of these words. It is unlikely that anyone will seriously prove that the Latin word rana [wound], frog has a common origin with the Russian word wound. The complete sound coincidence of these words is just the result of chance.
Let's take a German verb habe [ha:be] means “I have.” The Latin verb will have the same meaning habeo [ha:beo:]. In the form of the imperative mood, these verbs even completely coincide orthographically: habe! "have". It would seem that we have every reason to compare these words and their common origin. But in fact, this conclusion is erroneous.
As a result of phonetic changes that occurred in the Germanic languages, Latin With[To] in German it began to correspond h[X] .
Latin language. German.
collis[collis] Hals[khals] "neck"
caput[kaput] Haupt[haupt] "head"
cervus[kervus] Hirsch[hirsch] "deer"
cornu[corn] Horn[horn] "horn"
culmus[culmus] Halm[halm] "stem, straw"
Here we have not random isolated coincidences, but a natural system of coincidences between the initial sounds of the given Latin and German words.
Thus, when comparing related words, one should rely not on their purely external sound similarity, but on that strict system of phonetic correspondences that was established as a result of changes in the sound structure that occurred in individual languages historically related to each other.
Words that sound exactly the same in two related languages, if they are not included in the established series of correspondences, cannot be recognized as related to each other. Conversely, words that are very different in their sound appearance may turn out to be words of common origin, if only strict phonetic correspondences are revealed when comparing them. Knowledge of phonetic patterns gives scientists the opportunity to restore the more ancient sound of a word, and comparison with related Indo-European forms very often clarifies the issue of the origin of the analyzed words and allows them to establish their etymology.
Thus, we are convinced that phonetic changes occur naturally. The same pattern characterizes word formation processes.
Each word, during its etymological analysis, must necessarily be assigned to one or another word-formation type. For example, the word ramen can be included in the following word-formation series:
sow – seed
know – banner
halfway"blaze" - flame, flame
o (army"plow" – ramen etc.
The formation of suffixes is of the same typical nature. If we, for example, simply compared the words loaf And while away, then such a comparison would hardly convince anyone. But when we managed to discover a whole series of words in which the suffixes - V- And - T- are in a state of regular alternations, the validity of the above comparison has received a fairly reliable justification.
Analysis of word-formation series and suffixal alternations that exist or existed in ancient times is one of the most important research techniques with the help of which scientists manage to penetrate the most intimate secrets of the origin of a word. (10, 8, 5, 12)
3. The use of the comparative-historical method is due to the absolute nature of the linguistic sign, that is, the absence of a natural connection between the sound of a word and its meaning.
Russian wolf, Lithuanian vitkas, English wulf, German Wolf, skr. vrkah testify to the material proximity of the languages being compared, but do not say anything why a given phenomenon of objective reality (the wolf) is expressed by one or another sound complex.
As a result of linguistic changes, a word is transformed not only externally, but also internally, when not only the phonetic appearance of the word changes, but also its meaning, its meaning.
So, for example, the stages of semantic change in the word ramen can be presented as: arable land ® arable land overgrown with forest ® forest on abandoned arable land – forest. A similar phenomenon occurred with the word loaf: carnage piece ® piece of food ® a piece of bread ® bread ® round bread .
Here's how the word has changed Ivan, which comes from an ancient Jewish name Yehohanan on different languages:
in Greek Byzantine - Ioannes
in German - Johann
in Finnish and Estonian – Juhan
in Spanish – Juan
in Italian - Giovanni
in English - John
in Russian - Ivan
in Polish - Ian
French - Jeanne
in Georgian – Ivane
in Armenian – Hovhannes
in Portuguese – Joan
in Bulgarian – He.
So guess what Yehohanan, a name containing nine sounds, including four vowels, is the same as French Jean, consisting of only two sounds, among which there is only one vowel (and even that “nasal”) or with Bulgarian He .
Let's trace the history of another name, also coming from the East - Joseph. There it sounded like Yosef. In Greece it is Yosef became Joseph: the Greeks did not have two written characters for th And And, and the ancient sign uh , this, over subsequent centuries in Greek table was pronounced as And, ita. This is the name as it is Joseph and was transferred by the Greeks to other nations. This is what happened to him in European and neighboring languages:
in Greek-Byzantine - Joseph
in German – Joseph
in Spanish – Jose
in Italian - Giuseppe
in English – Joseph
in Russian - Osip
in Polish - Joseph (Józef)
in Turkish – Yusuf (Yusuf)
French - Joseph
in Portuguese – Juse.
And here we are iota we have, also in both cases, in German th, in Spanish X, in English and Italian j, among the French and Portuguese and .
When these substitutions were tested on other names, the result invariably remained the same. Apparently the matter is not a matter of mere chance, but of some kind of law: it operates in these languages, forcing them in all cases to equally change the same sounds coming from other words. The same pattern can be observed with other words (common nouns). French word juri(jury), Spanish jurar(hurar, to swear), Italian jure– right, English judge(judge, judge, expert). (2, 5, 15, 16).
So, in the change in these words, as mentioned above, a certain pattern can be traced. This pattern is already manifested in the presence of individual types and general causes of semantic changes.
The similarity of semantic types is especially pronounced in the process of word formation itself. For example, a large number of words with the meaning flour are formations from verbs meaning to grind, pound, grind.
Russian – grind,
– grinding
Serbo-Croatian – fly, grind
– mlevo, ground grain
Lithuanian – malti[malti] grind
– miltai[miltai] flour
German – Mahlen[ma:len] grind
– Mahlen – grinding ,
– Mehl[me:l] flour
other Indian – pinasti[pinasti] crushes, pushes
– pistam[pists] flour
There are many such series that can be cited. They are called semantic series, the analysis of which allows us to introduce some elements of systematicity into such a difficult area of etymological research as the study of word meanings (2, 12, 11).
4. The basis of the comparative-historical method can be the possibility of the collapse of one original linguistic community, a common ancestor language.
There are entire groups of languages that closely resemble each other in a number of ways. At the same time, they differ sharply from many groups of languages, which in turn are similar in many ways.
In the world there are not only individual languages, but also large and small groups of languages that are similar to each other. These groups are called “language families,” and they arose and developed because some languages are, as it were, capable of giving rise to others, and the newly appeared languages necessarily retain some features common to the languages from which they originated. We know families of Germanic, Turkic, Slavic, Romance, Finnish and other languages in the world. Very often, the kinship between languages corresponds to the kinship between the peoples speaking these languages; So at one time the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian peoples descended from common Slavic ancestors. It also happens that peoples have common languages, but there is no kinship between the peoples themselves. In ancient times, the kinship between languages coincided with the kinship between their owners. At this stage of development, even related languages are more different from each other than, for example, 500-700 years ago.
In ancient times, human tribes constantly fell apart, and at the same time the language of a large tribe also fell apart. Over time, the language of each remaining part became a special dialect, while retaining certain features of the previous language and acquiring new ones. There came a time when so many of these differences accumulated that the dialect turned into a new “language.”
In this new situation, languages began to experience new destinies. It happened that small nations, having become part of a large state, abandoned their language and switched to the language of the winner.
No matter how many different languages collide and cross with each other, it never happens that a third one is born from two languages that meet. Surely one of them turned out to be the winner, and the other ceased to exist. The victorious language, even having adopted some features of the defeated one, remained itself and developed according to its own laws. When we talk about the kinship of a language, we take into account not the tribal composition of the people who speak it today, but their very, very distant past.
Take, for example, the Romance languages, which, as it turns out, were born not from the Latin of classical writers and speakers, but from the language spoken by commoners and slaves. Therefore, for Romance languages, their source “base language” cannot simply be read from books; it has to be “restored according to how its individual features were preserved in our modern descendant languages” (2, 5, 8, 16).
5. All indications regarding each element under consideration in several related languages should be taken into account. It may be a coincidence that only two languages match.
Latin match sapo"soap" and Mordovian saron“soap” does not yet indicate the relationship of these languages.
6. The various processes existing in related languages (analogy, change in morphological structure, reduction of unstressed vowels, etc.) can be reduced to certain types. The typicality of these processes is one of the necessary conditions for the application of the comparative historical method.
The comparative historical method is based on comparing languages. Comparing the state of a language in different periods helps create a history of the language. “Comparison,” says A. Mays, “is the only tool that a linguist has at his disposal for constructing the history of languages.” The material for comparison is its most stable elements. In the field of morphology – inflectional and word-formative formatives. In the field of vocabulary - etymological, reliable words (kinship terms denoting vital concepts and natural phenomena, numerals, pronouns and other stable lexical elements).
So, as already shown above, the comparative historical method includes a whole range of techniques. First, a pattern of sound correspondences is established. Comparing, for example, the Latin root host-, Old Russian GOST-, Gothic gast- scientists have established a correspondence h in Latin and G , d in Central Russian and Gothic. The voiced stop in Slavic and Germanic languages, and the voiceless spirant in Latin corresponded to the aspirated stop ( gh) in Middle Slavic.
Latin O, Central Russian O corresponded to Gothic A, and the sound was more ancient O. The original part of the root usually remains unchanged. Taking into account the above natural correspondences, it is possible to restore the original form, that is, the archetype of the word in O form* ghost .
When establishing phonetic correspondences, it is necessary to take into account their relative chronology, that is, it is necessary to find out which of the elements are primary and which are secondary. In the above example, the primary sound is O, which in Germanic languages coincided with the short A .
Relative chronology is very important for establishing sound correspondences in the absence or small number of monuments of ancient writing.
The pace of linguistic change varies widely. Therefore, it is very important to determine:
1) temporal sequence of linguistic phenomena;
2) combination of phenomena in time.
It is very difficult to determine the period of history of the base language. Therefore, supporters of comparative historical linguistics, according to the degree of scientific reliability, distinguish two time slices - the most recent period of the base language (the period on the eve of the collapse of the proto-language) and some extremely early period achieved by reconstruction.
In relation to the language system under consideration, external and internal criteria are distinguished. The leading role belongs to intralinguistic criteria, based on the establishment of cause-and-effect relationships; if the reasons for changes are clarified, then the temporal sequence of related facts is determined.
When establishing certain correspondences, it is possible to establish archetypes of inflectional and word-formative formats.
Restoration of the original form occurs in a certain sequence. First, data from the same language but belonging to different eras, then data from closely related languages are used, for example, Russian with some Slavic. After this, data from other languages belonging to the same language family are accessed. The investigation carried out in this sequence allows us to identify the existing correspondences between related languages.
3. METHODS OF RECONSTRUCTION OF THE BASE LANGUAGE.
Currently, there are two methods of reconstruction - operational and interpretive. The operational one delineates specific relationships in the material being compared. The external expression of the operational approach is the reconstruction formula, that is, the so-called “form under the asterisk” (cf. * ghostic). The reconstruction formula is a brief generalized representation of the existing relationships between the facts of the languages being compared.
The interpretative aspect involves filling the correspondence formulas with specific semantic content. Indo-European content of the head of the family * p ter- (Latin pater, French pere, Gothic fodor, English father, German Vater) denoted not only a parent, but also had a social function, that is, the word * p ter one could call the deity as the highest of all heads of the family. Reconstruction is the filling of the reconstruction formula with a certain linguistic reality of the past.
The starting point from which the study of language reference begins is the base language, restored using the reconstruction formula.
The disadvantage of reconstruction is its “planar nature”. For example, when restoring diphthongs in the Common Slavic language, which later changed into monophthongs ( oi > And ; e i > i ; O i , ai >e etc.), various phenomena in the field of monophthongization of diphthongs and diphthong combinations (combination of vowels with nasals and smooth ones) did not occur simultaneously, but sequentially.
The next disadvantage of the reconstruction is its straightforwardness, that is, the complex processes of differentiation and integration of closely related languages and dialects, which occurred with varying degrees of intensity, are not taken into account.
The “planar” and rectilinear nature of the reconstruction ignored the possibility of the existence of parallel processes occurring independently and in parallel in related languages and dialects. For example, in the 12th century, diphthongization of long vowels occurred in parallel in English and German: Old German hus, Old English hus"house"; modern German Haus, English house .
In close interaction with external reconstruction is the technique of internal reconstruction. Its premise is a comparison of facts of one language that exist “synchronously” in this language in order to identify more ancient forms of this language. For example, comparing the forms in Russian as peku – oven, allows us to establish for the second person the earlier form pepyosh and reveal the phonetic transition to > c before front vowels. A reduction in the number of cases in the declension system is also sometimes established through internal reconstruction within one language. Modern Russian has six cases, while Old Russian had seven. The coincidence (syncretism) of the nominative and vocative cases (vocative) took place in the names of persons and personified natural phenomena (father, wind - sail). The presence of the vocative case in the Old Russian language is confirmed by comparison with the case system of Indo-European languages (Lithuanian, Sanskrit).
A variation of the method of internal reconstruction of a language is the “philological method,” which boils down to the analysis of early written texts in a given language in order to discover prototypes of later language forms. This method is limited, since in most languages of the world written monuments located in chronological order, are absent, and the method does not go beyond one linguistic tradition.
At different levels language system reconstruction possibilities manifest themselves to varying degrees. The reconstruction in the field of phonology and morphology is the most substantiated and evidence-based, due to a rather limited set of reconstructed units. The total number of phonemes in different places on the globe does not exceed 80. Phonological reconstruction becomes possible by establishing phonetic patterns that exist in the development of individual languages.
Correspondences between languages are subject to firm, clearly formulated "sound laws". These laws establish sound transitions that took place in the distant past under certain conditions. Therefore, in linguistics we now speak not about sound laws, but about sound movements. These movements make it possible to judge how quickly and in what direction phonetic changes occur, as well as what sound changes are possible, what features can characterize the sound system of the host language (5, 2, 11).
4. COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL METHOD IN THE FIELD OF SYNTAX
The methodology for applying the comparative-historical method of linguistics in the field of syntax is less developed, since it is very difficult to reconstruct syntactic archetypes. A certain syntactic model can be restored with some degree of reliability, but its material word content cannot be reconstructed, if by this we mean words found in the same syntactic structure. The best results are obtained by reconstructing phrases filled with words that have the same grammatical characteristic.
The way to reconstruct syntactic models is as follows.
1. Identification of binomial phrases traced in their historical development in the languages being compared.
2. Definition of the general model of education.
3. Detection of the interdependence of syntactic and morphological features of these models.
4. After reconstructing the models of word combinations, they begin research to identify archetypes and larger syntactic unities.
Based on the material of Slavic languages, it is possible to establish the relationship of constructions of equal meaning (nominative, instrumental predicative, nominal compound predicate with and without copula, etc.) to identify more ancient constructions and resolve the question of their origin.
Consistent comparison of the structures of sentences and phrases in related languages makes it possible to establish the general structural types of these constructions.
Just as comparative-historical morphology is impossible without establishing the laws established by comparative-historical phonetics, so comparative-historical syntax finds its support in the facts of morphology. B. Delbrück, in his work “Comparative Syntax of Indo-Germanic Languages” in 1900, showed that the pronominal basis io– is a formal support for a certain type of syntactic unit – a relative clause introduced by a pronoun * ios"which". This basis, which gave the Slavic je-, common in Slavic particle or: relative word Old Slavonic language appears in the form others like it(from * jь – ze). Later this relative form was replaced by relative indefinite pronouns.
A turning point in the development of the comparative historical method in the field of syntax was the work of Russian linguists A.A. Potebnya “From notes on Russian grammar” and F.E. Korsch "Methods of relative subordination", (1877).
A.A. Potebnya identifies two stages in the development of a sentence - nominal and verbal. At the nominal stage, the predicate was expressed by nominal categories, that is, constructions corresponding to the modern he is a fisherman, in which the noun fisherman contains the characteristics of a noun and the characteristics of a verb. At this stage there was no differentiation of noun and adjective. The early stage of the nominal structure of the sentence was characterized by concrete perception of the phenomena of objective reality. This holistic perception found its expression in the nominal structure of the language. At the verb stage, the predicate is expressed by a finite verb, and all members of the sentence are determined by their connection with the predicate.
Based on the material of the Old Russian, Lithuanian and Latvian languages, Pozhebnya compares not individual historical facts, but certain historical trends, approaching the idea of a syntactic typology of related Slavic languages.
In the same direction, F.E. developed the problems of comparative historical syntax. Korsh, who gave a brilliant analysis of relative clauses, the methods of relative subordination in a wide variety of languages (Indo-European, Turkic, Semitic) are strikingly similar.
Currently, in research on comparative-historical syntax, primary attention is paid to the analysis of means of expressing syntactic connections and the areas of application of these means in related languages.
In the field of comparative-historical Indo-European syntax there are a number of indisputable achievements: the theory of development from parataxis to hypotaxis; the doctrine of two kinds of Indo-European names and their meaning; the position about the autonomous nature of the word and the predominance of opposition and adjacency over other means of syntactic communication, the position that in the Indo-European base language the opposition of verbal stems had a specific and not a temporal meaning.
5. RECONSTRUCTION OF ARCHAIC MEANINGS OF WORDS
The least developed branch of comparative historical linguistics is the reconstruction of archaic meanings of words. This is explained as follows:
1) the concept of “word meaning” is not clearly defined;
2) the vocabulary of any language changes much faster compared to the system of word-formation and inflectional formats.
Archaic meanings of words should not be confused with definitions of etymological connections between words. Attempts to explain the original meaning of words have been made for a very long time. However, the true study of etymology as a science began with the substantiation of the principle of consistency between the semantic correspondences of words in a group of related languages.
Researchers have always attached great importance to the study of vocabulary as the most mobile part of the language, reflecting in its development various changes in the life of the people.
In every language, along with original words, there are borrowed words. Native words are those that a given language inherited from the base language. Slavic languages, for example, have well preserved the Indo-European vocabulary they inherited. Native words include such categories of words as basic pronouns, numerals, verbs, names of body parts, and kinship terms.
When restoring the archaic meanings of a word, original words are used, the change in meanings of which is influenced by intralingual and extralinguistic factors. In most cases, it is external extralinguistic factors that influence the change of a word.
Studying a word is impossible without knowledge of the history of a given people, its customs, culture, etc. Russian city, Old Church Slavonic hail, Lithuanian gadas“wattle fence”, “fence” go back to the same concept of “fortification, fortified place” and are associated with the verb fence , fence off. Russian livestock etymologically related to Gothic skatts"money", German Schatz“treasure” (for these peoples, livestock constituted the main wealth, was a means of exchange, that is, money). Ignorance of history can distort the idea of the origin and movement of words.
Russian silk same as English silke, Danish silke in the same meaning. Therefore, it was believed that the word silk borrowed from Germanic languages, and later etymological studies show that this word was borrowed into Russian from the east, and through it passed into the Germanic languages.
At the end of the 19th century, the study of changes in the meanings of words under the influence of extra-linguistic factors was carried out in a direction called “words and things.” The methodology of this study made it possible to move from the reconstruction of the lexemic Indo-European base language to the reconstruction of the cultural and historical background, since, according to supporters of this direction, “a word exists only depending on a thing.”
One of the most developed proto-language schemes is the reconstruction of the Indo-European base language. The attitude of scientists towards the proto-linguistic basis was different: some saw it as the ultimate goal of comparative historical research (A. Schleicher), others refused to recognize any historical significance for it (A. Maye, N.Ya. Marr). According to Marr, the proto-language is a scientific fiction.
In modern scientific and historical research, the scientific and cognitive significance of the proto-language hypothesis is increasingly being affirmed. The works of domestic researchers emphasize that the reconstruction of the proto-linguistic scheme should be considered as creating a starting point in the study of the history of languages. This is the scientific and historical significance of reconstructing the base language of any language family, since, being a starting point at a certain chronological level, the reconstructed proto-language scheme will make it possible to more clearly imagine the development of a specific group of languages or an individual language.
CONCLUSION
The most effective method for studying the genetic relationships between related languages is the comparative-historical method, which makes it possible to establish a system of comparisons on the basis of which the history of the language can be reconstructed.
The comparative-historical study of languages is based on the fact that the components of a language appeared at different times, which leads to the fact that in languages there are simultaneously layers belonging to different chronological sections. Due to its specificity as a means of communication, language cannot change simultaneously in all elements. The various causes of language changes also cannot operate simultaneously. All this makes it possible to reconstruct, using the comparative historical method, a picture of the gradual development and change of languages, starting from the time of their separation from the proto-language of a particular language family.
The comparative historical method in linguistics has many advantages:
– relative simplicity of the procedure (if it is known that the morphemes being compared are related);
– quite often the reconstruction is extremely simplified, or even already represented by part of the elements being compared;
– the possibility of ordering the stages of development of one or several phenomena in a relatively chronological manner;
– priority of form over function, despite the fact that the first part remains more stable than the last.
However, this method also has its difficulties and disadvantages (or limitations), which are associated mainly with the factor of “linguistic” time:
– a given language, used for comparison, can be separated from the original base language or another related language by such a number of steps of “linguistic” time that most of the inherited linguistic elements are lost and, therefore, the given language itself drops out of comparison or becomes unreliable material for him;
- the impossibility of reconstructing those phenomena whose antiquity exceeds the temporal depth of a given language - material for comparison becomes extremely unreliable due to profound changes;
– borrowings in a language are especially difficult (in other languages, the number of borrowed words exceeds the number of original ones).
Comparative-historical linguistics cannot rely solely on the provided “rules” - it is often discovered that the problem is one of the exceptional ones and requires recourse to non-standard methods of analysis or is solved only with a certain probability.
However, through the establishment of correspondences between the correlated elements of different related languages ("comparative identity") and patterns of continuity over time of elements of a given language (i.e. A 1 > A 2 > …A n) comparative historical linguistics has acquired a completely independent status.
The comparative historical study of languages has not only scientific and educational significance, but also great scientific and methodological value, which lies in the fact that the study reconstructs the parent language. This proto-language as a starting point helps to understand the history of the development of a particular language. (2, 10, 11, 14).
I would also like to add that comparative historical linguistics takes us into the wonderful world of words, makes it possible to reveal the secrets of long-vanished civilizations, helps to decipher the mysteries of ancient inscriptions on rocks and papyri that have been indecipherable for thousands of years, to learn the history and “fate” of individual words, dialects and entire small and large families.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Gorbanevsky M.V. In the world of names and titles. – M., 1983.
2. Berezin F.M., Golovin B.N. General linguistics. – M.: Education, 1979.
3. Bondarenko A.V. Modern comparative historical linguistics/Scientific notes of the Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute. – L., 1967.
4. Issues of methodology for the comparative-historical study of Indo-European languages. – M., 1956.
5. Golovin B.N. Introduction to linguistics. – M., 1983.
6. Gorbanovsky M.V. In the beginning there was a word. – M.: Publishing house UDN, 1991.
7. Ivanova Z.A. Secrets of the native language. – Volgograd, 1969.
8. Knabeg S.O. Application of the comparative historical method in linguistics/"Issues of linguistics". – No. 1. 1956.
9. Kodukhov V.I. General linguistics. – M., 1974.
10. Linguistic encyclopedic dictionary. – M., 1990.
12. Otkupshchikov Yu.V. To the origins of the word. – M., 1986.
13. General linguistics/Methods of linguistic research. – M., 1973.
14. Stepanov Yu.S. Fundamentals of general linguistics. – M., 1975.
15. Smirnitsky A.I. Comparative historical method and determination of linguistic kinship. – M., 1955.
16. Uspensky L.V. A word about words. Why not otherwise? – L., 1979.
§ 12. Comparative-historical method, basic provisions of the comparative-historical method of linguistics.
§ 13. Reconstruction method.
§ 14. The role of young grammarians in the development of comparative historical linguistics.
§ 15. Indo-European studies in the 20th century. Theory of Nostratic languages. Glottochronology method.
§ 16. Achievements of comparative historical linguistics.
§ 12. The leading place in comparative historical research belongs to comparative historical method. This method is defined as “a system of research techniques used in the study of related languages to restore the picture of the historical past of these languages in order to reveal the patterns of their development, starting from the base language” (Issues of methodology for the comparative historical study of Indo-European languages. M., I956 58).
Comparative historical linguistics takes into account the following basic provisions:
1) related community is explained by the origin of languages from one base language;
2) proto-language fully cannot be restored, but the basic data of its phonetics, grammar and vocabulary can be restored;
3) the coincidence of words in different languages may be a consequence borrowing: yes, Russian. Sun borrowed from lat. sol; words may be the result of a coincidence: these are the Latin sapo and Mordovian sapon– “soap”, although they are not related; (A.A. Reformatsky).
4) to compare languages, words that belong to the era of the base language should be used. Among them: a) names of kinship: Russian Brother, German Bruder, lat. frater, other ind. bhrata; b) numerals: Russian. three, lat. tres, fr. trois English three, German drei; c) original pronouns; d) words denoting body parts : Russian heart, German Härz, Arm. (=sirt); e) names animals And plants : Russian mouse, other ind. mus, Greek mys, lat. mus, English mous(maus), Armenian (= torment);
5) in the area morphology for comparison, the most stable inflectional and word-forming elements are taken;
6) the most reliable criteria for the relationship of languages is partial match sounds and partial discrepancy: the initial Slavic [b] in Latin regularly corresponds to [f]: brother - frater. Old Slavonic combinations -ra-, -la- correspond to original Russian combinations -oro-, olo-: gold – gold, enemy – thief;
7) the meanings of words can diverge according to the laws of polysemy. So, in Czech language words stale stands for fresh;
8) it is necessary to compare data from written monuments of dead languages with data from living languages and dialects. So, back in the 19th century. scientists have come to the conclusion that the word forms of Latin words ager- "field", sacer -"sacred" go back to more ancient forms adros, sacros. During excavations of one of the Roman forums, a Latin inscription from the 6th century was found. BC, containing these forms;
9) comparisons should be made starting from a comparison of the closest related languages to the kinship of groups and families. For example, linguistic facts of the Russian language are first compared with corresponding phenomena in the Belarusian and Ukrainian languages; East Slavic languages - with other Slavic groups; Slavic - with Baltic; Balto-Slavic - with other Indo-European ones. This was the instruction of R. Rusk;
10) processes characteristic of related languages can be summarized in types. The typicality of such linguistic processes as the phenomenon of analogy, changes in morphological structure, reduction of unstressed vowels, etc., is a necessary condition for the application of the comparative historical method.
Comparative-historical linguistics is guided by two principles – a) “comparative” and b) “historical”. Sometimes the emphasis is on the “historical”: it determines the purpose of the study (the history of language, including in the preliterate era). In this case, the direction and principles of comparative historical linguistics are historicism (research by J. Grimm, W. Humboldt, etc.). With this understanding, another principle - “comparative” - is the means by which the goals of the historical study of language (languages) are achieved. This is how the history of a particular language is explored. In this case, external comparison with related languages may be absent (refer to the prehistoric period in the development of a given language) or replaced by internal comparison of earlier facts with later ones. In this case, the comparison of linguistic facts is reduced to a technical device.
Sometimes it is emphasized comparison(comparative historical linguistics is sometimes called therefore comparative studies , from lat. words "comparison"). The focus is on the very relationship of the elements being compared, which is main object research; however, the historical implications of this comparison remain unemphasized, reserved for subsequent research. In this case, comparison acts not only as a means, but also as a goal. The development of the second principle of comparative historical linguistics gave rise to new methods and directions in linguistics: contrastive linguistics, comparative method.
Contrastive linguistics (confrontational linguistics) is a direction of research in general linguistics that has been intensively developing since the 50s. XX century The goal of contrastive linguistics is the comparative study of two, or less often several, languages to identify similarities and differences at all levels of the language structure. The origins of contrastive linguistics are observations of the differences between a foreign (foreign) language in comparison with the native one. Typically, contrastive linguistics studies languages in synchrony.
Comparative method involves the study and description of a language through its systematic comparison with another language in order to clarify its specificity. The comparative method is aimed primarily at identifying differences between the two languages being compared and is therefore also called contrastive. The comparative method is, in a sense, the reverse side of the comparative-historical method: if the comparative-historical method is based on establishing correspondences, then the comparative method is based on establishing inconsistencies, and often what is diachronically a correspondence, synchronically appears as an inconsistency (for example, Russian word white– Ukrainian biliy, both from Old Russian bhlyi). Thus, the comparative method is the property of synchronic research. The idea of the comparative method was theoretically justified by the founder of the Kazan linguistic school I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay. As a linguistic method with certain principles, it was formed in the 30-40s. XX century
§ 13. Just as a paleontologist strives to reconstruct the skeleton of an ancient animal from individual bones, so a linguist of comparative historical linguistics strives to represent the elements of the structure of language in the distant past. An expression of this desire is reconstruction(restoration) of the base language in two aspects: operational and interpretive.
Operational aspect delineates specific relationships in the material being compared. This is expressed in reconstruction formula,“formula under an asterisk”, Icon * – Asterix- this is a sign of a word or form of a word not attested in written monuments; it was introduced into scientific use by A. Schleicher, who first used this technique. The reconstruction formula is a generalization of the existing relations between the facts of the compared languages, known from written monuments or from living references.
consumption in speech.
Interpretive aspect involves filling the formula with specific semantic content. Thus, the Indo-European name for the head of the family * pater(Latin pater, French pere, English father, German vater) denoted not only a parent, but also had a social function, that is, the word * pater could be called a deity.
It is customary to distinguish between external and internal reconstruction.
External reconstruction uses data from a number of related languages. For example, he notes the regularity of correspondence between the Slavic sound [b] , Germanic [b], Latin [f], Greek [f], Sanskrit, Hittite [p] in historically identical roots (see examples above).
Or Indo-European vowel+nasal combinations *in, *om, *ьm, *ъп in Slavic languages (Old Church Slavonic, Old Russian), according to the law of open syllables, they changed. Before vowels, diphthongs disintegrated, and before consonants they turned into nasals, that is, into Q And ę
, and in Old Church Slavonic they were designated @ “yus big” and # “yus small”. In the Old Russian language, nasal vowels were lost in the pre-literate period, that is, at the beginning of the 10th century.
Q > y, A ę > a(graphic I). For example: m#ti > mint ,
lat. Ment –"substance" consisting of peppermint oil (the name of a popular mint-flavored chewing gum).
It is also possible to distinguish phonetic correspondences between Slavic [d], English and Armenian [t], German [z]: ten, ten, , zehn.
Internal reconstruction uses data from one language to reconstruct its ancient forms by determining the conditions of alternation at a particular stage of language development. For example, through internal reconstruction, the ancient indicator of the present tense of Russian verbs [j], which was transformed in the vicinity of a consonant, is restored:
Or: in Old Slavonic LIE< *lъgja; slow down based on the alternation g//zh that appeared before the front vowel [i].
The reconstruction of the Indo-European proto-language, which ceased to exist no later than the end of the 3rd millennium BC, was seen by the first researchers of comparative historical linguistics (for example, A. Schleicher) as the ultimate goal of comparative historical research. Later, a number of scientists refused to recognize the proto-language hypothesis as having any scientific significance (A. Meilleux, N.Ya. Marr, etc.). Reconstruction is no longer understood only as the restoration of linguistic facts of the past. The proto-language becomes a technical means of studying real-life languages, establishing a system of correspondences between historically attested languages. Currently, the reconstruction of the proto-linguistic scheme is considered as a starting point in the study of the history of languages.
§ 14. About half a century after the founding of comparative historical linguistics, at the turn of the 70s and 80s. XIX century, the school of young grammarians emerges. F. Tsarnke jokingly called the representatives of the new school “younggrammatikers” (Junggrammatiker) for the youthful enthusiasm with which they attacked the older generation of linguists. This humorous name was picked up by Karl Brugman, and it became the name of a whole movement. The neogrammatical movement was predominantly occupied by linguists at the University of Leipzig, as a result of which neogrammarians are sometimes called Leipzig School of Linguistics. In it, the first place should be given to the researcher of Slavic and Baltic languages Augusta Leskina (1840-1916), in whose work “Declension in Slavic-Lithuanian and Germanic languages” (1876) clearly reflected the attitude of the neo-grammarians. Leskin's ideas were continued by his students Karl Brugman (1849-1919), Herman Osthoff (1847-1909), Herman Paul (1846-1921), Berthold Delbrück (1842-1922).
The main works that reflect the neogrammatical theory are: I) the preface by K. Brugman and G. Osthoff to the first volume of “Morphological Studies” (1878), which is usually called the “manifesto of the neogrammaticians”; 2) G. Paul’s book “Principles of the History of Language” (1880). Three propositions were put forward and defended by neogrammarians: I) phonetic laws operating in a language have no exceptions (exceptions arise as a result of intersecting laws or are caused by other factors); 2) very important role in the process of creating new linguistic forms and in general in phonetic-morphological changes, analogy plays a role; 3) first of all, it is necessary to study modern living languages and their dialects, because they, unlike ancient languages, can serve as a basis for establishing linguistic and psychological patterns.
The neogrammatical movement arose on the basis of many observations and discoveries. Observations of live pronunciation and the study of physiological and acoustic conditions for the formation of sounds led to the creation of an independent branch of linguistics - phonetics.
In the field of grammar, new discoveries have shown that in the process of development of inflection, in addition to agglutination, attracted by the predecessors of neogrammarians, other morphological processes also play a role - moving the boundaries between morphemes within a word and, especially, the alignment of forms by analogy.
The deepening of phonetic and grammatical knowledge made it possible to put etymology on a scientific footing. Etymological studies have shown that phonetic and semantic changes in words are usually independent. Semasiology is used to study semantic changes. The issues of dialect formation and language interaction began to be posed in a new way. The historical approach to the phenomena of language is being universalized.
A new understanding of linguistic facts led neogrammarians to revise the romantic ideas of their predecessors: F. Bopp, W. von Humboldt, A. Schleicher. It was stated: phonetic laws do not apply everywhere and not always the same(as A. Schleicher thought), and in within a given language or dialect and in a certain era, that is The comparative historical method was improved. The old view of a single process of development of all languages - from an initial amorphous state, through agglutination to inflection - was abandoned. The understanding of language as a constantly changing phenomenon gave rise to the postulate of a historical approach to language. Hermann Paul even argued that “all linguistics is historical.” For deeper and detailed study The neogrammarians recommended an isolated consideration of linguistic phenomena, separated from the systemic connections of language (the “atomism” of the neogrammarians).
The neogrammarians' theory represented a real advance over the previous state of linguistic research. Important principles were developed and applied: 1) the preferential study of living vernacular languages and their dialects, combined with a careful study of linguistic facts; 2) taking into account the mental element in the process of communication and especially linguistic elements (the role of analogous factors); 3) recognition of the existence of a language in a community of people speaking it; 4) attention to sound changes, to the material side of human speech; 5) the desire to introduce the factor of regularity and the concept of law into the explanation of linguistic facts.
By the time of the neogrammarians' entry, comparative historical linguistics had spread throughout the world. If in the first period of comparative historical linguistics the main figures were the Germans, Danes and Slavs, now linguistic schools are emerging in many countries of Europe and America. In France The Parisian Linguistic Society was founded (1866). IN America a famous Indonologist worked William Dwight Whitney , who, speaking against biologism in linguistics, laid the foundation for the movement of neogrammarians (opinion of F. de Saussure). IN Russia worked A.A. Potebnya, I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay , who founded the Kazan linguistic school, and F.F. Fortunatov, founder of the Moscow linguistic school. IN Italy the founder of the substrate theory worked fruitfully Graziadio Izaya Ascoli . IN Switzerland worked as an outstanding linguist F. de Saussure , which determined the path of linguistics throughout the twentieth century. IN Austria worked as a critic of neogrammatism Hugo Schuchardt . IN Denmark moved forward Karl Werner , which clarified the Rusk-Grimm law on the first Germanic consonant movement, and Vilgelem Thomsen , famous for his research on borrowed words.
The era of the dominance of neogrammatical ideas (it covers approximately 50 years) led to significant developments in linguistics.
Under the influence of the works of neogrammarians, phonetics quickly became an independent branch of linguistics. New methods began to be used in the study of phonetic phenomena (experimental phonetics). Gaston Paris organized the first phonetic experimental laboratory in Paris, and the final new discipline - experimental phonetics - was established by Abbe Rousselot.
A new discipline has been created - "linguistic geography"(works Ascoli, Gillerona And Edmond in France).
The results of almost two centuries of language research using the comparative historical method are summarized in the diagram genealogical classification of languages. Families of languages are divided into branches, groups, and subgroups.
The theory of proto-language, developed in the 19th century, is used in the 20th century. for the comparative historical study of various language families: Indo-European, Turkic, Finno-Ugric, etc. Note that it is still impossible to restore the Indo-European language to such a level that it is possible to write texts.
§ 15. Comparative historical research continued in the 20th century. Modern comparative historical linguistics identifies approximately 20 language families. The languages of some neighboring families show certain similarities that can be interpreted as kinship (that is, genetic similarity). This allows us to see macro-families of languages in such broad linguistic communities. For North American languages in the 1930s. twentieth century American linguist E. Sapir proposed several macrofamilies. Later J. Greenberg proposed two for African languages macrofamily: I) Niger-Kordofan (or Niger-Congo); 2) Nilo-Saharan.
At the beginning of the 20th century. Danish scientist Holger Pedersen suggested the kinship of the Ural-Altaic, Indo-European and Afroasiatic language families and called this community Nostratic languages(from lat. Noster- our). In the development of the theory of Nostratic languages, the leading role belongs to the domestic linguist Vladislav Markovich Illich-Svitych (I934-I966). IN Nostratic macrofamily It is proposed to combine two groups:
A) Eastern Nostratic, which includes Ural, Altai, Dravidian (Indian subcontinent: Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada);
b) Western Nostratic– Indo-European, Afroasiatic, Kartvelian (Georgian, Mingrelian, Svan languages) families. Several hundred etymological (phonetic) correspondences of related roots and affixes connecting these families have been identified, in particular in the field of pronouns: Russian to me, Mordovsk Maud, Tatar min, Sanskrit munens.
Some researchers consider the Afroasiatic languages to be a separate macrofamily, not genetically related to the Nostratic languages. The Nostratic hypothesis is not generally accepted, although it seems plausible, and a lot of material has been collected in its favor.
Another well-known in Indo-European studies of the 20th century deserves attention. theory or method glottochronology(from Greek glotta- language, chronos- time). The glottochronology method, in other words, lexico-statistical method, was used in the middle of the century by an American scientist Morris Swadesh (I909-I967). The impetus for the creation of the method was the comparative historical study of the Indian unwritten languages of America. (M. Swadesh. Lexico-statistical dating of prehistoric ethnic contacts / Translated from English // New in linguistics. Issue I. M., I960).
M. Swadesh believed that based on the patterns of morphemic decay in languages, it is possible to determine the temporal depth of proto-languages, just as geology determines their age by analyzing the content of decay products; archeology uses the rate of decay of the radioactive carbon isotope to determine the age of any archaeological site. Linguistic facts indicate that the basic vocabulary, reflecting universal human concepts, changes very slowly. M. Swadesh developed a list of 100 words as a basic dictionary. This includes:
· some personal and demonstrative pronouns ( I, you, we, that, all);
· numerals one two. (Numerals denoting large numbers can be borrowed. See: Vinogradov V.V. Russian language. Grammatical doctrine of words);
· some names of body parts (head, arm, leg, bone, liver);
names of elementary actions (eat, drink, walk, stand, sleep);
· names of properties (dry, warm, cold), color, size;
· designations of universal concepts (sun, water, house);
social concepts (Name).
Swadesh assumed that the basic vocabulary is particularly stable, and the rate of change of the basic vocabulary remains constant. With this assumption, it is possible to calculate how many years ago the languages diverged, forming independent languages. As you know, the process of language divergence is called divergence (differentiation, in other terminology - from lat. divergo I deviate). The time of divergence in glottochronology is determined in a logarithmic formula. It can be calculated that if, for example, only 7 words out of a base 100 are not the same, the languages separated approximately 500 years ago; if 26, then the division occurred 2 thousand years ago, and if only 22 words out of 100 coincide, then 10 thousand years ago, etc.
The lexical-statistical method has found its greatest application in the study of genetic groupings of Indian and Paleo-Asian languages, that is, to identify the genetic proximity of little-studied languages, when the traditional procedures of the comparative historical method are difficult to apply. This method is not applicable to literary languages that have a long continuous history: the language remains unchanged to a large extent. (Linguists note that using the glottochronology method is as reliable as telling time using a sundial at night by illuminating it with a burning match.)
A new solution to the question of the Indo-European language is proposed in a fundamental study Tamaz Valerievich Gamkrelidze And Vyach. Sun. Ivanova “Indo-European language and Indo-Europeans. Reconstruction and historical-typological analysis of proto-languages and protoculture.” M., 1984. Scientists offer a new solution to the question of the ancestral homeland of the Indo-Europeans. T.V.Gamkrelidze and Vyach.Vs.Ivanov determine ancestral home of the Indo-Europeans region within eastern Anatolia (Greek. Anatole – east, in ancient times - the name of Asia Minor, now the Asian part of Turkey), the South Caucasus and Northern Mesopotamia (Mesopotamia, a region in Western Asia, between the Tigris and Euphrates) in the V-VI millennium BC.
Scientists explain the ways of settlement of different Indo-European groups, restore the peculiarities of life of the Indo-Europeans on the basis of the Indo-European dictionary. They brought the ancestral home of the Indo-Europeans closer to the “ancestral home” of agriculture, which stimulated social and verbal communication between related communities. The advantage of the new theory is the completeness of linguistic argumentation, while a whole range of linguistic data is used by scientists for the first time.
§ 16. In general, the achievements of comparative historical linguistics are significant. For the first time in the history of linguistics, comparative historical linguistics showed that:
1) there is a language eternal process and therefore changes in language - this is not the result of damage to the language, as was believed in ancient times and the Middle Ages, but way of existence of language;
2) the achievements of comparative historical linguistics should also include the reconstruction of the proto-language as the starting point of the history of the development of a particular language;
3) implementation ideas of historicism And comparisons in language research;
4) the creation of such important branches of linguistics as phonetics (experimental phonetics), etymology, historical lexicology, history of literary languages, historical grammar, etc.;
5) justification of theory and practice text reconstructions;
6) introduction to linguistics of such concepts as “language system”, “diachrony” and “synchrony”;
7) the emergence of historical and etymological dictionaries (based on the Russian language, these are the dictionaries:
Preobrazhensky A. Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language: In 2 vols. I9I0-I9I6; Ed. 2nd. M., 1959.
Vasmer M. Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language: In 4 vols. / Per. with him. O.N. Trubacheva. M., I986-I987 (2nd ed.).
Chernykh P.Ya. Historical and etymological dictionary of the Russian language: In 2 vols. M., I993.
Shansky N.M., Bobrova T.D. Etymological dictionary of the Russian language. M., 1994).
Over time, comparative historical research became an integral part of other areas of linguistics: linguistic typology, generative linguistics, structural linguistics, etc.
Literature
Main
Berezin F.M., Golovin B.N. General linguistics. M. 1979. pp. 295-307.
Berezin F.M. Reader on the history of Russian linguistics. M., 1979. P. 21-34 (M.V. Lomonosov); P. 66-70 (A.Kh.Vostokov).
General linguistics (Methods of linguistic research) / Ed. B.A. Serebrennikova. M., 1973. S. 34-48.
Kodukhov V.I. General linguistics. M., 1979. S. 29-37.
Additional
Dybo V.A., Terentyev V.A. Nostratic languages // Linguistics: BES, 1998. pp. 338‑339.
Illich-Svitych V.M. Experience of comparison of Nostratic languages. Comparative dictionary (Vol. 1-3). M., I97I-I984.
Ivanov Vyach.Sun. Genealogical classification of languages. Linguistics: BES, I998. P. 96.
Ivanov Vyach.Sun. Languages of the world. pp. 609-613.
Monogenesis theory. pp. 308-309.
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Introduction
1. The origin and stages of development of the comparative historical method in linguistics
2. The essence of the comparative historical method in linguistics
3. Techniques of the comparative historical method
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction
Linguistics, like other sciences, has developed its own research techniques, its own scientific methods. The comparative-historical method in linguistics is one of the main ones and is a set of techniques that make it possible to study the relationships between related languages and describe their evolution in time and space, and establish historical patterns in the development of languages. Using the comparative historical method, the diachronic evolution of genetically close languages is traced, based on evidence of their common origin.
The comparative historical method became established in linguistics at the beginning of the 19th century. The discovery of related languages and methods of studying them occurred almost simultaneously in a number of countries. This method was very accurate and convincing in its results, and played a very important role in the development of the science of language.
The relevance of the chosen topic is due to the fact that the issue of studying the linguistic heritage of the past occupies a central place in modern linguistics. The linguistic data obtained using the comparative historical method are of great importance in the study of the most ancient eras of the history of peoples.
The purpose of this work is to study the issue of the origin of the comparative historical method, reveal its essence and techniques, and identify the main advantages and disadvantages (or limitations).
1. The origin and stages of development of the comparative historical methodVlinguistics
The first scientific conclusions that determined the ways of comparing languages were made in the second half of the 18th century. philologist and orientalist William Jones. W. Jones, having become acquainted with Sanskrit and discovering its similarities in verbal roots and grammatical forms with Greek, Latin, Gothic and other languages, in 1786 proposed a completely new theory of linguistic kinship - about the origin of the languages of their common parent language. The following thoughts belong to him:
1) similarity not only in roots, but also in forms of grammar cannot be the result of chance;
2) this is a kinship of languages going back to one common source;
3) this source “perhaps no longer exists”;
4) in addition to Sanskrit, Greek and Latin, the same family of languages includes Germanic, Celtic, and Iranian languages.
Further development of science confirmed the correct statements of W. Jones.
In the first quarter of the 19th century. in different countries, almost simultaneously, works were published that actually “discovered” the comparative historical method of studying languages. In 1816, Franz Bopp's first work was published - "On the conjugation system of the Sanskrit language in comparison with that of the Greek, Latin, Persian and Germanic languages." This German scientist directly followed the statement of W. Jones and studied, using a comparative method, the conjugation of basic verbs in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Persian and Gothic (1816), later including data from Old Church Slavonic, Lithuanian, Armenian and German. F. Bopp compared both roots and inflections (verb and case endings), since he rightly believed that to establishrelationship between languages and matching roots alone is not enough, you also needsimilarity of grammatical forms, since roots can be borrowed, but the system of grammatical endings, as a rule, cannot be borrowed. Thus, according to F. Bopp, the similarity of verb endings, along with the similarity of roots, can serve as a reliable guarantee for establishing the relationship of languages. Having studied the above-mentioned languages, F. Bopp proved their relationship and separated them into a special language family, which he called the Indo-Germanic (i.e., Indo-European) family of languages.
The Danish scientist Rasmus-Christian Rask took a different path, who emphasized in every possible way that lexical correspondences between languages are notreliable, grammatical ones are much more important, because borrowinginflections, and in particular inflections," never happens" . R. Rusk studied the so-called Scandinavian languages - Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish - and sought to prove their relationship. In his work “A Study in the Field of the Old Norse Language, or the Origin of the Icelandic Language” (1818), he described the method of “expanding circles,” according to which, in order to establish the relationship of languages, one must go from comparing the closest related languages to the relationship of groups and families. In addition, R. Rask identified several groups of words, by comparing which one can establish the relationship of languages: 1) terms of relationship: mother -???? - mother - Mutter - madre (Italian, Spanish) - mВter (lat.); 2) names of pets: cow - kra?va (Czech) - krowa (Polish) -??? - cow - Kuh - cervus (" deer" ) (lat.); 3) names of body parts: nose - nos (Czech, Polish) - nose (English) - Nase (German) - nez (French) - naso (Italian) - nariz (Spanish) - nвris (lat.) - nosis (lit.); 4) numbers (from 1 to 10): ten - deset (Czech) -??? (? ) - ten (English) - zehn (German) - dix (French) - dieci (Italian) - diez (Spanish) -dEcb (Greek) - decem (Latin).
In the 30-40s. The 19th century German philologist Jacob Grimm introduced a historical point of view on language into science. He noted that every language develops over a long period of time, i.e. has its own history. In the history of development human language he distinguished three periods: 1) ancient, 2) middle and 3) new. Ancient period - the creation, growth and formation of roots and words; the middle period is the flowering of inflection that has reached perfection; the new period is the stage of striving for clarity of thought, which leads to analyticity and, consequently, to the abandonment of inflection. According to J. Grimm, in order to establish the relationship of languages, it is necessary to study their history. He was the author of the first historical grammar. And although it is called “German Grammar” (1819 - 1837), Grimm explores in it the history of the development of not only German, but also all Germanic languages, starting from the oldest written monuments and up to the 19th century. This was the first experience of historical grammar, under the influence of which the Russian scientist F.I. Buslaev wrote a historical grammar of the Russian language. In fact, J. Grimm is considered one of the founders of the historical method in linguistics, while F. Bopp is considered to be one of the founders of the comparative method.
In 1820, the main work of another founder of the comparative-historical method, the Russian scientist A.Kh., was published. Vostokov "Discourse on the Slavic language". According to A.Kh. Vostokova to establish the relationship of languages, it is necessary to compare data from written monuments of dead languages withdataliving languages and dialects. By comparing the roots and grammatical forms of living Slavic languages with data from the dead Old Church Slavonic language, the scientist managed to unravel many incomprehensible facts of Old Church Slavonic written monuments.
The merit of the founders of the comparative-historical method in linguistics lies in the fact that they embodied the general position on the comparative and historical study of individual phenomena in a system of specific scientific techniques, consistent with the specific features of the object under study (i.e., language) and focused on resolving linguistic problems themselves .
2. The essence is comparativelyric method in linguistics
If we look at the science of language retrospectively, its history appears as a continuous struggle for a special method. Due to the fact that language is an extremely diverse phenomenon, it allows for different approaches to its study and, in fact, was initially studied in the context of various sciences: philosophy - in classical antiquity, in the complex of the study of folk literature and religious institutions - among the Arabs of the Caliphate era, in connections with logic and philosophy of history - in Europe in the 16th-18th centuries. The beginning of the 19th century, which in linguistics is marked by the creation of the comparative historical method, partially synthesized these different scientific traditions in the study of language and thereby different approaches. The very comparative-historical method of considering the phenomena of language was also borrowed by linguistics from other sciences, and many of its general provisions - such as, for example, the thesis about a single ancestral people, which then broke up into a number of tribes - the science of language developed and developed in close collaboration with other cultural sciences.
By its very nature and general orientation, the comparative historical method is suitable for resolving a limited range of linguistic issues. L. V. Shcherba limited the comparative-historical (or simply comparative, as he called it) method to a circle special tasks, the nature of which is clear from his following words: “The essence of the comparative method primarily consists of a set of techniques that prove the historical identity or relationship of words and morphemes in cases where this is not obvious... In addition, the comparative method consists of a special series of techniques, which, through the study of phonetic alternations and correspondences, make it possible to restore, to one degree or another, the history of the sounds of a given language." Other linguists have already determined the working possibilities of the comparative-historical method. “The comparative historical method in linguistics in the special sense of this term,” writes, for example, A. I. Smirnitsky, “is a scientific method of restoring past linguistic facts not recorded in writing by systematically comparing materially corresponding later facts of two or more specific languages known from written monuments or directly from living use in oral speech" . A prerequisite for the use of the comparative historical method is the presence of genetically similar elements in the languages being compared, since the design principle of this method is the idea of genetic connections languages. F. Bopp already pointed out that the comparative historical method is not an end in itself, but a tool for penetrating the “secrets” of language development. Speaking about the tasks of his main work, dedicated to the comparative grammar of Indo-European languages, he writes in the preface to it that he intends to “give a comparative description of the organism of the languages indicated in the title, covering all related cases, to conduct a study of their physical and mechanical laws and the origin of forms expressing grammatical relationship". Thus, from the very beginning, in parallel with the creation of the comparative-historical method, the formation of comparative-historical linguistics took place - two concepts that cannot be confused. Comparative-historical linguistics, in contrast to the comparative-historical method, which is a method of solving a specific linguistic problem, is a set of linguistic problems raised initially in connection with the use of the comparative-historical method. It also deals with the historical study of languages in the aspect of their genetic relationships, however, in the study of these problems, methods other than comparative historical ones can be used.
Comparative historical method, like any other method of learning languages, has advantages along with disadvantages. Firstly, this method turns out to be ineffective when studying so-called isolated languages (Chinese, Japanese, etc.), that is, those that do not have related languages. Secondly, using the comparative historical method, it is possible to reconstruct the phonetic and morphemic composition of the language - the foundations of the era immediately preceding the isolation of individual language groups. However, the comparative-historical method did not give positive results in solving problems of comparative-historical lexicology and comparative-historical syntax. Third, the comparative-historical method makes it possible to penetrate into the history of languages not attested by written monuments, to discover and restore a certain initial unity of related languages, to identify specific internal laws of their subsequent development, but the comparative-historical method often operates with far from equivalent data. Some monuments represent material that is extremely disparate in chronological terms. Therefore, we cannot establish the changes that occurred during periods of language development not attested by monuments. In the presence of chronologically motley and unequal material, it is impossible to restore either the living system of the base language in its integrity, or a strict picture of the subsequent development of languages. Fourthly, the possibilities of using the comparative historical method in studying different groups of related languages are far from the same. These possibilities depend on the number of materially related features within a particular group of languages. Fifthly, using the comparative historical method, it is possible to trace the differences that actually exist between related languages to a single source, but it is impossible to identify those differences between related languages that existed in the past and were later lost. Using this method, it is impossible to establish the presence of parallel processes that arise in related languages largely independently of each other. This method turns out to be powerless when studying such changes that arose as a result of the convergence and integration of languages.
3. Techniques of the comparative historical method in linguistics
The main techniques of the comparative historical method are external and internal reconstructions and the extraction of information from the analysis of borrowed words.
The comparative historical method is based on a number of requirements, compliance with which increases the reliability of the conclusions obtained by this method. One of these requirements is that a language is a collection of parts, ancient and new, formed at different times. The technique of detecting genetically identical morphemes and words in related languages, identifying in them the results of regular sound changes in the source language, as well as constructing a hypothetical model of the language and rules for deriving specific morphemes of descendant languages from this model is called external reconstruction. Every language changes gradually as it develops. If there were no these changes, then languages going back to the same source (for example, Indo-European) would not differ from each other at all. Due to gradual changes in the process of their development, even closely related languages differ significantly from each other. Let's take Russian and Ukrainian, for example. During the period of its independent existence, each of these languages underwent various changes, which led to more or less significant differences in the field of phonetics, grammar, word formation and semantics. Already a simple comparison of Russian words place, month, knife, juice with Ukrainian misto, month, lower, sik shows that in a number of cases the Russian vowel e And O will correspond to Ukrainian i. Similar discrepancies can be observed in the field of word formation: Russian words reader, listener, figure, sower act with the suffix of the character - tel, and the corresponding words in the Ukrainian language are reader, listener, diyach, Withiyach- have a suffix - h. Much more complex changes can be found when comparing other Indo-European languages. However, the method of external reconstruction has a number of disadvantages. The first disadvantage of reconstruction is its “planar nature.” For example, when restoring diphthongs in the Common Slavic language, which later changed into monophthongs ( oi > and; ei > i; oi, ai > e, etc.), various phenomena in the field of monophthongization of diphthongs did not occur simultaneously, but sequentially. The second drawback of the reconstruction is its straightforwardness, that is, it does not take into account the complex processes of differentiation and integration of closely related languages and dialects, which occurred with varying degrees of intensity. The “planar” and rectilinear nature of the reconstruction ignored the possibility of the existence of parallel processes occurring independently and in parallel in related languages and dialects. For example, in the 12th century, diphthongization of long vowels occurred in parallel in English and German: Old German hus, Old English hus"house"; modern German house, English house.
In close cooperation with external reconstruction is internal reconstruction. Its premise is a comparison of facts of one language that exist “synchronously” in this language in order to identify more ancient forms of this language. For example, matching forms in Russian as bake - oven, allows you to set the second person to an earlier form you bake and identify the phonetic transition k > c before front vowels. A reduction in the number of cases in the declension system is also sometimes established through internal reconstruction within one language. Modern Russian has six cases, while Old Russian had seven. The coincidence (syncretism) of the nominative and vocative cases (vocative) took place in the names of persons and personified natural phenomena (father, wind - sail). The presence of the vocative case in the Old Russian language is confirmed by comparison with the case system of Indo-European languages (Lithuanian, Sanskrit). A variation of the technique of internal reconstruction of the tongue is " philological method", which comes down to the analysis of early written texts in a given language in order to discover prototypes of later linguistic forms. This method is limited in nature, since in most languages of the world there are no written monuments arranged in chronological order, and the method does not go beyond one language traditions.
At different levels of the language system, the possibilities of reconstruction manifest themselves to varying degrees. The most substantiated and evidence-basedreconstruction in the field of phonology and morphology, thanks to a rather limited set of reconstructed units. The total number of phonemes in different places on the globe does not exceed 80. Phonological reconstruction becomes possible by establishing phonetic patterns that exist in the development of individual languages. Correspondences between languages are subject to firm, clearly formulated "sound laws". These laws establish sound transitions that took place in the distant past under certain conditions. Therefore, in linguistics we now speak not about sound laws, but about sound movements. These movements make it possible to judge how quickly and in what direction phonetic changes occur, as well as what sound changes are possible. For example, Old Slavonic combinations ra, la, re pass in modern Russian into -oro-, -olo-, -ere-(For example, kral - king, zlato - gold, breg - shore). Over the course of thousands of years, a large number of different phonetic changes occurred in the Indo-European languages, which, despite all their complexity, were of a pronounced systemic nature. If, for example, a change To V h happened in case hand - pen, river - river then it should appear in all other examples of this kind: dog - doggie, cheek - cheek, pike - pike etc. This pattern of phonetic changes in each language led to the emergence of strict phonetic correspondences between the sounds of individual Indo-European languages, which make it possible to judge the relatedness of words. So, the initial European bh [bh] in Slavic languages it became simple b, and in Latin it changed to f [f]. As a result, between initial Latin f and Slavic b certain phonetic relationships were established. Similar to the phonetic changes that occurred in the Germanic languages, Latin with [k] in German it began to correspond h [x]. Comparing, for example, Latin host-, Old Russian GOST-, Gothic gast- scientists have established a correspondence h in Latin and G, d in Central Russian and Gothic. Latin O, Central Russian O corresponded to Gothic A, and the sound was more ancient O. The rate of linguistic change varies widely, so when establishing phonetic correspondences it is necessary to take into account their relative chronology, that is, it is necessary to find out which of the elements are primary and which are secondary. To do this, it is important to determine the temporal sequence of linguistic phenomena and the combination of phenomena in time.
Knowledge of phonetic patterns gives scientists the opportunity to restore the more ancient sound of a word, and comparison with related Indo-European forms very often clarifies the issue of the origin of the analyzed words and allows them to establish their etymology. The same pattern characterizes word formation processes. Analysis of word-formation series and suffixal alternations that exist or existed in ancient times is one of the most important research techniques with the help of which scientists manage to penetrate the most intimate secrets of the origin of a word. For example, a large number of words with the meaning flour are formations from verbs denoting grind, pound, crush.
comparative historical linguistics morpheme reconstruction
As we see, if grammatical meanings are expressed in languages in the same way and in the corresponding sound design, then this indicates more than anything about the relationship of these languages. Or another example, where not only the roots, but also the grammatical inflections -ut, -zht, -anti, -onti, -unt, -and exactly correspond to each other and go back to one common source (although the meaning of this word is different in other languages from Slavic - “to carry”):
|
Russian language |
Old Russian language |
Sanskrit |
Greek language |
Latin language |
Gothic language |
There are many such series that can be cited. They are called semantic series, the analysis of which makes it possible to introduce some elements of systematicity into such a difficult area of etymological research as the study of word meanings.
In the comparative historical study of languages, it is necessary to especially highlight borrowing. Borrowings, while remaining in an unchanged phonetic form in the borrowing language, can preserve the archetype or generally more ancient appearance of these roots and words, since the borrowing language did not undergo those phonetic changes that are characteristic of the language from which the borrowing occurred. So, for example, the full-voiced Russian word oatmeal and a word that reflects the result of the disappearance of former nasal vowels, tow available in the form of ancient borrowing talkkuna And kuontalo in the Finnish language, where the form of these words is preserved, which is closer to archetypes. Hungarian szalma- “straw” indicates ancient connections between the Ugrians (Hungarians) and the Eastern Slavs in the era before the formation of full-vowel combinations in the East Slavic languages and confirms the reconstruction of the Russian word straw in the Common Slavic in the form solma. However, despite the great importance of the study of vocabulary in linguistics, due to the fact that the vocabulary of any language changes much faster compared to the system of word-formation and inflectional formatives, this technique of the comparative-historical method is the least developed.
Conclusion
The most effective method for studying the genetic relationships between related languages is the comparative-historical method, which makes it possible to establish a system of comparisons on the basis of which the history of the language can be reconstructed.
The comparative-historical study of languages is based on the fact that the components of a language appeared at different times, which leads to the fact that in languages there are simultaneously layers belonging to different chronological sections. Due to its specificity as a means of communication, language cannot change simultaneously in all elements. The various causes of language changes also cannot operate simultaneously. All this makes it possible to reconstruct, using the comparative historical method, a picture of the gradual development and change of languages, starting from the time of their separation from the proto-language of a particular language family.
The comparative historical method in linguistics has many advantages:
relative simplicity of the procedure (if it is known that the morphemes being compared are related);
quite often the reconstruction is extremely simplified, or is even already represented by part of the elements being compared;
the possibility of ordering the stages of development of one or several phenomena in a relatively chronological manner;
priority of form over function, despite the fact that the first part remains more stable than the last.
However, this method also has its difficulties and disadvantages (or limitations), which are associated mainly with the factor of “linguistic” time:
a given language, used for comparison, can be separated from the original base language or another related language by such a number of steps of “linguistic” time that most of the inherited linguistic elements are lost and, therefore, the given language itself drops out of comparison or becomes unreliable material for him;
the impossibility of reconstructing those phenomena whose antiquity exceeds the temporal depth of a given language - material for comparison becomes extremely unreliable due to profound changes;
Borrowings in a language are especially difficult (in other languages, the number of borrowed words exceeds the number of original ones).
Nevertheless, thanks to the establishment of correspondences between the correlated elements of different related languages and the pattern of continuity over time of the elements of a given language, comparative historical linguistics acquired a completely independent status.
The comparative historical study of languages has not only scientific and educational significance, but also great scientific and methodological value, which lies in the fact that the study reconstructs the parent language. This proto-language as a starting point helps to understand the history of the development of a particular language.
Bibliography
Zvegintsev V.A. Essays on general linguistics. - M., 1962.
Zvegintsev V.A. History of linguistics of the 19th-20th centuries in essays and extracts. Part I. - M.: Education, 1964.
Smirnitsky A.I. Comparative historical method and determination of linguistic kinship. - M., 1955.
Reformatsky A. A. Introduction to linguistics / Ed. V.A. Vinogradova. - M.: Aspect Press, 1996.- 536 p.
Serebrennikov B.A. General linguistics. Methods of linguistic research. M., 1973.
Bondarenko A.V. Modern comparative historical linguistics/Scientific notes of the Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute. - L., 1967.
Knabeg S.O. Application of the comparative historical method in linguistics/"Issues of linguistics". - No. 1. 1956.
Ruzavin G.I. Methods scientific research. M. 1975.
Stepanov Yu.S. Methods and principles of modern linguistics. M.., 1975.
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Lecture No. 10.
Classifications of languages of the world
1. Genealogical classification
2. Typological classification:
a) morphological classification;
b) syntactic classification.
3. Functional (social) classification.
Genealogical classification
Modern linguistics deals not only with the study and description of the languages of the world, but also with their classification, determining the place of each language among the languages of the world. Classification of languages- this is the distribution of the world's languages into groups based on certain characteristics, in accordance with the principles underlying the study. Exist various classifications languages, among which the main ones are typological (morphological), genealogical and functional (social).
Related languages
Genealogical classification is based on the concept of linguistic kinship. Linguistic kinship- a common property of two or more languages, which consists in the fact that their original minimally significant elements (root morphemes and affixes) are in strictly defined correspondences, reflecting the regular nature of sound transformations, for example, the Latin combination [al] (al) changes in French words V [O] ( ai):
Late Latin French
calce- lime chaux
malva - mallow mauve
saltare- jump sauter
Such languages, which, having arisen from the same source, display ancient common roots and affixes, regular phonetic correspondences, are called related languages. A group of related languages forms language family(for example, Slavic languages are part of the Indo-European family). Indo-European family- one of the largest families of languages in Eurasia. It includes more than ten groups of languages, among which both living and dead languages are represented.
Genealogical classification is usually depicted as family tree, for example, see diagram 1. In addition to Indo-European, there are Altai, Ural and other language families.
Nostratic
Indo-European Altaic
Balto-Slavic Germanic Turkic
Slavic Baltic German English Turkish
East-sl. Lithuanian
Russian Mongolian Japanese
West.-sl. Yuzhno-slav.
Polish Bulgarian
Within one family, languages are grouped and form groups or branches (for example, within the Indo-European family, Slavic, Roman, Germanic, Celtic, Baltic and other groups are distinguished). The languages of each group go back to their parent language. Parent language- the language that is the basis of the historical community of related languages (for Slavic languages it is the Proto-Slavic language, for Romance languages it is folk Latin, etc.). When a group covers not two, but more languages, then these languages are divided into subgroups(for example, the group of Slavic languages is divided into three subgroups: West Slavic, East Slavic and South Slavic). The East Slavic subgroup includes Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages.
Comparative-historical method of studying languages
Each family comes from diverging dialects of the same parent language of that family. Dialect- a variety of language limited territorially or socially. The proto-language is usually restored through reconstruction carried out using the comparative historical method.
Comparative-historical The method involves comparing genetically identical words and forms of related languages and restoring their original form. The comparative historical method was first used at the beginning of the 19th century on the material of Indo-European languages by the German linguist Franz Bopp.
From the point of view of genealogy, languages can be living, i.e. actively functioning, and dead. Languages that have fallen out of modern use are called dead(for example, Latin, Gaulish, Old Church Slavonic, Gothic languages). Many dead languages and even entire language families were preserved only in the names of places or in the form of borrowings in other languages, while others disappeared without a trace. However, some dead languages are still used today (for example, Latin language- language catholic church, medicine, scientific terminology).
Thus, genealogical classification- study and grouping of world languages based on definition family ties between them. The overall picture of the genealogical classification of languages is still far from complete. It continues to develop and be refined.
MOSCOW STATE REGIONAL UNIVERSITY
INSTITUTE OF LINGUISTICS AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Course work
on the topic of:
“Comparative-historical method in linguistics”
Performed:
third year student
day department
linguistic faculty
Meshcheryakova Victoria
Checked:
Leonova E.V.
Moscow
2013
1 STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT OF COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL METHOD IN LINGUISTICS ………………………………………………………5
2. COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL METHOD IN THE FIELD OF GRAMMAR……………………………………………………………..9
3. METHODS OF LANGUAGE RECONSTRUCTION - BASICS………………17
4. COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL METHOD IN THE FIELD OF SYNTAX ……………………………………………………………….19
5. RECONSTRUCTION OF ARCHAIC MEANINGS OF WORDS…………….21
CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………… ………….....24
REFERENCES……………………………………………………………...26
INTRODUCTION
Language is the main sign system, which is designed to store, record, process and transmit information. It is the most important means of human communication, a way of thinking. Therefore, it is not surprising that people became interested in language and created a science about it called linguistics (or linguistics).
Linguistics studies all the changes that occur in language. The subject of its study is human language in its various aspects, namely: language as a reflection of thinking, as a mandatory feature of society, the origin of language, the development of language and its functioning in society.
Along with living ones, linguists are also interested in so-called “dead” languages. We know quite a few of them. A lot of information has been preserved about them. There is no one who now considers them their native languages. This is “Latin” - the language of Ancient Rome; such is the ancient Greek language, such is the ancient Indian "Sanskrit".
But there are others - for example, Egyptian, Babylonian and Hittite. Two centuries ago, no one knew a single word in these languages. People looked in surprise at the mysterious, incomprehensible inscriptions on the walls of ancient ruins, on clay tiles and half-decayed papyri, made thousands of years ago. Nobody knew what these strange letters and sounds meant. Linguistic scientists have unraveled many mysteries. This work is devoted to the subtleties of unraveling the mysteries of language.
Linguistics, like other sciences, has developed its own scientific methods, one of which is comparative historical. Etymology plays a large role in the comparative historical method in linguistics.
Etymology is the study of the origin and correct interpretation meaning of words. Etymology is of great importance for the development of comparative historical linguistics, for which it plays the role of the basis and source of new materials that confirm already established patterns and reveal unstudied phenomena in the history of language.
The subject of etymology as a branch of linguistics is the study of the sources and process of formation of the vocabulary of a language, as well as the reconstruction of the vocabulary of the language of the most ancient period (usually preliterate). The vocabulary of each language contains a significant fund of words, the connection of which form with meaning is incomprehensible to native speakers, since the structure of the word cannot be explained on the basis of the word formation models existing in the language. The purpose of the etymological analysis of a word is to determine when, in what language, according to what word-formation model, on the basis of what linguistic material, in what form and with what meaning the word arose, as well as what historical changes in its primary form and meaning determined the present form and meaning .
The foundations of the comparative historical method were laid on the basis of comparison of materials from a number of related Indo-European languages. This method continued to develop throughout the 19th and 20th centuries and gave a powerful impetus to the further development of various areas of linguistics.
A group of related languages is a collection of languages between which there are regular correspondences in sound composition and in the meaning of word roots and affixes. Identifying these natural correspondences that exist between related languages is the task of comparative historical research, including etymology.
The basis for genetic comparison of linguistic phenomena is a certain number of genetic identities, which is understood as the common origin of language elements. So, for example, in Old Church Slavonic and other Russian - sky, in Latin - nebula "fog", German - Nebel "fog", Old Indian - nabhah "cloud" the roots, restored in the general form *nebh, are genetically identical. The genetic identity of linguistic elements in several languages makes it possible to establish or prove the relationship of these languages, since genetic, identical elements make it possible to restore (reconstruct) a single form of the past linguistic state.
The comparative-historical method in linguistics is one of the main ones and is a set of techniques that make it possible to study the relationship between related languages and describe their evolution in time and space, to identify historical patterns in the development of languages. Using the comparative historical method, it is possible to trace the evolution of genetically close languages based on evidence of their common origin.
1. STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT OF COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL METHOD IN LINGUISTICS
Linguistics has not only experienced big influence thanks to the general methodology of the sciences, but also participated in the development of general ideas. Herder's work "Studies on the Origin of Language" played a big role. It represents one of the most serious approaches to the future development of historical linguistics. Herder expressed his point of view against the dissemination of certain theses about the originality of language, its immutability and divine origin.
In his teaching, Herder says that language, associated in its development with culture, improves in the course of its development, like society. W. Jones, having become acquainted with Sanskrit and discovering its similarities in verbal roots and grammatical forms with Greek, Latin, Gothic and other languages, in 1786 proposed a completely new theory of linguistic kinship - about the origin of the languages of their common parent language.
The relationship of languages in linguistics is determined when they are the result of different evolutions of the same language that was previously in use. Related languages are different temporal and spatial variants of the same continuous linguistic tradition.
Of the two languages in contact, one always turns out to be dominant and undergoes less changes. In the subordinate language, changes occur in the "manner of expression" and cultural vocabulary. Ultimately, there is a transition to another dialect related to the subordinate, and then a language.
The kinship of languages cannot be acquired through contact. However, some kind of rapprochement may arise between related languages if the speakers of these languages perceive themselves as a cultural, social community. Some convergence among related languages is possible.
Ideas of linguistic kinship were put forward before, but they did not produce results, since not only related languages were involved in the comparison. A very important role in the development of the comparative historical method in linguistics was played by comparative tables of the languages of Northern Europe and the North Caucasus, thanks to which a classification of the Ural and Altai languages was created, albeit in a preliminary version.
The identification of linguistics as a new science of the historical cycle is the merit of Humboldt. His ideas about the construction of “comparative anthropology” later acquired a more definite direction and specific content in his theory of language. In 1804, Humboldt told F. Wolf: “I was able to discover - and I am increasingly imbued with this thought - that through language one can survey the highest and deepest spheres and all the diversity of the world.”
In Humboldt's understanding, language is closely related to the spiritual development of humanity and accompanies it at every stage of its development, reflecting every stage of culture. Language “has an inherent element of self-activity that is obvious to us, although inexplicable in its essence, and in this regard, it is not at all a product of anyone’s activity, but an involuntary emanation of the spirit, not the creation of peoples, but a gift inherited by them, their inner destiny.”
According to his concept of the integrity of language, “every single linguistic element, even the smallest one, cannot arise without the presence of a single principle of form permeating all parts of the language.”
Humboldt emphasizes the uniqueness of language, draws our attention, on the one hand, to the unconscious form of its existence, and on the other hand, to its intellectual activity, which consists in “the act of transforming the world into thoughts.” Language, according to Humboldt, is “ an eternally self-generating organism,” the creation of which is determined by the internal need of humanity.
Another scientist, Rusk, developed a technique for analyzing grammatical forms that are correlated with each other and demonstrating various degrees of relationship between languages. Differentiation of kinship by degree of proximity was a necessary prerequisite for constructing a diagram of the historical development of related languages.
Comparative historical linguistics, at least from the 20-30s. XIX century clearly focuses on two principles - “comparative” and “historical”. Historical - defines the goal (the history of language, including the pre-literate era). With this understanding of the role of the “historical”, another principle - “comparative” rather determines the kinship with the help of which the goals of the historical study of a language or languages are achieved. In this sense, research in the genre of “history of a specific language” is typical, in which external comparison (with related languages) can be practically absent, as if relating to the prehistoric period of development of a given language and replaced by internal comparison of earlier facts with later ones; one dialect with another or with a standard form of a language, etc.
In the works of other researchers, the focus is precisely the relationship between the compared elements that form the main object of research. In this case, comparison acts not only as a means, but also as a goal. The object of comparative historical linguistics is language in the aspect of its development, that is, that type of change , which correlates directly with time or with its transformed forms.
For comparative linguistics, language is important as a measure of time (“linguistic” time). The minimum measure of “linguistic” time is the quantum of linguistic change, that is, the unit of deviation of the language state A1 from the language state A2. Language time stops if there are no language changes, at least zero. Any units of language can act as a quantum of linguistic change, if only they are capable of recording linguistic changes in time (phonemes, morphemes, words (lexemes), syntactic constructions), but such linguistic units as sounds (and later phonemes) have acquired special significance ).
With the development of phonology, especially in its variant where the level of phonological differential features - DP is highlighted, it becomes relevant to take into account even more convenient quantum of linguistic changes in the DP themselves. In this case, we can talk about a phoneme as a minimal linguistic fragment (space) on which there can be a temporary shift in the composition of the DP was recorded.
This situation reveals one of the main features of comparative historical linguistics. The clearer the morphemic structure of a language, the more complete and reliable the comparative historical interpretation of this language turns out to be and the greater the contribution this language makes to the comparative historical grammar of a given group of languages.
2. COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL METHOD IN THE FIELD OF GRAMMAR.
When comparing words and forms in related languages, preference is given to more archaic forms. A language is a collection of parts, ancient and new, formed at different times.
Each language has undergone various changes during its development. If there were no these changes, the languages would not differ from each other at all. However, in fact, we see that even closely related languages differ significantly from each other. Take Russian and Ukrainian, for example. During the period of its independent existence, each of these languages gradually changed, which led to more or less significant differences in the field of phonetics, grammar, word formation and semantics. Already a simple comparison of the Russian words place, month, knife, juice with the Ukrainian misto, misyats, nizh, sik shows that in a number of cases the Russian vowels e and o will correspond to the Ukrainian i.
Significant changes have also occurred in the field of semantics. For example, the Ukrainian word misto given above means “city”, not “place”; The Ukrainian verb marvel means “I look”, not “I am surprised”.
Much more complex changes can be found when comparing other Indo-European languages. These changes took place over many millennia, so people who speak these languages, which are not as close as Russian and Ukrainian, have long ceased to understand each other.
Over the course of thousands of years, a large number of different phonetic changes occurred in the Indo-European languages, which, despite all their complexity, were of a pronounced systemic nature. This pattern of phonetic changes in each language led to the emergence of strict phonetic correspondences between the sounds of individual Indo-European languages.
Thus, the initial European bh [bх] in Slavic languages turned into a simple b, and in Latin it changed into f [f]. As a result, certain phonetic relationships were established between the initial Latin f and Slavic b.
Latin language - Russian language
Faba [faba] "bean" - bob
Fero [fero] “carrying” - taking
Fiber [fiber] "beaver" - beaver
Fii(imus) [fu:mus] “(we) were” - were, etc.
In these examples, only the initial sounds of the given words were compared with each other. But the other sounds related to the root are also completely consistent with each other. For example, the Latin long [y:] coincides with the Russian ы not only in the root of the words f-imus - were, but also in all other cases: Latin f - Russian you, Latin rd-ere [ru: dere] - to shout, roar - Russian sob, etc.
When related words are compared, one must directly rely on the strict system of phonetic correspondences that was established as a result of changes in the sound structure that occurred in individual historically interconnected languages.
Words that sound the same in two given related languages cannot be considered related to each other. Conversely, words that are very different in their sound composition may turn out to be words of common origin, if only strict phonetic correspondences are revealed when comparing them. The study of phonetic patterns provides scientists with the opportunity to restore the more ancient sound of the word, and comparison with related Indo-European forms allows them to establish their etymology.
Consequently, phonetic changes occur naturally. Word formation processes are also endowed with a similar pattern.
Analysis of existing word-formation series and suffixal alternations is one of the most important research techniques with the help of which scientists manage to penetrate the most intimate secrets of the origin of a word.
The use of the comparative historical method is due to the absolute nature of the linguistic sign, that is, the absence of a natural connection between the sound of a word and its meaning.
Russian wolf, Lithuanian vitkas, English wulf, German Wolf, Skt. vrkah testify to the material proximity of the languages being compared, but do not say anything about why this phenomenon of objective reality (the wolf) is expressed by one or another sound complex.
As a result of linguistic changes, we can see the transformation of a word not only by external, but also by internal characteristics; not only the phonetic appearance of the word changes, but also its meaning, its meaning.
So, for example, the stages of change in the word Ivan, which came from the ancient Jewish name Yehohanan, can be represented as follows:
In Greek Byzantine - Ioannes
In German - Johann
In Finnish and Estonian - Juhan
In Spanish - Juan
In Italian - Giovanni
In English - John
In Russian - Ivan
In Polish - Jan
In French - Jeanne
In Georgian - Ivane
In Armenian - Hovhannes
In Portuguese - Joan
In Bulgarian - He.
Let's trace the history of another name, also coming from the East - Joseph. There it sounded like Yosef. This is what happened to him in European and neighboring languages:
In Greek-Byzantine - Joseph
In German - Joseph
In Spanish - Jose
In Italian - Giuseppe
In English - Joseph
In Russian - Osip
In Polish - Jozef (Jozef)
In Turkish - Yusuf (Yusuf)
In French - Joseph
In Portuguese - Jouse.
When these substitutions were tested on other names, the result invariably remained the same. Apparently the matter is not a simple accident, but some kind of pattern: it operates in these languages, forcing them in all cases to equally change the same sounds coming from other words. The same pattern can be observed with other words (common nouns). The French word juri (jury), Spanish jurar (hurar, swear), Italian jure - right, English judge (judge, judge, expert).
The similarity of semantic types is especially pronounced in the process of word formation itself. For example, a large number of words with the meaning flour are formations from verbs meaning to grind, pound, grind.
Russian - grind,
Serbo-Croatian - fly, grind
Mlevo, ground grain
Lithuanian - malti [malti] to grind
Miltai [miltai] flour
German - mahlen [ma:len] grind
Mahlen - grinding,
Mehl [me:l] flour
Dr. Indian - pinasti [pinasti] crushes, pushes
Pistam [pistam] flour
A large number of such semantic series can be cited. Their analysis makes it possible to introduce some elements of systematicity into such a difficult area of etymological research as the study of word meanings.
There are entire groups of languages that closely resemble each other in a number of ways. At the same time, they differ sharply from many other groups of languages, which, in turn, are in many ways similar to each other.
In the world there are not only individual languages, but also so-called “language families” - the largest units of classification of peoples (ethnic groups) based on their linguistic kinship - the common origin of their languages from the supposed base language. They arose and developed because some languages seem to be capable of giving rise to others, and the newly appeared languages necessarily retain some features common to the languages from which they originated. We know the families of Germanic, Turkic, Slavic, Romance, Finnish and other languages. Very often, the kinship between languages corresponds to the kinship between the peoples speaking these languages; so at one time the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian peoples descended from common Slavic ancestors
Human tribes in ancient times constantly fell apart, and at the same time the language of a large tribe also fell apart. The language of each remaining part gradually became a dialect, while retaining certain features of the previous language.
No matter how many different languages collided with each other, it never happened that a third one was born from two languages that met. When talking about the kinship of a language, we need to take into account not the tribal composition of the people speaking them today, but their distant past.
Take, for example, the Romance languages, which, as it turned out, developed not as a result of the divergent (centrifugal) development of the oral tradition of different geographical dialects of the once united vernacular Latin language, but from the language spoken by commoners. Therefore, for Romance languages, their source “base language” cannot simply be read from books, it has to be “restored according to how its individual features were preserved in our modern descendant languages.”
The comparative historical method is based on comparing languages. Comparing the state of a language in different periods helps create a history of the language. “Comparison,” says A. Mays, “is the only tool that a linguist has at his disposal for constructing the history of languages.” The material for comparison is its most stable elements. In the field of morphology - inflectional and word-formative formatives, in the field of vocabulary - etymological, reliable words (terms of kinship, numerals, pronouns and other stable lexical elements).
The comparative historical method is a whole complex of techniques. First, a pattern of sound correspondences is established. By comparing, for example, the Latin root host-, Old Russian gost-, Gothic gast-, scientists have established a correspondence between h in Latin and g, d in Central Russian and Gothic. The voiced stop in the Slavic and Germanic languages, and the voiceless spirant in Latin corresponded to the aspirated stop (gh) in Central Slavic. Latin o, Central Russian o corresponded to Gothic a, and the sound o was more ancient. The original part of the root usually remains unchanged. Taking into account the above natural correspondences, it is possible to restore the original form, that is, the archetype of the word in the form ghost.
In relation to the language system under consideration, external and internal criteria are distinguished. The leading role belongs to intralinguistic criteria, based on the establishment of cause-and-effect relationships; if the reasons for changes are determined, then the temporal sequence of related facts is determined. When certain correspondences are established, it is possible to establish archetypes of inflectional and word-formative formatives.
3. METHODS OF RECONSTRUCTION OF THE BASE LANGUAGE.
At the moment, we can name 2 ways of reconstructing language - interpretive and operational. The interpretive method is a change in the volume of formulas corresponding to certain semantic content. The Indo-European content of the head of the family *p ter- (Latin pater, French pere, Gothic fodor, English father, German Vater) denoted not only the parent, but also had a social function, that is, the word *pter could be used to refer to the deity as the highest of all heads families.
The operational method determines the boundaries of characteristic correspondences in the compared material. The external manifestation of the operational method is the reconstruction formula, that is, the so-called “form under the asterisk” (cf. *ghostic). The reconstruction formula is a monosyllabic synthesized phenomenon of acceptable relationships between the facts of the languages being compared.
The flaw in the reconstruction is its “flat nature.” For example, when restoring diphthongs in the Common Slavic language, which then changed into monophthongs (ои > и; еi > i; оi, ai > е, etc.), various phenomena in the field of monophthongization of diphthongs and diphthong combinations (combination of vowels with nasals and smooth ) did not occur simultaneously, but sequentially.
The straightforward nature of the reconstruction ignored the possibility of parallel processes occurring in parallel in related languages and dialects. For example, in the 12th century, diphthongization of long vowels occurred in parallel in English and German: Old German hus, Old English hus “house”; modern German Haus, English house.
In close interaction with external reconstruction there is a method of internal reconstruction. Its condition is to compare the phenomena of one language that exist in this language “at the same time” in order to reveal more ancient forms of this language. For example, comparing the forms in Russian as peku - oven, allows us to establish for the 2nd person the earlier form pepyosh and identify the phonetic transition to > c before front vowels. A decrease in the number of cases in the declension system can also be established using internal reconstruction within one language. In modern Russian there are 6 cases, and in Old Russian there were seven. The fusion of the nominative and vocative cases (vocative) was in the names of persons and personified natural phenomena (father, sail). The existence of the vocative case in the Old Russian language is evidenced by a comparison with the case system of Indo-European languages (Lithuanian, Sanskrit).
A variation of the method of internal reconstruction of language is the “philological method”. It is an analysis of early written texts in specific language in order to find original examples of later forms of the language. This method is limited, because in most languages of the world there are no written monuments arranged in chronological order, and the method does not go beyond one language tradition.
Phonological reconstruction is the most reasoned and understandable. The total number of phonemes in different places on the globe is no more than 80. Reconstruction in the field of phonology takes place when identifying phonetic patterns that exist in the development of certain languages.
The similarities between languages are explained by clearly defined “sound patterns.” These patterns include sound transitions that occurred in the distant past under certain conditions. As a result, in linguistics they speak not about sound patterns, but about sound movements. Based on these movements, it can be stated how quickly and in what direction changes in the field of phonetics occur, as well as what sound changes are likely, what distinctive features can be characterized sound system of the base language.
4. COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL METHOD IN THE FIELD OF SYNTAX
The least studied method of using the comparative-historical method of linguistics in the field of syntax is because it is extremely difficult to recreate syntactic archetypes. A specific syntactic model can be restored with a certain degree of authenticity and accuracy, but its word content cannot be remade, if by this we mean words that occur in the same syntactic structure. More effective is the reconstruction of phrases that are filled with words that have the same grammatical characteristic.
The plan for reconstructing syntactic models is as follows:
Emphasis on two-term phrases traced in their historical development in the languages being compared;
Finding a general model of education;
Establishing the interdependence of the syntactic and morphological features of these models;
-research to identify archetypes and larger syntactic unities.
Having examined the material of Slavic languages, it is possible to establish the relationship of constructions of equal meaning (nominative, instrumental predicative, nominal compound predicate with and without copula, etc.) to identify more ancient constructions and resolve the question of their origin.
Like comparative-historical morphology, comparative-historical syntax is based on the facts of morphology. B. Delbrück, in his work “Comparative Syntax of the Indo-Germanic Languages” of 1900, showed that the pronominal stem io is the formal support of a certain type of syntactic unit - a relative clause introduced by the pronoun *ios “which”. This basis, which gave the Slavic je-, is common in Slavic as a particle: the relative word of the Old Church Slavonic language appears in the form izhe (from *jь - ze). Later this relative form was replaced by relative indefinite pronouns.
The turning point in the development of the comparative historical method in the field of syntax was the works of Russian linguists A.A. Potebnya “From notes on Russian grammar” and F.E. Korsch "Methods of relative subordination", (1877).
A.A. Potebnya identifies two stages in the development of a sentence - nominal and verbal. At the nominal stage, the predicate was expressed by nominal categories, that is, constructions were common that corresponded to the modern he is a fisherman, in which the noun fisherman contains the characteristics of a noun and the characteristics of a verb. At this stage there was no distinction between noun and adjective. The early stage of the nominal structure of the sentence was characterized by concrete perception of the phenomena of objective reality. This holistic perception found its expression in the nominal structure of the language. At the verb stage, the predicate is expressed personally
etc.................
