Indo-European Reconstruction and Historical Methodologies

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Linguistic Society of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Language. The new sound of Indo-European: Essays in phonological reconstruction. Edited by THEO VENNEMANN. (Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs, 41.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1989. Pp. xvi, 300. Cloth $84.00.1. This volume contains the proceedings of a 1985 workshop organized by Theo Vennemann at the 7th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, and, as its title promises, plainly demonstrates the continued aptness of Osborn Bergin's forty-year-old quip that no language had changed as much in the previous fifty years as Indo-European. Vennemann notes in a preface (x) that, while the workshop was intended to cover all areas of Indo-European (IE) phonology, NSIE mainly addresses topics in two areas, the laryngeal theory and the glottalic theory. Of these, the former was in its infancy fifty years ago, while the latter did not yet exist. This double focus is interesting even if it reflects workshop sociology and not, as Vennemann speculates (xii), 'the general epistemological Zeitgeist' of twentieth-century science, since it suggests a comparison of two approaches to historical linguistics. NSIE has thirty contributions in addition to the preface (ix-xiv)-fifteen papers, twelve responses to papers, two short notes, and a brief conclusion, grouped into four sections:I, 'Opening remarks': KONRAD KOERNER, 'Comments on reconstructions in historical linguistics' (3-15) Response: PIERRE SWIGGERS (17-20) Section II, 'Laryngeal Theory': ALFRED BAMMESBERGER, The laryngeal theory and the phonology of prehistoric Greek' (35-41) R. S. P. BEEKES, 'The nature of the Proto-Indo-European laryngeals' (23-33) LEO A. CONNOLLY, 'Laryngeal metathesis: An Aryan peculiarity?' (43-51) ALEXANDER LUBOTSKY. 'Against a Proto-Indo-European phoneme *0' (53-66) WILLIAM R. SCHMALSTIEG, 'Monophthongizations: More plausible than laryngeals!' (67-73) Responses: Swiggers to Beekes and Bammesberger (77-79); P. J. HOPPER to Beekes (81) Section III, 'Glottalic Theory': PHILIP BALDI & RUTH JOHNSTON-STAVER, 'Historical Italic phonology in typological perspective' (85-101) THOMAS V. GAMKRELIDZE, 'Language typology and Indo-European reconstruction' (117-21) ERIC P. HAMP, 'The Indo-European obstruent features and phonotactic constraints' (209-14) MICHAEL JOB, 'Sound change typology and the "Ejective Model"' (123-36) FREDERICK KORTLANDT, 'Lachmann's law' (103-105) JENS ELMEGARD RASMUSSEN, 'Die Tenues Aspiratae: Dreiteilung oder Vierteilung des indoger-* For references, comments, and discussion I am very grateful to

Optimality Theory and Language Change

“…Both of these developments reflect the introduction of unbound inflection into the language, that is, an element that carries Tense, Agreement or Mood information or features and that does not form a morphological unit with the verb, being thus not 'bound' to the latter. By the late ME period, do appears to have been used as an aspectual element, marking perfect (Denison 1985) and/or habitual (Garrett 1998) aspect. However, its earlier uses in ME are 'contentful', unlike the modem semantically empty element.…”