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Linguistic Areas: Convergence in Historical and Typological Perspective
The contributors to this collection address issues of definition and theory of linguistic areas, analyze the process of convergence, and introduce methods to assess the impact of language contact across geographical zones. New case studies are accompanied by discussions that revisit some of the more well-established linguistic areas.
333 pages, Hardcover
First published August 8, 2006
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October 6, 2008
LINGUISTIC AREAS ed. Matras, McMahon and Vincent is a collection of 11 papers on areal linguistics, from scholars holding a variety of different views. I cannot comment on all the contributions here, as I stuck to what might be relevant to my own research, but I'll point out what I found insightful.
The first two papers intriguingly suggest doing away with the term Sprachbund. Lyle Campbell's paper "Areal linguistics: a closer scrutiny" and Thomas Stolz' "All or nothing" recommend focusing on the facts of the individual loans and historical changes instead of chasing after a definition of Sprachbund, perhaps impossible because linguistics is difficult to quantify.
We then find a number of papers focusing mainly on individual linguistic areas. I won't comment on all of them, as I read only those that I thought related to my research interestings. Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm's "The Circle that won't come full" shows that neither of the two isoglosses often used to define a "Circum-Baltic Sprachbund"--polytonicity and GenN word order combined with SVO basic order--encompass together all the languages in the region. Her scepticism goes well with the views of Campbell and Stolz. Lars Johanson's "On the Roles of Turkic in the Causasus Area" makes use of a wealth of sociolinguistic information to explain how Turkic languages in the region have both influenced non-Turkic languages and converged toward their models. Claire Bowern's "Another Look at Australia as a Linguistic Area" is a response to Dixon's controversial theory of "punctuated equilibrium", essentially reading for anyone following that debate.
The first two papers intriguingly suggest doing away with the term Sprachbund. Lyle Campbell's paper "Areal linguistics: a closer scrutiny" and Thomas Stolz' "All or nothing" recommend focusing on the facts of the individual loans and historical changes instead of chasing after a definition of Sprachbund, perhaps impossible because linguistics is difficult to quantify.
We then find a number of papers focusing mainly on individual linguistic areas. I won't comment on all of them, as I read only those that I thought related to my research interestings. Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm's "The Circle that won't come full" shows that neither of the two isoglosses often used to define a "Circum-Baltic Sprachbund"--polytonicity and GenN word order combined with SVO basic order--encompass together all the languages in the region. Her scepticism goes well with the views of Campbell and Stolz. Lars Johanson's "On the Roles of Turkic in the Causasus Area" makes use of a wealth of sociolinguistic information to explain how Turkic languages in the region have both influenced non-Turkic languages and converged toward their models. Claire Bowern's "Another Look at Australia as a Linguistic Area" is a response to Dixon's controversial theory of "punctuated equilibrium", essentially reading for anyone following that debate.
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