The Comparative Method

In linguistics, the comparative method is a way of systematically comparing a series of languages in order to prove a historical relationship between them. Cholars begin by identifying a set of formal similarities and differences between the languages, and try to work out (or ‘reconstruct’) an earlier stage of development from which all the forms could have derived. The process is known as ‘internal reconstruction’. When languages have been shown to have a common ancestor, they are said to be cognate [Crystal 1997].

The study of language has a long history, although linguistics as we now know it has come into being mainly in the last two centuries. The high level of language research in the 18^th century laid the foundation of linguistics as a science, which was created in the 19^th century, especially comparative linguistics.

The early 19^th century produced several major works in the field of Indo-European philology. In 1816, the German linguist Franz Bopp (1791 — 1867) published a work, whose scope is well illustrated by its title — “Über das Conjugationsystem der Sanskritsprache in Vergleichung mit jenem der griechischen, lateinischen, persischen und germanischen Sprache”, or “On the conjugation system of the Sanskrit language, in comparison with those of the Greek, Latin, Persian and Germanic languages”.

The relationship of Germanic to Latin, Greek, Slavic, and Baltic was demonstrated also in a work written in 1814 by the Danish linguist, Rasmus Christian Rask (1787 — 1832), but not published until 1818: “Undersögelse om det gamle nordiske eller islandske sprogs oprindelse”, or “Investigation on the Origin of the Old Norse or Icelandic Language”. After that, further philological studies followed, mainly written by German linguists, such as Jacob Grimm (1775 — 1863) and August Schleicher (1821 — 1868), etc.

In 1833–1852, Franz Bopp published his major work – the first Indo-European grammar, ”Vergleichende Grammatik des Sanskrit, Zend, Armenischen, Griechischen, Lateinischen, Litauischen, Altslavischen, Gothischen und Deutschen”, or “Comparative Grammar of Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Old Slavic, Gothic, and German”. It took 19 years to complete, and by its third edition incorporated Celtic and Albanian. In due course, this work and its contemporaries became out of date, as a result of the vast amount of philological study undertaken in the second half of the 19^th century, but the merit of Bopp’s investigation lies in the study of inflections; Bopp’s main contribution was his systematic comparison of the inflectional endings of all the IE languages. His works are regarded as the beginning of comparative grammar.

Rasmus Rask, on the other hand, clearly demonstrated the significance of laws of sounds as a proof of linguistic kinship, although he believed that they were especially convincing when supported by grammatical similarities.

Rasmus Rask was the first to recognize the relationship between the languages now called Germanic. It was he who hit upon two sound shifts in the history of the Germanic languages. But he did not see the complete regularity of the development of sounds. It was the German linguist Jacob Grimm who established the principle of the sound shift in the phonetic history of the Germanic group of languages in his book ‘German Grammar’.

In his opinion, there were two sound-shiftings. The first occurred before the 4^th century; the second had been completed by the 8^th century. The first relates to the whole group of Germanic languages; the second only to the High German language.

Unit 3

Date: 2014-12-22; view: 1604