This book presents three major hypotheses concerning the development of fricatives in Gothic. First, Gothic introduced aspiration or a phonological feature [spread glottis] to the fricative system. Second, this acquisition of aspirated fricatives should be explained as a contact-induced change. Specifically, a Gothic/Greek bilingual community may be held responsible for initiating and diffusing the contact change. Third, I claim that this contact-driven featural enrichment prompted an array of radical restructurings of fricatives in their phonological and morphological organizations in Gothic, notably the occurrence of Final Devoicing in contrast to the nonoccurrence of medial voicing, the elimination of Verner’s Law effects in strong verbs, the operation of Thurneysen’s Law, and the apparently irregular split of PGmc. */fl-/ to Go. /fl-/ and /þl-/. Thus, privileged by a Lower Danube community largely composed of Greek/Gothic bilinguals, this cluster of mid-fourth-century innovations came to define the phonological and morphological identities of Biblical Gothic.

William Diver of Columbia University (1921-1995) critiqued the very roots of traditional and contemporary linguistics and founded a school of thought that aims for radical aposteriorism in accounting for the distribution of linguistic forms in authentic text. Grammatical and phonological analyses of Homeric Greek, Classical Latin, and Modern English reveal language to be an instrument whose structure is shaped by its communicative function and by the peculiarly human characteristics of its users. Diver's foundational works, many never before published, appear here newly edited and annotated, with introductions by the editors. The volume presents for the first time to a wide audience the depth and originality of Diver's iconoclastic thought.

This is a new and enlarged edition of Professor Allen's highly successful book on the pronunciation of Attic Greek in classical times. In this edition, Professor Allen has in particular revised the presentation of the controversial question of stress; the chapter on quantity has been extensively recast; and an appendix has been added on the names of the letters of the Greek alphabet. In addition to the new material, the supplementary notes of the second edition are now incorporated into the main text making this a very convenient book to use.

In this outstanding book leading scholars from around the world examine the history of linguistics from ancient origins to the present. They consider every aspect of the field from language origins to neurolinguistics, explore linguistic traditions in east and west, chronicle centuries of explanations for language structures, meanings, and usage, and look at how it has been practically applied. The book is organized in six parts. The first looks at the origins of language, the invention of writing, the nature of gesture, and sign languages. Part II examines the history of the analysis and description of sound systems. Part III considers the history of linguistics in China, Korea, Japan, India, and the Middle East, as well as the history of the study of Semitic and Afro-Asiatic. Part IV examines the history of grammar and morphology in the west from the classical world to the present. Part V surveys the history of lexicography semantics, pragmatics, and text and discourse studies. Part VI looks at the history the application of linguistics in fields that include the language classification; social and cultural theory; psychology and the brain sciences; education and translation; computational science; and the development of linguistic corpora. The book ends with a history of the philosophy of linguistics. The Oxford Handbook of the History of Linguistics makes a significant contribution to the historiography of linguistics. It will also be a valuable reference for scholars and students in linguists and related fields, including philosophy and cognitive science.

The present volume is a broad overview of methods and methodologies in linguistics, illustrated with examples from concrete research. It collects insights gained from a broad range of linguistic sub-disciplines, ranging from core disciplines to topics in cross-linguistic and language-internal diversity or to contributions towards language, space and society. Given its critical and innovative nature, the volume is a valuable source for students and researchers of a broad range of linguistic interests.

This book provides a detailed introduction to the development of the German language from the earliest reconstructible prehistory to the present day. It is supported by a companion website and is suitable for language learners and teachers and students of linguistics, from undergraduate level upwards.

This book provides a detailed but accessible introduction to the development of the German language from the earliest reconstructable prehistory to the present day. Joe Salmons explores a range of topics in the history of the language, offering answers to questions such as: How did German come to have so many different dialects and close linguistic cousins like Dutch and Plattdeutsch? Why does German have 'umlaut' vowels and why do they play so many different roles in the grammar? Why are noun plurals so complicated? Are dialects dying out today? Does English, with all the words it loans to German, pose a threat to the language? This second edition has been extensively expanded and revised to include extended coverage of syntactic and pragmatic change throughout, expanded discussion of sociolinguistic aspects, language variation, and language contact, and more on the position of German in the Germanic family. The book is supported by a companion website and is suitable for language learners and teachers and students of linguistics, from undergraduate level upwards. The new edition also includes more detailed background information to make it more accessible for beginners.