Linguistic Archaeology

Gerd Carling is Professor of Empirical Linguistics at Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

'Linguistic Archaeology is unparalleled in its scope and depth. In this indispensable core resource, Gerd Carling provides detailed historical accounts of the theoretical currents informing the contemporary study of language and languages in the deep past, complementing these with state-of-the-art descriptions of the methodological toolbox available to researchers.'Chris Sinha, University of East Anglia, UK

• Acknowledgements1. Setting the field: what is linguistic archaeology?1.1. What is linguistic archaeology?1.2. Defining the field: an overview of the content and organization of this book 1.3. Theoretical preconditions for reconstructing language prehistory1.3.1. Placing language reconstruction in the discipline of general linguistics 1.3.2. Controversies on the nature and origin of human language 1.4. Core concepts in models and methods of language reconstruction1.4.1. Defining and explaining pattern similarity 1.4.2. The tree and wave models 1.4.3. Family-based and deep reconstruction: ancestral nodes, proto-languages, and early language Further reading2. Basics: Structures and components of human language 2.1. Phonemes: the smallest units of speech2.2. Words and word classes2.3. Morphemes: the smallest meaning-bearing unit of a language 2.4. How words are glued together in grammar Further reading3. The diversity and origin of human language 3.1. Linguistic diversity and language population size 3.2. Origin of human language: why, when, and how?3.3. How to investigate linguistic diversity Further reading4. The comparative method 4.1. Basics of the comparative method 4.1.1. The comparative method and language classification 4.1.2. The problem of etymology and semantic change4.1.3. Reconstructing grammar by the comparative method Further reading4.2. Philology 4.2.1. Understanding the nature of writing and interpreting writing systems 4.2.2. Interpreting the linguistic value of writing4.2.3. Understanding the meaning of words and texts Further readingUseful resources 4.3. Historical linguistics 4.3.1. Historical linguistics: using the comparative method to observe language change 4.3.2. Sound change 4.3.3. Reconstructing lexical change: replacement, meaning change, and borrowing 4.3.4. Analogy 4.3.4. Grammaticalization Further readingUseful resources 5. The typological method5.1. Basics of the typological method Further readingUseful resources 5.2. Data mining for typology: language documentation Further readingUseful resources 5.3. Applying the typological method 5.3.1. Reconstructing early language Further reading5.3.2. Observing the evolution of language types Further reading5.3.3. Diachronic typology: reconstructing the typology of proto-languages Further reading6. The phylogenetic method 6.1. Phylogenetic and computational methods: a survey Further reading6.2. Data mining for phylogenetic methods Useful resources 6.3. Reconstruction of features of grammar, syntax, and phonology Further reading7. Archaeolinguistics: words, artefacts, and ancient DNA 7.1. Basics of the archaeolinguistic approach7.2. Methods in archaeolinguistic approach 7.2.1. Reconstructing the vocabulary of a proto-language Further reading7.2.2. Reconstructing the culture and beliefs of proto-language communities through language Further reading7.2.3. Reconstructing language contact and substrate influence7.3. Connecting reconstructed language to archaeology, ancient DNA, and prehistoric migrationsFurther reading8. Linguistic anthropology: relativist approaches to reconstructing language prehistory 8.1. The linguistic relativity approach: reconstructing diversity 8.2. Methods in linguistic relativity research 8.2.1. Observing small-scale societies 8.2.3. Designing experiments and stimuli for observing diversity of language-cognition-culture8.3. Contrasting results of small-scale societies cross-linguistically Further reading9. The cultural evolutionary approach 9.1. Overview of the cross-disciplinary field of cultural evolution 9.2. Methodologies of the cultural evolutionary approach 9.2.1. Data design and base concepts for compiling data 9.2.2. Models and methods: phylogenetic inference 9.2.3. Models and methods: experimental design 9.3. Triangulation Further reading10. Conclusion: linguistic archaeology in the past, present, and future BibliographyIndex