具体描述
This comparative and etymological dictionary of the more than fifty languages traditionally classified as Altaic is arguably the most comprehensive, systematic work as yet on the subject.
Subdivided into five branches: Turkic, Mongolian, Tungus-Manchu, Korean and Japanese, it deals with the entire Altaic family.
The introduction contains a detailed account of the phonetic correspondences between Altaic languages, as well as their morphological and lexical characteristics.
The body of the dictionary presents almost 3000 lexical matches between different subgroups of Altaic, with Proto-Altaic reconstructions and detailed reflexes in ancient and modern languages. Wherever possible comments are given to distinguish between inherited vocabulary and various later interlingual borrowings.
With detailed indices for each language. A true reference work of great importance.
An Inquiry into the Subterranean Architectures of Language: A Comprehensive Study of Indo-European Phonology and Morphology Foreword by Dr. Eleanor Vance, Head of Historical Linguistics, University of Edinburgh This exhaustive volume, An Inquiry into the Subterranean Architectures of Language: A Comprehensive Study of Indo-European Phonology and Morphology, offers a groundbreaking re-examination of the core tenets governing the evolution, structure, and deep relationships within the vast Indo-European language family. Moving beyond the established frameworks of comparative grammar, this work plunges into the most granular levels of linguistic reconstruction, focusing intently on the interplay between sound change, morphological patterning, and semantic drift across the hypothesized Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stage and its earliest attested daughter branches. The central thesis posits that the mechanisms governing Grimm’s Law and Verner’s Law, while foundational, represent only the surface ripples of a much deeper, wave-like process of phonological restructuring that fundamentally reorganized the syllabic templates available to early speakers. The book dedicates its first four chapters to a meticulous deconstruction of the laryngeal theory, not merely confirming its necessity, but rigorously mapping the precise acoustic parameters—inferred through comparative analysis with Anatolian and poorly attested peripheral dialects—that these theoretical phonemes must have occupied. The author introduces novel statistical models, derived from large corpora analysis of reconstructed PIE roots, suggesting a much higher frequency for laryngeal reflexes in verb paradigms than previously assumed, particularly in the imperfective aspect. Part I: The Labyrinth of Sound Change: From Proto-Voice to Proto-Aspiration The initial section undertakes a forensic dissection of the stop system. Traditional treatments often present the shift from voiceless, voiced, and voiced aspirated stops as a neat, linear progression. Here, the author challenges this linearity, proposing instead a series of geographically and temporally distinct "Phonological Contagions." These contagions suggest that certain phonetic environments—specifically those adjacent to palatals or resonants—acted as accelerators for specific types of spirantization, leading to asymmetric retention rates of the voiced aspirated series across diverse branches (e.g., the contrasting fates of the satem vs. centum groups are explored not as a simple geographical division, but as a reflection of differing contact pressures with pre-existing substrate languages whose phonemic inventory favored certain consonant clusters. A particularly dense chapter, “The Resonance Cascade and the Fate of the Sibilants,” re-evaluates the relationship between PIE s and its reflexes in Greek, Latin, and the early Slavic languages. Drawing on acoustic modeling of plausible early human vocal tracts, the author argues that the merger or split of palatovelar, labiovelar, and dental sibilants was intimately tied to the preceding or following vowel quality, suggesting a systemic constraint on the articulatory space available for sibilant production that predates the separation of the major branches. New evidence from newly deciphered Hittite inscriptions is marshaled to support the claim that the PIE sibilant inventory was significantly richer than the standard three-way distinction often assumed. Part II: Morphology Under Duress: The Erosion and Rebuilding of Inflection The second major section pivots from sound to structure, exploring how these phonetic pressures fundamentally reshaped the morphological landscape. The core focus here is on the verbal system, specifically the complex interplay of aspect, tense, and mood inherited from the proto-language. Chapter Seven, “The Disintegration of the Thematic Vowel System,” presents a compelling argument that the thematic vowel (e.g., -o-, -e-) was not merely a linker, but an early, somewhat unstable marker of syntactic function that was rapidly absorbed by the accentual system. Using quantitative metrics based on root alternations (ablaut), the author demonstrates that the thematic vowel’s distribution in the aorist tense was systematically undermined by a pressure toward accentual fixity, leading to the subsequent hypertrophic development of suffixal markers in languages like Latin and Gothic to compensate for the lost vocalic distinction. The nominal inflection receives equally rigorous scrutiny. The book meticulously tracks the fate of the dual number across the family. Rather than treating its loss as simple attrition, the author views it as a productive casualty of ambiguity simplification. Where the dual form overlapped phonetically with a plural or a case ending, the system, seeking efficiency, systematically pruned the redundant marker. This section contains extensive tabular analyses tracking over four hundred reconstructed nominal paradigms across ten core branches, illustrating precisely where and why the expected parallel developments failed to materialize. Part III: Syntax and Semantics: The Echoes of Structure The final segment bridges morphology and semantics, examining how the underlying architecture influenced sentence construction and meaning assignment. A lengthy discussion is devoted to the hypothesized PIE case system, arguing against a purely agglutinative reconstruction. Instead, the author advocates for a model where primary case distinctions were initially maintained through highly variable prosodic boundaries, which only later solidified into predictable case suffixes as the phonetic inventory narrowed. Furthermore, the concluding chapters explore the concept of "Semantic Entrenchment." By comparing the core vocabulary related to kinship, metallurgy, and celestial observation across branches, the book argues that certain semantic fields proved remarkably resistant to lexical replacement, often retaining archaic morphological shapes even when the overall grammatical structure of the language had radically changed. This resistance, the author suggests, is tied to the cognitive load associated with processing kinship terms, implying a crucial, non-arbitrary link between social structure and linguistic conservatism in the earliest stages of linguistic divergence. An Inquiry into the Subterranean Architectures of Language is not merely a reference text; it is a significant theoretical intervention. It forces the reader to abandon comfortable assumptions regarding linearity and regularity, providing a dense, rigorously argued, and structurally innovative roadmap for understanding how the monumental edifice of the Indo-European family truly began to take shape from the ground up. It will undoubtedly provoke vigorous debate and set the agenda for historical linguistics research for the next decade.