Summary: This is a major introduction to historical linguistics,
designed for students who have no background in historical
linguistics but who have at least some knowledge of phonetics,
phonology and morphology. Historical linguistic theory is
introduced throughout where appropriate, although the book
presupposes no acquaintance with contemporary theories of
phonology or syntax. The author introduces all major types of
change, consequences of change (dialect and language fam ...show
moreilies), methods in historical linguistics, and later
chapters deal with sociolinguistic aspects of change, language
contact, birth and death of languages, language and prehistory
and finally the issue of very remote relations. The book covers
the more recent work on the study of phonological changes in
progress, on morphological and syntactic change, and on
typological approaches to change, and it addresses such recent
controversies as the Nostratic hypothesis and the
Greenberg/Cavalli-Sforza work on language, genes and teeth