Historical Linguistics 3130 A

Essay questions for the final exam

On the final exam, you will be asked to write an essay of a couple of pages on ONE of the following topics. You can choose to argue either for or against any of the following statements. You can prepare ahead of time, but you cannot bring notes with you to the exam.

1. "Phonological reconstruction is never an automatic mechanical process. Linguists can only be guided by general principles to carry out their reconstructions." Discuss with reference to both comparative and internal reconstruction.
2. "Gradual change and Neogrammarianism are incompatible." Discuss.
3. "Using written documents to date a linguistic change is not as simple as it first appears." Discuss.
4. Research in typology and universals has increasingly replaced absolute universals with implicational universals and tendencies. Discuss whether this makes the study of typology and universals more or less relevant for historical linguistics.
5. "If a present-day expert in Proto-Indo-European or some other reconstructed language could travel back in time and speak it to the proto-language's native speakers, he or she would not be understood." Discuss.