Historical Linguistics 3130 A

 

What you should know for the exam

Chapter 1: Introduction

• Nothing specific from Chapter 1.

Chapter 2: Kinds of sound change:

• You should be able to use these descriptions to label sound changes in your reconstructions.
• You should be able to match descriptions or examples to names of types of changes

Chapter 3: Borrowing

• It might be important to be able to recognize borrowed words in a list of possible cognates. Briefly review section 3.5 on how to identify loanwords and the direction of borrowing.

Chapter 4: Analogical change

• Not very important for the final exam, since it was covered in previous tests.

Chapter 5: Comparative method

• You should make sure you understand how to do reconstructions using the comparative method. This will be roughly half of the final exam.
• Review the steps in section 5.2
• Section 5.4 on Grimm's Law, Grassman's Law, and Verner's Law are important for the exam. The important points on these are provided on the review sheet posted here.

Chapter 6: Linguistic classification

• You should know about terminology (6.3) and how to do subgrouping (6.4 up to page 195).

Chapter 7: Models of change

• Not very important for the final exam except very general ideas.

Chapter 8: Internal reconstruction

• Be familiar with the steps on page 226.
• It might help to review the Cahuilla problem we did for homework.

Chapter 9: Semantic and lexical change

• This was largely covered in the mid-term, but there may be a few matching-type questions.

Chapter 10: Syntactic change

• Will not specifically be on the final.

Chapter 11: Explaining linguistic change

• Could be important for the essay question. Otherwise, don't worry about it.

Chapter 12: Areal linguistics

• Was covered on the previous test. Read section 12.5 on implications for reconstruction and subgrouping.

Chapter 13: Distant genetic relationships

• Don't worry too much about the details of this, just the general idea.

Chapter 14: The role of written records.

• Could be important if you do essay question number 3.
• Important points about history of writing systems to be posted shortly.

Chapter 15: Linguistic prehistory

• We didn't have time to do this in class, so it isn't on the exam.

Not in the book:

• You should know which sounds are more likely to occur and which sounds imply other ones as listed in the Crystal reading on phonological typology. We also went over this in class.
• You should know which direction of sound change are more likely. This is generally mentioned in Chapter 2, and is important for decisions you make in reconstructions.
• Writing systems -- more on this shortly.