Research on Macrofamilies: The States of the Art Bernard Comrie Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and University of California Santa Barbara

African Macrofamilies Afroasiatic Niger-Congo Nilo-Saharan Khoisan

Niger-Congo Mande - inclusion questionable Kordofanian - inclusion of Kadugli widely rejected, may be Nilo-Saharan Atlantic - may not be a unit, some parts may not be Niger-Congo Bulk of phylum generally accepted

Nilo-Saharan Lower-level groupings generally accepted, higher-level groupings questionable Songhai - almost universally excluded

Khoisan Hadza - no clear relation Sandawe - possibly related to Central South African Khoisan –Central - no clear relation to N, S –Northern - no clear relation to Southern –Southern - no clear relation to Northern –≠Hõa may be related to Northern

Family Tree Problems Presupposes “parthenogenesis” Areal spread of innovations (“Wave theory”) Loans from other languages

Wave Theory “Rhenish Fan” in Germany North:makendorpdatappel Cologne:machendorpdatappel Koblenz:machendorfdatappel Frankfurt:machendorfdasappel South:machendorfdasapfel

Indo-Iranian:dative plural in bh; shift of *k j to s Balto-Slavic: dative plural in m; shift of *k j to s Germanic: dative plural in m; no shift of *k j to s

Multiple Origins / Language Contact Possible definition of genealogical relatedness of languages: Two languages descend from a common ancestor if a substantial portion of basic vocabulary, (inflectional) morphology (if present), and syntax descend from that ancestor.

Frequent, but usually tacit assumption, that there is a hierarchy: Morphology > Basic vocabulary > Syntax Cf. Comrie on Haruai (in relation to Hagahai and Kobon), comparing morphology and basic vocabulary

Basic Vocabulary Loans Thai càmùuk ‘nose’ < Khmer cr ɑ moh, cf. forms like daŋ, laŋ, naŋ in other Tai languages English they, them, their <Scandinavian

Morphological Loans English loans from Latin / Greek retaining original number morphology: –criterioncriteria –crisiscrises –syllabussyllabi / syllabuses –formulaformulae / formulas

Romani singular / plural morphology –Inherited: kher, PL kher-a ‘house’; šer-o, PL šer-e ‘head’; no plural in -i –Early Greek loans introduce type for-os (in many varieties > for-o), PL for-i ‘town’ –Other contact languages introduce other plural markers, e.g. -uri < Rumanian, even with older words (some varieties have for-uri)

Copper Island (Mednyj) Aleut has Aleut basic vocabulary and nominal morphology, but Russian verb morphology, even for inherited verbs: aba-ju ‘I work’aba-im ‘we work’ aba-iš ‘you work’aba-iti ‘you ( PL ) work’ aba-it ‘s/he works’aba-jut ‘they work’

Syntactic Loans Takia has Austronesian vocabulary and morphology, but the same grammatical structure as its Papuan neighbor Waskia. Haitian Creole has French vocabulary and either West African or “universal” syntax.

Regular Sound Correspondences Important: Traditional historical linguists Starostin / Russian school Unimportant: Greenberg / Ruhlen

Opaque but Regular Correspondences French fils /fis/, Spanish hijo /'ixo/ ‘son’ German fünf, Russian p j at j, Armenian hing ‘five’ < Proto-Indo-European *penk w e Mbabaram dog ‘dog’ < Proto-Australian *gudaga

Exceptions to the Regularity of Sound Change Latin quinque ‘five’ for expected *pinque French cinq /s ɛ ̃k/ for expected /k ɛ ̃k/ English she /ši ː / < Old English sēo for expected */si ː /; probable developments: si ː o > sjo ː > šo ː > šu ː (dialect form) > si ː e > sje ː > še ː > ši ː

Explanations for Similarities Common ancestry Borrowing Naturalness (e.g. onomatopoeia) Chance

Eliminating Chance EnglishGerman armArmy fingerFingery handHandy lipLippey noseNasey

EnglishGerman armFingern fingerHandn handLippen lipNasen noseArmn

Loanword Typology Project To study patterns of lexical borrowing across a number of languages from different language families, to ascertain in particular if certain lexical items (relating to particular semantic fields, or particularly basic items) are less prone to borrowing than others.

Some Successes “Borderline” convincing cases –Altaic (or at least some branches thereof) –Indo-European and Uralic –(Narrow) Trans-New Guinea

Yeniseic (western Siberia) and Na-Dene (northwestern North America) –a few dozen possible plausible cognates –very similar, complex, unusual verb morphology, though similarities could be typological (?contact rather than common ancestor) (work by Edward Vajda)