- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Edinburgh University Press (8 Sep 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0748611142
- ISBN-13: 978-0748611140
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 4,626,463 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Product Description
An accessible introduction to historical linguistics, this work contains many examples and problem sets/exercises to which the students can apply the principles and procedures outlined in each chapter. It deals with essential areas of historical linguistics: grammaticalization, sociolinguistic treatment of linguistic change, remote genetic relationship; areal linguistics and linguistic prehistory.
About the Author
Lyle Campbell is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. He is the author of fifteen books, including American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America and Historical Syntax in Cross-Linguistic Perspectives (with Alice C. Harris), both of which won the Linguistic Society of America's Leonard Bloomfield Award.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book does exactly what it claims to do - it introduces you to historical linguistics.
It is very detailed for an introductory text, but it is still fairly easy to follow (though I do have some previous linguistics experience - a complete novice might get confused in places, but it seems fairly straighforward).
The contents page is comprehensive and detailed, with good sub-headings allowing a reader to go straight to the information they want without having to skim a whole chapter (or know precisely which technical term to look for in an index).
Also, if you have some background knowledge the sections work well in a stand-alone context - you don't have to read the whole book cover to cover to find out what you want to know.
All in all, a good general introduction, and a book I will be keeping on my shelf for reference purposes.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a good and thorough introduction to historical linguistics with plenty of examples from every corner of the world. The exercises are good and contain lots of interesting data to analyse as described in the text. This book does not seem to have what you might think to be an inevitable indoeuropean bias, and describes different ways of establishing genetic relationships. A very interesting textbook.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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7 reviews
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful
A textbook with examples of immense variety
23 April 2005
Format:Paperback
Lyle Campbell's HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS: An Introduction is the latest textbook initiating students into the study of language change. Already in its second edition, the book is quite impressive and I highly recommend it to anyone entering the field.
Campbell begins by discussing three types of change, that of sounds, that of the lexicon in borrowing, and analogical change. After making students aware of these diachronic developments, he then presents the comparative method and the technique of proto-language reconstruction. After showing how regular correspondences indicate development from a common source, Campbell discusses the classification of languages and models of linguistic change. For me, the most exciting chapter is that on internal reconstruction, where Campbell gives a number of examples (not just the usual one of PIE ablaut). The author then covers three others types of change, semantic, lexical, and syntactic. A chapter on areal linguistics familiarises the reader with dialectology, and one on distant genetic relationships introduces theories like Nostratic. Finally, discussion of philology and a chapter on reconstruction of proto-cultures and the hunting of Urheimats closes the book.
The finest aspect of this book is the great variety of languages from which Campbell draws his examples. Many textbooks, such as that of Lehmann, limit their focus mostly to Indo-European, but Campbell also gives attention to Finno-Ugric, Polynesian languages, Semitic, and many indigenous American languages, especially the Mayan languages which the authors seems expert in. In fact, the lack of sticking just to Indo-European makes this a very useful text for budding Indo-Europeanists, because most of the other language family reconstructions make use of typology, a technique only now beginning to be applied to IE. I can make few complaints about the work, though his use of palatal velars in PIE reconstructions seems out of fashion.
This is a real textbook, exercises are abudant and really challenge the student to apply all he has learned. The author does assume students already have some understanding of phonology and general linguistic terminology.
If you are interested in the general field of historical linguistics and have some prior training in linguistics, Campbell's textbook is one of the best primers available and highly worth seeking out.
Campbell begins by discussing three types of change, that of sounds, that of the lexicon in borrowing, and analogical change. After making students aware of these diachronic developments, he then presents the comparative method and the technique of proto-language reconstruction. After showing how regular correspondences indicate development from a common source, Campbell discusses the classification of languages and models of linguistic change. For me, the most exciting chapter is that on internal reconstruction, where Campbell gives a number of examples (not just the usual one of PIE ablaut). The author then covers three others types of change, semantic, lexical, and syntactic. A chapter on areal linguistics familiarises the reader with dialectology, and one on distant genetic relationships introduces theories like Nostratic. Finally, discussion of philology and a chapter on reconstruction of proto-cultures and the hunting of Urheimats closes the book.
The finest aspect of this book is the great variety of languages from which Campbell draws his examples. Many textbooks, such as that of Lehmann, limit their focus mostly to Indo-European, but Campbell also gives attention to Finno-Ugric, Polynesian languages, Semitic, and many indigenous American languages, especially the Mayan languages which the authors seems expert in. In fact, the lack of sticking just to Indo-European makes this a very useful text for budding Indo-Europeanists, because most of the other language family reconstructions make use of typology, a technique only now beginning to be applied to IE. I can make few complaints about the work, though his use of palatal velars in PIE reconstructions seems out of fashion.
This is a real textbook, exercises are abudant and really challenge the student to apply all he has learned. The author does assume students already have some understanding of phonology and general linguistic terminology.
If you are interested in the general field of historical linguistics and have some prior training in linguistics, Campbell's textbook is one of the best primers available and highly worth seeking out.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
One of the best introductory textbooks on historical linguistics
31 Dec 2005
Format:Paperback
I would highly recomment this book to anyone interested in historical linguistics. Having read four introductory textbooks on historical linguistics (Campbell's, R. L. Trask's, Anthony Fox's, and Terry Crowley's), I believe that Campbell's is probably the best. His writing style is clear and accessible, his explanations easy to understand, and his examples drawn from a wide variety of languages, particularly indegenous languages of Central America (Campbell is one of the leading experts in Mayan languages today). His step-by-step description on how to apply the comparative method, in particular, is in my opinion both more detailed and better-illustrated than those in most of his colleague's works. He does assume some knowledge of basic linguistic concepts, but defines those concepts which are more advanced as they come up. The exercises given at the end of each chapter are well-chosen, but unfortunately for those who are not students but merely reading the book outside of a classroom, answers are not provided.
The only complaint I have is not a problem with the writing per se, but with the way the book was printed. Several of the diacritics used in the text (in particular, an upside-down semi-circle placed under a velar consonant to signify that the consonant is fronted or palatalized) do not appear correctly, and show up a line below where they are supposed to be, which tends to interfere with the reading, as it forces you to read slower and return to previous lines to see which characters are supposed to have diacritical marks. This is not a fault of Campbell's, but it does detract somewhat from the reading (hopefully it will be fixed if there is another edition).
The only complaint I have is not a problem with the writing per se, but with the way the book was printed. Several of the diacritics used in the text (in particular, an upside-down semi-circle placed under a velar consonant to signify that the consonant is fronted or palatalized) do not appear correctly, and show up a line below where they are supposed to be, which tends to interfere with the reading, as it forces you to read slower and return to previous lines to see which characters are supposed to have diacritical marks. This is not a fault of Campbell's, but it does detract somewhat from the reading (hopefully it will be fixed if there is another edition).
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
the best out there
14 Oct 2010
Format:Paperback
Campbell has written a book I never tire of using in my classes. Most textbooks are flawed, some more than others, and have to be changed after a few years to avoid driving professors and students crazy. This book has no imperfections. To those who find his orthography confusing, I recommend a close read of BOTH pages of his introductory section on his orthographic methods. Each chapter is concise, readable, and comprehensive, something few authors can achieve on ANY topic. The chapters also finish with exercises ideally suited to follow up on, and aid the understanding of, the material in the chapter. Campbell does not avoid the moderate and difficult comparative and internal reconstruction problems, as other books do by relying largely on Polynesian data, but presents the student with problem sets ranging from the simple to the highly complex. The choice of which to use can be determined by the instructor and the level of the class. (BTW, the problem with the Polynesian sets is that none of them deal with assimilation and dissimilation, two forces that drive the great majority of sound changes.) Campbell also bravely and politely wades into the Mother Tongue debate, and deals with it logically and brilliantly. Considering the damage done to the field of Historical Linguistics by folks engaged in this debate, that is no small contribution.
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