LINGUIST List 17.3639
Fri Dec 08 2006
Diss: Historical Ling/Genetic Classification: Toulmin: 'Reconstruct...'
Editor for this issue: Hannah Morales
<hannahlinguistlist.org>
Directory
1. Matthew
Toulmin,
Reconstructing Linguistic History in a Dialect Continuum: The Kamta, Rajbanshi, and Northern Deshi Bangla subgroup of Indo-Aryan
Message 1: Reconstructing Linguistic History in a Dialect Continuum: The Kamta, Rajbanshi, and Northern Deshi Bangla subgroup of Indo-Aryan
Date: 08-Dec-2006
From: Matthew Toulmin <matt_toulminsall.com>
Subject: Reconstructing Linguistic History in a Dialect Continuum: The Kamta, Rajbanshi, and Northern Deshi Bangla subgroup of Indo-Aryan
Institution: Australian National University
Program: School of Language Studies, Faculty of Arts
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2006
Author: Matthew Toulmin
Dissertation Title: Reconstructing Linguistic History in a Dialect Continuum: The Kamta, Rajbanshi, and Northern Deshi Bangla subgroup of Indo-Aryan
Linguistic Field(s):
Genetic Classification
Historical Linguistics
Subject Language(s): Rajbanshi (rjb)
Dissertation Director:
Bethwyn Evans
Luise Hercus
Harold Koch
Malcolm Ross
Dissertation Abstract:
This study outlines a methodological framework for reconstructinglinguistic history within a dialect continuum and applies this methodologyto an under-described, controversial, and complex subgroup of NewIndo-Aryan (NIA)—the Kamta, Rajbanshi and Northern Deshi Bangla lects (KRNB).
Dialect continua are characterised by non-discrete boundaries betweenspeech communities, and as a result previously divergent lects may undergocommon innovations; the result is the familiar picture of overlappingdialectological isoglosses. The sequencing of these innovations and thehistorical relations between the lects involved are often highly ambiguous.Given the right sociohistorical conditions, a widespread innovation may bemore recent than a localised innovation—the very opposite sequencing tothat implied by the splits in a family tree.
Not surprisingly, discrete application to the NIA continuum of traditionalmethodologies—including the Comparative Method, etymological reconstructionand dialect geography—has yielded unsatisfactory and at timeschronologically distorted results. Historical studies, therefore, havechosen between: (a) only studying the histories of NIA lects with writtenrecords; (b) reconstructing using the chronology suggested by the shape ofa family tree; or (c) settling for a 'flat', non-historical account ofdialect geography.
Under the approach developed here, the strengths of each of thesetraditional methods are synthesised within an overarching frameworkprovided by a sociohistorical theory of language change. This synthesisenables the linguistic history of the KRNB lects to be reconstructed withsome detail from the proto-Kamta stage (1250-1550 AD) up to the presentday. Innovations are sequenced based on three types of criteria:linguistic, textual and sociohistorical. The old Kamta stage, and itsrelation to old Bangla and Asamiya, is reconstructed based on linguisticPropagation Events and Speech Community Events—two concepts central to themethodology. The old Kamta speech community and its language became dividedinto western, central and eastern subsections during the middle KRNB period(1550-1787 AD, dates assigned by attested sociohistorical events). Duringthe same period, KRNB lects also underwent partial reintegration with NIAlects further afield by means of more widely propagated changes. This trendof differentiation at a local level, concurrent with reintegration at awider level, also characterises the modern KRNB period from 1787 AD to thepresent.
This account of KRNB linguistic history is based on a rigorousreconstruction of changes in phonology and morphology. The result is notonly a reconstruction of historical changes, but of the proto-Kamta phonemeinventory, hundreds of words of vocabulary, and specific areas of nominaland verbal morphology. The reconstruction is based on data collected in thefield for the purposes of this study. Phonological reconstruction has madeuse of the WordCorr software program, and the reconstructed vocabulary ispresented in a comparative wordlist in an appendix.
The methodology developed and applied in this study has been found highlysuccessful, though naturally not without its own limitations. This studyhas significance for its contribution both to the methodology of historicallinguistic reconstruction and to the light shed on the linguisticprehistory of KRNB.
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