Comparative Studies in Amerindian Languages

Fülszöveg

The comparative studies in this volume are based on extensive field work by the authors as well as their colleagues of the Summer Institute of Linguistics working in the ten countries (Canada, the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil) of the Americas with the heaviest Indián populations. The author of the Arawakan section has two deeades' experience with the Piro language plus extensive involvement with more than eighty other languages of South America, as linguistic consultant; the author of the section on Maya has fifteen years' experience with the Tojolobal and Tzeltal languages, while over five years of concentrated field work on the Siona and Guanano languages plus surveys of the entire Tucanoan area have been condueted by the authors of the section on Tucanoan. Published materials were consulted and cognate sets were being gathered for several years before the actual writing of the paper. The final work wTas done between... Tovább

Fülszöveg

The comparative studies in this volume are based on extensive field work by the authors as well as their colleagues of the Summer Institute of Linguistics working in the ten countries (Canada, the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil) of the Americas with the heaviest Indián populations. The author of the Arawakan section has two deeades' experience with the Piro language plus extensive involvement with more than eighty other languages of South America, as linguistic consultant; the author of the section on Maya has fifteen years' experience with the Tojolobal and Tzeltal languages, while over five years of concentrated field work on the Siona and Guanano languages plus surveys of the entire Tucanoan area have been condueted by the authors of the section on Tucanoan. Published materials were consulted and cognate sets were being gathered for several years before the actual writing of the paper. The final work wTas done between April and September of 1966 by the five authors assisted by a staff of typists and copyists. These studies give evidence of relationships among twenty linguistic groups (stocks, families, single languages) of the Americas. It is expected that this book will stimulate further work along the following lines: 1. A comparison of grammar systems of groups shown to have shared vocabulary. 2. An increase in Amerindian comparative studies through utilization of the data provided. 3. Greater uniformity among proto phonologies postulated by different authors through correlation with the phonologies postulated as greater depths. 4. Reevaluation of present comparative methods as a check on the posited relationships. 5. Comparisons among additional major language groups, perhaps Amerindian with nonAmerindian groups. With growing experience in the application of computers in language analysis the definition of much more precise linguistic boundaries on a worldwide scope now lies wTithin the grasp of eomparativists. Vissza