Word families, allofams, and the comparative method

Fellner, Hannes; Hill, Nathan W.

Abstract

Linguists researching the Trans-Himalayan family do not have a self-perception as working outside the mainstream of historical linguistics, but ‘word families’ and ‘allofams’ are important elements in their thinking despite the absence of these terms in the wider discipline. A close examination of the practice of historical linguistics in Indo-European and Trans-Himalayan leads to the conclusion that those phenomena treated as word families admit superior analyses in more traditional terms.

Citation

Fellner, H., & Hill, N. W. (2019). Word families, allofams, and the comparative method. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale, 48(2), 91-124. https://doi.org/10.1163/19606028-04802001

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 2, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Nov 27, 2019
• Publication Date: Nov 1, 2019
• Deposit Date: Dec 2, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 2, 2019
• Journal: Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale
• Print ISSN: 0153-3320
• Electronic ISSN: 1960-6028
• Publisher: Brill Academic Publishers
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 48
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 91-124
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/19606028-04802001
• Keywords: Trans-Himalayan; Sino-Tibetan; Indo-European; word families; allofams; methodology