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Related papers
ROBBEETS, Martine (2015): Diachrony of verb morphology. Japanese and the Transeurasian languages.
The publication of a book devoted to the history of verb morphology in the so-called Altaic (now relabelled 'Transeurasian') languages, i.e., Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic and optionally Korean and Japanese, constitutes an exciting prospect, especially for those who are interested in the debate about the ultimate nature (genealogical or areal) of the relationship of these languages. Discussions in the Altaic debate usually revolve around a couple of salient phonological features and a very restricted set of lexical items, and these are repeated over and over again, most often without advancing new arguments or ideas. Grammar-related issues are rarely tackled. In view of these circumstances, verb morphology might provide an ideal battlefield to bring into the picture innovative, original proposals. Moreover, due to some of the complexities involved, general linguists and typologists may find new areas of interest. Martine Robbeets's book (the author henceforth MR) is divided into nine chapters. The first two chapters lay out the main goals of the study (in a nutshell, to analyse shared etymologies and reconstructed grammaticalizations, 1 which might be used as evidence to build a case in favour of the genealogical relatedness of the Altaic languages) and methodology. There is a brief but well-balanced presentation of the languages involved and their history, geographic distribution and internal taxonomy (pp. 4–33). Description of basic concepts in historical linguistics follows (pp. 45–88). Special attention is paid to the opposition of inherited vs. borrowed (via code-copying), the pitfalls in which the researcher may fall while trying to identify one or the other and the procedures to avoid them. MR illustrates her explanations with examples from various languages of the world with reference to current literature on general and descriptive linguistics, historical linguistics and typology. MR's remarks on common misunderstandings about the comparative method (pp. 80–88) are generally correct. For instance, she is right when she dismisses claims that the comparative method is not universally applicable. Some authors consider evidence for the relatedness of the Altaic languages so elusive because, perhaps, it should not, or cannot, be addressed from a traditional viewpoint. Bisang (1998: 220) comments that for the Altaic languages " … the Indo-European concept of genetic relatedness may not be adequate ". The theoretical implications of such an assertion are enormous. The reality, however, is far simpler: languages are either related or unrelated. After the data has been analyzed, the linguist must confront both options and admit which one of the two possible scenarios (common inheritance or contact) explains the data best. For now, shared material between Transeurasian languages is undoubtedly better explained as the result of 1 The summary on p. 497 includes the development of negative participles and affixes from formerly independent verbs, a loan verb marker from a denominal verbalizer, the transference of actional markers from nominal to adjectival to verbal base, grammaticalizations of valence and voice (such as causative to passive, reflexive to anticausative or fientive to passive), direct insubordination and the development of temporal from aspectual distinctions and converbialization.
The genealogical relationship of the Japonic, Koreanic, Tungusic, Mongolic and Turkic languages, here referred to as "Transeurasian", is among the most disputed issues of historical comparative linguistics. The major objections raised against the relatedness of these languages are, fijirst, that they do not have enough bound morphology in common, and, second, that all similarities can be attributed to code-copying. Using the traditional comparative method as a basic tool, both objections are examined in this paper. Comparing copying patterns with genealogical patterns in a cross-linguistic sample of languages, twelve guidelines for the distinction between the efffects of contact and inheritance in shared morphology are developed. Applying these criteria to the verb morphology shared by the Transeurasian languages, it is argued that the common morphology can best be accounted for by inheritance from a common ancestor.