Hermann Bluhme & Dmitri Milinski
Universiteit Antwerpen

This course in basic German is designed for native speakers of English and others with a good grasp of the English language. It draws particular attention to the vocabulary shared by both English and German. English and German word pairs of similar meaning and form are presented in groups according to the sound laws which determine their relationship, for instance English t corresponds to German z (pronounce /ts/) in tame – zahm, tongue – Zunge, tin – Zinn, twelve – zwölf and other words. Learners can take advantage of this similarity, which occurs with vowels as well as consonants, to help them learn vocabulary more quickly as well as to guess the rough meaning of an unknown word.

In this course one chapter is devoted to the common European heritage of Greek, Latin, French, Italian and Spanish vocabulary which is shared by English and German. The words which have been selected for this course may not always be of so-called “practical use” that are most frequently taught in conventional language courses. However, the arrangement shows how two closely related languages have many points of general agreement and fine disagreement. The authors have incorporated the results of linguistic research into the material, covering phonetics and many points of grammar. One aim of language teaching is to provide insight into another culture, another to afford a glimpse of another way to look at ideas and the world and this course offers learners a new perspective from which to approach this goal.

When necessary for pedagogical reasons, the authors have neglected purely historical principles of linguistics, such as in the presentation of the strong verb, word order, tenses and particles; instead, these points of grammar have been enriched by modern discoveries in linguistics. The course is not structured for gradual progress, from easy to difficult; therefore you can cover the units in almost any order you prefer. It is recommended to learn the smallest chapters as whole units including the numerous examples in order to reinforce the pattern of sound shifts between both languages, and it is left to the learner where he wants to start after the chapter Basics. For the English translation of vocabulary frequent reference to the word lists at the end is recommended, but the use of a dictionary will prove to be helpful. To acquire an excellent command of the language one has to read German literature carefully and memorise much from familiar and formal use of the language in its spoken and written form; there are longer pieces covering a variety of text types at the end of the course as examples of suitable study material for the learner.

The text is divided into

Part 1:
Basic German Grammar
Phonetics
English Words and their German Relatives
Word Formation and Advanced Grammar with particular attention to gender, strong verbs and particles
A list of high frequency words

Part 2:
Exercises, including German texts
Further Pronunciation Exercises
Further Notes on Gender
A List of All Words used in the Course, beyond those explained in Footnotes
A Short English-German Wordlist

ISBN 9783895864216. LINCOM Coursebooks in Linguistics 17. 400pp. 2010. Students' discounts avaiable. Please ask!

A German Language Course on Historical and Linguistic Principles (2nd ed.)

Hermann Bluhme & Dmitri Milinski
Universiteit Antwerpen

The people of England and Germany share a common origin from the times of their settlement in Europe and they derive their culture and civilisation from the same sources in the antique and medieval world of Graeco-Roman learning. This course in basic German is built on these foundations; it is designed for speakers of English and others with a good grasp of the English language and draws particular attention to the vocabulary shared by both English and German. Word pairs of similar meaning and form are presented in groups according to the sound laws which determine their relationship, for instance English t corresponds to German z (pronounce /ts/) in tame – zahm, tongue – Zunge, tin – Zinn, twelve – zwölf and other words. Learners can take advantage of this similarity, which occurs with vowels as well as consonants, to help them learn vocabulary more quickly as well as to guess the meaning of an unknown word. Another chapter has been devoted to the common European cultural heritage of Greek, Latin, French, Italian and Spanish vocabulary which is shared by English, German, Dutch and many other languages.

The words chosen may not always be of so-called “practical use” that are most frequently taught in conventional language courses. Instead, we advise the learner to read German literature carefully, to listen to speech produced for real communication and to learn suitable phrases and texts, songs or verses by heart as soon as he feels ready. There are longer pieces covering a variety of text types at the end of the course as examples of suitable study material for the learner. The grammar, too, has been selected carefully for this course. It should show how these closely related languages have many points of general agreement and fine disagreement in phonetics, phonology, semantics and syntax. The authors have incorporated the results of linguistic research into the material, covering phonetics and many points of grammar in order to achieve two aims of language teaching. These are to provide insight into another culture and to afford a glimpse of another way to look at ideas, the world and oneself; this course offers learners a new perspective from which to approach these goals.

When necessary for pedagogical reasons, the authors have neglected purely historical principles of linguistics, such as in the presentation of the strong verb, word order, tenses and particles; instead, these points of grammar have been enriched by modern discoveries in linguistics. The course is not structured for gradual progress, from easy to difficult; therefore you can cover the units in almost any order you prefer. The reader is advised to learn the smallest chapters as whole units including the numerous examples in order to reinforce the pattern of sound shifts between both languages, and it is left up to the learner where he wants to start after the chapter Basics. For the English translation of vocabulary frequent reference to the word lists at the end is recommended, but the use of a dictionary will prove to be helpful.

The second edition makes the structure more easily accessible for the reader. A few notes on the relation between both Germanic peoples have been added. Texts and examples have been revised. A short chapter on how to “read” a text has been added.

ISBN 9783862880423. LINCOM Coursebooks in Linguistics 17 (2nd edition). 410pp. 2011. Students' discounts avaiable. Please ask!

Spanish through Time

An Introduction

Flora Klein-Andreu
Stony Brook University

Spanish through time is an introduction to the development of the Spanish language, designed for readers with little or no prior experience in linguistics. It therefore stresses explanation of the workings of language and its development over time: They are viewed as attibutable to characteristics of human speakers, in particular social and historical circumstances, as illustated by the history of Spanish.

The development of Spanish from Latin is presented divided into three broad periods--"Vulgar Latin", Castilian, and Spanish--characterized by specific linguistic developments and the historical circumstances in which they occurred. In each case the mechanics of particular language changes are explained in detail, in everyday terms. Emphasis is on the more general developments that differentiate, first, various Romance languages, and finally different current varieties of Castilian-- Peninsular and Atlantic (American). Evidence is also presented for the chronology of some major changes, so as to familiarize the reader with traditional linguistic reasoning.

The presentation is designed to be covered in a normal semester or trimester unit, and is based on the author's experience teaching the subject for more than twenty years in U.S. Universities.

Contents:

Preface
List of maps
List of figures
Phonetic symbols used
Abbreviations

l. Introduction: On language and language change

1.1 Conditions that affect language and its development
1.2 Why languages can change
1.3 What changes is how we talk

Part I: ROMANCE

2. Spanish as a Romance language: theory and evidence

2.1 Theoretical evidence: comparative reconstruction
2.2 The historical evidence: the Roman Empire
2.3 Rome in Iberia

3. ‘Vulgar Latin’

3.1 Classical vs. Vulgar Latin
3.1.1 Popular vs. ‘learnèd’ words
3.1.2 Doublets
3.2 Evidence of Vulgar Latin
3.2.1 Literary imitations of ordinary speech
3.2.2 Attempts at correction
3.2.3 Inscriptions
3.2.4 Early Christian writings
3.3 Characteristics of Spanish and other differences among Romance languages
3.3.1 Substratum influence
3.3.1.1 Celtic
3.3.1.2 Basque
3.3.2 Chronological difference

4. Vulgar Latin Lexicon

4.1 Borrowings and calques
4.1.1 Celtic
4.1.2 Germanic
4.1.3 Greek
4.2 Derivation
4.2.1 Diminutives
4.2.2 Other derivations
4.3 More changes in use

5. Developments in grammar

5.1 Syntactic (analytic) vs. Morphological (synthetic) expression
5.1.1 Replacement of adverbial –e by mente
5.1.2 Comparatives and superlatives
5.1.3 The Romance future and conditional tenses
5.1.4 The passive
5.1.5 The Romance ‘perfect’ tenses
5.1.6 Loss of morphological case endings
5.1.7 Latin demonstratives and their descendants
5.2 Summary of main points

6. Another word on words and reinterpretations

6.1 Descent of Spanish words from Latin Accusatives, and some exceptions
6.1.1 The weekdays
6.1.2 Reanalysis of plurals as singulars (and vice versa)
6.2 Understanding reanalysis
6.2.1 A lexical example

7. The production of speech sounds, and the sounds of Classical Latin

7.1 Essentials of articulation
7.2. Degree of obstruction (closure) of the vocal tract: vowels vs. consonants
7.2.1 Degree of obstruction among vowels
7.2.2 Place of articulation
7.2.3 Duration (length)
7.3 Syllables
7.4 Stress
7.5 Consonants
7.5.1 The most closed articulations: stops
7.5.2 Voicing
7.5.3 Fricatives and sibilants
7.5.4 Nasals
7.5.5 Liquids (lateral [l] and tap [r])
7.5.6 Glides (semi-consonants)
7.5.7 The aspirate [h]
7.5.8 Length in consonants: geminates

8. Early changes in consonants

8.1 Sound change and phonetic context
8.2 Simple developments
8.3 A development with multiple consequences: distinctive stress
8.3.1 Loss of intertonic vowels
8.3.2 Change in syllabification of vowel sequences
8.3.3 Vocalization of first consonant in clusters
8.4 Increase in frequency of palatal glide [y] (‘yod’). Assimilation.
8.4.1 Effect of ‘yod’ on consonants
8.5 Summary: Vulgar Latin stress change and its consequences
8.6 Other palatalizations
8.7 Articulatory weakening: ´lenition´
8.8 Overall summary of early consonantal changes. Effects on the consonantal system

9. Changes in vowels

9.1 Stress vs. duration
9.2 Influence of relative energy of articulation: stressed vs. unstressed vowels; unstressed final vs. other unstressed vowels
9.3 The influence of yod
9.4 Stressed vowels
9.5 Unstressed non-final vowels
9.6 Morphological consequences of differing phonetic conditions
9.6.1 Difference in stress
9.6.2 Proximity of yod
9.7 Final vowels
9.8 Summary

10. Evidence of early developments

10.1 The Appendix Probi
10.2 Inscriptions
10.3 The Peregrinatio (‘Pilgrimage’)

11. The Germanic invasions

11.1 Effect on Latin
11.2 The Visigoths in Iberia
11.3 A possible calque from Germanic
11.4 Phonetic adaptation of Germanic words
11.5 A Germanic borrowing from Latin

12. The Arab invasions

12.1 Some background
12.2 Cultural and linguistic influence
12.3 Linguistic adaptation of arabisms
12.3.1 Reinterpretation of meaning
12.3.2 Phonetic adaptation
12.4 Romance developments in arabisms
12.5 Calques from Arabic

13. French influence

13.1 Historical background
13.2 Borrowings from French (‘Gallicisms’)
13.3 Phonetic adjustment of loanwords
13.4 Apocope of final vowels
13.5 The spelling ch

Part II: CASTILIAN

14. Characteristics of Castilian

14.1 Castilian and western dialects
14.2 Castilian and eastern dialects
14.3 Castilian developments

15. Early evidence of Castilian

15.1 The Glosses
15.2 Some examples
15.3 A caveat
16. Morphology: Developments in form

16.1 Changes in form due to sound change
16.2 Changes in form influenced by meaning: analogy
16.3 Latin strong preterites and participles
16.4 Suppletion

17. The Rise of Castilian

17.1 Castilla and the ‘Reconquista’
17.2 The western periphery: gallego-portugués
17.3 The eastern periphery: varieties of catalán
17.4 A non-Romance language: Basque
17.5 Political unification
17.6 Spanish as a world language
17.7 Spanish culture and the ‘Siglo de Oro’

18. Standardization

18.1 Alfonso X ‘El Sabio’
18.2 Nebrija and the first grammar of Spanish
18.3 Later Spanish grammars
18.4 Grammars as evidence of the state of development of Castilian. Grammars for foreigners.
18.5 Summary

19. Modern changes in sound and major current varieties

19.1 Judeo-Spanish
19.2 Northern and Southern Castilian
19.3 Loss of the aspirate [h]
19.4 Merger of medieval [b] and [β]
19.5 Developments in sibilant sounds
19.5.1 Unvoicing of voiced sibilants
19.5.2 Deaffrication of dental affricates: the south
19.5.3 ‘Ceceo’ and ‘seseo’
19.5.4 Deaffrication of dental affricates: the north
19.5.5 Development of the palatal [š]
19.6 Merger of [Ł] and [y]: ‘yeísmo’
19.7 Summary of modern consonant changes
19.8 A suggestion

20. More reinterpretations

20.1 Changes in lexical meaning
20.1.1 Taboo and euphemism
20.1.2 Technical and other cultural developments
20.1.3 Competition with newer terms
20.1.4 Different varieties of Spanish
20.1.5 Learnèd vs. Popular vocabulary
20.2 Reinterpretation in grammar
20.2.1 The negatives nada and ningun(o/a)
20.2.2 Terms of address (´tratamientos´)
20.2.3 Development of haber: contributing factors and various consequences
20.2.4 Grammaticalization of STARE > estar
20.2.5 Another ongoing trend: interpreting –a/-o endings as feminine/masculine

PART III: SPANISH

21. Spanish beyond Spain

21.1 Judeo-Spanish
21.2 The Americas
21.2.1 The Spread of Spanish
21.2.2 American Spanish and the theory of ‘Andalucismo’
21.2.2.1 Historical basis: the circumstances of early colonization
21.2.2.2 Linguistic basis: southern Peninsular features in American Spanish
21.2.3 Conservation of vos: ‘voseo’
21.2.4 Native American influence on general Spanish: ‘indigenismos’
21.3 Equatorial Guinea
21.4 The Philippines
21.5 Spanish-lexified Creoles

22. The Academy. Modern changes in spelling.

22.1 ‘La Real Academia de la lengua española’
22.2 Orthographic reforms

23. Spanish in our time: Some ongoing developments.

23.1 Influence of English
23.1.1 Adaptation of borrowings
23.1.2 Reinterpretation of borrowings
23.1.3 Calques and puristic resistance
23.2 Spanish as a Transatlantic language
23.2.1 Spanish in the United States
23.2.2 Spanish as a second language

Subject Index

Bibliography

ISBN 9783895864308. LINCOM Coursebooks in Linguistics 18. 209pp. 2010. Students' discounts available! Please ask.

Introduction to Linguistics from a Global Perspective

An Alternative Approach to Language and Languages

Joachim Grzega
University of Eichstaett

How do languages work? 10 chapters introduce to all major aspects of language and models from theoretical to applied linguistics in an alternative way. Respecting an international university policy for beginner’s courses, this book offers an interactive approach even for large, international and interdisciplinary groups, with majors in linguistics, language teaching, European studies, intercultural communication, journalism, psychology, computer science, lexicography, arts, and marketing. The book connects linguistics to various fields. It enables readers to develop linguistic expertise by first presenting problems for reflection, then answering them in everyday language and finally using linguistic terminology, with examples from English and other languages. Students can acquire knowledge with the book “interactively”, at their own pace.

Each chapter includes anecdotes, “linguistic learning lyricisms” for difficult terms, a checklist of terms, wrap-up riddles, and a further reading section. Preliminary remarks tell readers how to best benefit from the book. Instructors are relieved from finding the right pace and method for each new learner group. Consequently, classroom meetings can be used to just revise the core knowledge and then apply it to concrete problems from various fields. Instructors are given advice for an effective use of the book and offered several activities for each chapter. Thus, the book becomes a Do-It-Yourself-Then-Do-It-in-Class book.

The author, Joachim Grzega, is professor of linguistics and has specialized in Eurolinguistics, language teaching, intercultural communication, expert-layperson communication, and communicative teaching methods.

ISBN 9783862880669. LINCOM Coursebooks in Linguistics 19. 251pp. 2011. Students' discounts available, please ask!

Exercícios de morfologia do português

Alexandra Soares Rodrigues
Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Universidade de Coimbra

Este livro contém exercícios sobre morfologia do português. Nestes exercícios são trabalhadas as noções de morfema, a morfologia flexional, a morfologia derivacional e a formação de palavras, de modo geral, e as relações entre a morfologia, a semântica, a sintaxe e a fonologia. O livro é constituído por duas partes. A primeira parte consta das fichas de exercícios; a segunda parte consta da resolução das mesmas. As respostas oferecidas na segunda parte visam explicitar não só a solução para os exercícios, mas também a resolução de muitas dúvidas que vulgarmente se oferecem aos estudantes deste domínio da linguística. Como tal, este volume não deve ser tido como um simples livro de exercícios, mas como um manual de explanação de problemas de morfologia.

O volume integra ainda uma lista de bibliografia essencial actual sobre morfologia.

Alexandra Soares Rodrigues é Professora Adjunta do Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, onde lecciona disciplinas de Linguística. É membro do Centro de Estudos de Linguística Geral.

This book contains exercises on Portuguese morphology. In these exercises we will focus on notions on the morpheme, inflectional morphology, derivational morphology and word formation, in general, and on the relationships between morphology, semantics, syntax and phonology.

The book consists of two parts. The first part consists of exercises; the second part consists of the resolution of those exercises. The answers that are offered in the second part aim to explain not only the solution to the exercises, but also the resolution of many doubts that students of morphology commonly have. Therefore, this volume should not be taken as a simple exercise book, but as a manual that explains problems of morphology.

The volume also contains a list of current essential bibliography on morphology.

Alexandra Soares Rodrigues is Associated Professor at the Escola Superior de Educação of the Instituto Politécnico de Bragança and researcher of the Centro de Estudos de Linguística Geral e Aplicada of the University of Coimbra.

Exercícios de morfologia do português

A Structural History of the German Language

Joseph Voyles & Charles Barrack
University of Washington

This book originated as the result of almost fifty years of teaching the history of the German language dating from the PIE (Proto-Indo-European) of about 3000 BC until the present era. The students were German language learners, native speakers and linguistics students unfamiliar with the language. The book was written with a similar audience in mind.

The book consists of eleven chapters segregated into four major sections. These are Part I. Preliminaries with Chapter 1, an outline of synchronic and diachronic methodology; and Chapter 2, an overview of the major Indo-European language families, of the individual Germanic languages and of the place of PGmc. (Proto-Germanic), NWGmc. (Northwest Germanic), OHG (Old High German), MHG (Middle High German) and NHG (Modern High German) within this constellation.

Part II. Historical Phonology contains Chapter 3 with the phonological changes from PIE into PGmc., Chapter 4 with those from PGmc. into OHG, Chapter 5 with those from OHG into MHG and Chapter 6 with the phonological changes from MHG into NHG.

Part III. Historical Morphology consists of Chapter 7 with the changes in nouns, adjectives, numerals and pronouns from PIE through PGmc, OHG and MHG into NHG; and Chapter 8 with the corresponding changes in verbs.

Part IV. Historical Syntax and Semantics describes in Chapter 9 the changes in derivation and compounding over OHG-MHG-NHG. Chapter 10 describes the salient syntactic changes over the same route; and Chapter 11 describes a number of semantic changes from OHG through MHG and into NHG.

Each chapter contains a final section of exercises based on that chapter. In the key to each chapter are contained the answers to these exercises.

ISBN 9783862885251. LINCOM Coursebooks in Linguistics 21. 434pp. 2014.

Ejercicios de lexicología del español

Florencio del Barrio de la Rosa
Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia

Este libro ofrece al lector 209 ejercicios de morfología y semántica del español. Los ejercicios se organizan en seis capítulos que abarcan los temas más relevantes de la lexicología: 1. Conceptos generales, 2. Morfología, 3. Formación de palabras, 4. Categorías gramaticales, 5. Semántica, 6. Relaciones léxicas. El estudiante tendrá la oportunidad de poner en práctica sus conocimientos y, a la vez, profundizar en cuestiones teóricas. Se acompañan los ejercicios de una sección de soluciones, donde se muestra una síntesis de las principales propuestas teóricas, se discute cada una de las posibles opciones y se justifica la respuesta correcta. De este modo, el lector interesado encontrará una introducción a las nociones básicas de la lexicología. Además, ejercicios y soluciones se completan con un comentario bibliográfico sustentado en las referencias más actuales y especializadas, por lo que el profesor universitario de gramática española puede utilizar el libro como complemento a sus clases o como apoyo para la preparación de su curso o partes de él. El planteamiento de problemas y ejercicios para explicar la gramática y para desarrollar la capacidad de argumentación tiene una asentada tradición entre los gramáticos españoles. Estos Ejercicios, concebidos para que el aprendiz reflexione en autonomía sobre la lengua que estudia, quieren enlazar con esa tradición.
 

Ejercicios de lexicología del español

Florencio del Barrio de la Rosa
Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia

Este libro ofrece al lector 209 ejercicios de morfología y semántica del español. Los ejercicios se organizan en seis capítulos que abarcan los temas más relevantes de la lexicología: 1. Conceptos generales, 2. Morfología, 3. Formación de palabras, 4. Categorías gramaticales, 5. Semántica, 6. Relaciones léxicas. El estudiante tendrá la oportunidad de poner en práctica sus conocimientos y, a la vez, profundizar en cuestiones teóricas. Se acompañan los ejercicios de una sección de soluciones, donde se muestra una síntesis de las principales propuestas teóricas, se discute cada una de las posibles opciones y se justifica la respuesta correcta. De este modo, el lector interesado encontrará una introducción a las nociones básicas de la lexicología. Además, ejercicios y soluciones se completan con un comentario bibliográfico sustentado en las referencias más actuales y especializadas, por lo que el profesor universitario de gramática española puede utilizar el libro como complemento a sus clases o como apoyo para la preparación de su curso o partes de él. El planteamiento de problemas y ejercicios para explicar la gramática y para desarrollar la capacidad de argumentación tiene una asentada tradición entre los gramáticos españoles. Estos Ejercicios, concebidos para que el aprendiz reflexione en autonomía sobre la lengua que estudia, quieren enlazar con esa tradición.
 

On Laryngealism

A Coursebook in the History of a Science

Joe Voyles & Charles Barrack
University of Washington

This book is a much-needed refutation of the laryngeal theory of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) phonology. It is intended for both linguists and non-linguists, particularly scholars interested in the history and logic of the sciences.  Each chapter concludes with exercises and a key with answers to the exercises.
Chapter 1 "Terminology and method." explains the approach to both synchronic and historical linguistics taken in this work. Chapter 2 "The Indo-European (IE) background." gives a survey of the major IE languages as well as a summary of reconstructed PIE phonology.  Chapter 3 "Laryngealism." presents a history of the development of laryngeal theory from Saussure (1878) until contemporary times. Chapter 4 contains two examples of laryngealist methodology, namely the reconstruction of the original PIE vowel system as well as a laryngealist explanation of the varying reflexes of the class-7 reduplicating verbs in Proto-Germanic.  Both these laryngealist accounts are negatively critiqued; and alternative explanations are proposed. Chapter 5 "The case of Hittite." treats of the Hittite evidence, often adduced in support of laryngealism. This evidence is found to be specious. Chapter 6 "Logic and laryngealism." places the laryngeal theory within the spectrum of other false theories which have been proposed from time to time in various sciences - such as the phlogiston theory in chemistry. Hence laryngealism is shown to have been one of the growing pains in the history of the science of linguistics.

ISBN 9783862886517. LINCOM Coursebooks in Linguistics 23. 130pp. 2015.