Genealogical linguistics and areal linguistics are rarely treated from an integrated perspective even if they are twin faces of diachronic linguistics. In Copies versus Cognates in Bound Morphology Lars Johanson and Martine Robbeets take up this challenge. The result is a wealth of empirical facts and different theoretical approaches, advanced by internationally renowned specialists and young scholars whose research is highly pertinent to the topic. Copies versus Cognates in Bound Morphology puts genealogical and areal explanation for shared morphology in a balanced perspective and works out criteria to distinguish between morphological cognates and copies. Lars Johanson and Martine Robbeets provide nothing less than the foundations for a new perspective on diachronic linguistics between genealogical and areal linguistics. Contributors include: Alexandra Aikhenvald, Ad Backus, Dik Bakker, Peter Bakker, Éva Csató, Stig Eliasson, Victor Friedman, Francesco Gardani, Anthony Grant, Salomé Gutiérrez-Morales, Tooru Hayasi, Ewald Hekking, Juha Janhunen, Lars Johanson, Brian Joseph, Folke Josephson, Judith Josephson, Johanna Nichols, Martine Robbeets, Marshall Unger, Nikki van de Pol, Anna Verschik, Lindsay Whaley.

Copies versus Cognates in Bound Morphology puts genealogical and areal explanation for shared morphology in a balanced perspective. Lars Johanson and Martine Robbeets provide nothing less than the foundations for a new perspective on diachronic linguistics between genealogical and areal linguistics.

This book presents Lars Johanson’s Code-Copying Model, an integrated framework for the description of contact-induced processes. The model covers all the main contact linguistic issues in their synchronic and diachronic interrelationship. The terminology is kept intuitive and simple to apply. Illustrative examples from a wide range of languages demonstrate the model’s applicability to both spoken and written codes. The fundamental difference between ‘take-over’ copying and ‘carry-over’ copying is given special value. Speakers can take over copies from a secondary code into their own primary code, or alternatively carry over copies from their own primary code into their variety of a secondary code. The results of these two types of copying are significantly different and thus provide insights into historical processes.

By integrating novel developments in both contact linguistics and morphological theory, this volume pursues the topic of borrowed morphology by recourse to sophisticated theoretical and methodological accounts. The authors address fundamental issues, such as the alleged universal dispreference for morphological borrowing and its effects on morphosyntactic complexity, and corroborate their analyses with strong cross-linguistic evidence.

The notion of empire is associated with economic and political mechanisms of dominance. For the last decades, however, there has been a lively debate concerning the question whether this concept can be transferred to the field of linguistics, specifically to research on situations of language spread on the one hand and concomitant marginalization of minority languages on the other. The authors who contributed to this volume concur as to the applicability of the notion of empire to language-related issues. They address the processes, potential merits and drawbacks of language spread as well as the marginalization of minority languages, language endangerment and revitalization, contact-induced language change, the emergence of mixed languages, and identity issues. An emphasis is on the dominance of non-Western languages such as Arabic, Chinese, and, particularly, Russian. The studies demonstrate that the emergence, spread and decline of language empires is a promising area of research, particularly from a comparative perspective.

The Turkic languages are spoken today in a vast geographical area stretching from southern Iran to the Arctic Ocean and from the Balkans to the great wall of China. There are currently 20 literary languages in the group, the most important among them being Turkish with over 70 million speakers; other major languages covered include Azeri, Bashkir, Chuvash, Gagauz, Karakalpak, Kazakh, Kirghiz, Noghay, Tatar, Turkmen, Uyghur, Uzbek, Yakut, Yellow Uyghur and languages of Iran and South Siberia. The Turkic Languages is a reference book which brings together detailed discussions of the historical development and specialized linguistic structures and features of the languages in the Turkic family. Seen from a linguistic typology point of view, Turkic languages are particularly interesting because of their astonishing morphosyntactic regularity, their vast geographical distribution, and their great stability over time. This volume builds upon a work which has already become a defining classic of Turkic language study. The present, thoroughly revised edition updates and augments those authoritative accounts and reflects recent and ongoing developments in the languages themselves, as well as our further enhanced understanding of the relations and patterns of influence between them. The result is the fruit of decades-long experience in the teaching of the Turkic languages, their philology and literature, and also of a wealth of new insights into the linguistic phenomena and cultural interactions defining their development and use, both historically and in the present day. Each chapter combines modern linguistic analysis with traditional historical linguistics; a uniform structure allows for easy typological comparison between the individual languages. Written by an international team of experts, The Turkic Languages will be invaluable to students and researchers within linguistics, Turcology, and Near Eastern and Oriental Studies.

This book deals with shared verb morphology in Japanese and other languages that have been identified as Transeurasian (traditionally: “Altaic”) in previous research. It analyzes shared etymologies and reconstructed grammaticalizations with the goal to provide evidence for the genealogical relatedness of these languages.