Comparative and Historical Linguistics Commons^™

La Historia Externa Del Español Hasta La Reconquista, Alicia Westmoreland

World Languages and Cultures Senior Capstones

This paper talks about the romance language, Spanish, which evolved from Vulgar Latin after the fall of the Roman Empire. Influenced by the Visigoths, Moors, and the Christian Reconquista, its linguistic development reflects centuries of cultural exchange. The Moors introduced Arabic vocabulary, while the Reconquista reinforced Castilian dominance. Despite external influences, Spanish retains a phonetic system closely linked to Latin. This essay examines Spanish’s historical linguistics, highlighting how conquests, migrations, and societal shifts shaped its evolution.

Suba-Cubun Chibquyioa Muysc-Cubun Chibchichuasuca: Sound Reconstruction Of Muysca In The Context Of Language Reclamation., Brenn Timoteo Romero Moreno

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis examines the phonological system of Muysca, a Chibchan language once spoken in central Colombia and currently dormant. Its goal includes supporting the revitalization efforts of the Muysca people of Suba. Drawing from a documentation produced in the 17th century by Catholic missionaries and engaging with comparative and historical linguistic methods, I argue for the existence of specific phonemes in Muysca —/ə/, /kʷ/, /tʲ/, and /ʔ/— which are not consistently identified in recent literature. My analysis is situated within the framework of Mediated Language Change (Hinson 2019), which acknowledges the need for Indigenous communities to actively shape the development …

Where Do Central Cushitic Ejectives Come From?, Paul D. Fallon

English & Linguistics Articles

This paper examines and accounts for the origin and presence of ejectives in Central Cushitic (CC) languages. Appleyard (2006) claimed that most occurrences of ejectives are due to borrowing from the Ethiosemitic languages. This is certainly true for all ejectives in Kemantney, and some in Blin and Xamtanga. However, examination of Appleyard’s data shows that only 37% of ejectives in Blin and 25% of ejectives in Xamtanga are found in borrowings. Most ejectives in CC in these two languages are therefore “of indubitable Agaw origin”, which suggests that ejectives are from the proto-language rather than through sound change. This paper …

Memetic Epidemiology: A Mathematical Model For Tracking The Spread Of Linguistic Features Across Western Europe, Benjamin Shavitz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The goal of this dissertation is to introduce a powerful new method for demonstrating the role of contact in potential cases of linguistic contact spread, Memetic Epidemiology, that can facilitate extensive future research. This dissertation introduces and demonstrates the use of this method on examples from Western and Central Europe.

Part I begins by providing theoretical background for Memetic Epidemiology using understandings, including Memetics, and Evolutionary Phonology and its extensions. Part I proceeds to lay out the objective of Memetic Epidemiology: to provide a new means of demonstrating that contact influenced the rise of linguistic features in certain languages during …

A Study In Words, Will Hodges

Honors College Theses

The etymology of words can provide insight into the language we speak today, explaining why certain words possess derogatory meanings, or simply why they hold their current definitions. C.S. Lewis published Studies in Words in 1960, and it contained an examination of the etymologies of various English words, explaining changes in meaning and usage throughout time. This thesis is structured similarly, exploring the etymologies and usage history of different English words, providing context for their modern meanings and an explanation of the importance behind understanding their histories.

Investigating Language Variation And Change In Appalachian Dialects: The Case Of The Perfective Done, Julia Horton, Anna Muraco

Honors Thesis

The perfective done (“She done tended the garden”) is an often-overlooked grammatical feature specific to relatively few dialects of American English, most prominently seen in Appalachian dialects. While the perfective done has been described in detail by linguists since the 1970s, and there has been a demonstrated decline in the frequency of use of the perfective done among Appalachian dialect speakers in the past fifty years, there is very little existing scholarship that investigates an empirical basis for the claim that this long-term variation in the use of done can be considered a true language change-in-progress. The present research reviews …

Virtual Meatspace: Word Formation And Deformation In Cyberpunk Discussions, Matt Garley, Benjamin Slade

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

A Comparative Linguistic Study Between Sicilian And Spanish (Estudio Lingüístico-Comparativo Del Siciliano Y El Español), Eva NúÑEz-MéNdez, Raven Chakerian

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study proposes a linguistic-comparative analysis of both Spanish and Sicilian. While numerous linguistic studies have been done on Romantic languages, very few deal with Sicilian, isolated as a dialect of Italian. According to some linguists, Sicilian, as well as Sardinian (spoken in Sardinia), is not a dialect but an independent language per se. It lost its language status when the Italian parliament decided to assign a national language. This research, independently of Sicilian being a language or a dialect, analyses the most important phonetic, lexical, spelling and morphological differences with his sister-language, Spanish. At the same time, some parallelisms …

Computational Phylogenetics And The Internal Structure Of Pama-Nyungan, Claire Bowern, Quentin Atkinson

Linguistics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of Dieter Wanner's The Power Of Analogy: An Essay On Historical Linguistics, Eva NúÑEz-MéNdez

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Review of Dieter Wanner's "The Power of Analogy: An Essay on Historical Linguistics", published by Mouton de Gruyter, New York, 2006.