An entirely new follow-up volume providing a detailed account of
numerous additional issues, methods, and results that characterize
current work in historical linguistics.
This brand-new, second volume of The Handbook of Historical
Linguistics is a complement to the well-established first volume first
published in 2003. It includes extended content allowing uniquely
comprehensive coverage of the study of language(s) over time. Though it
adds fresh perspectives on several topics previously treated in the
first volume, this Handbook focuses on extensions of diachronic
linguistics beyond those key issues.
This Handbook provides readers with studies of language change whose
perspectives range from comparisons of large open vs. small closed
corpora, via creolistics and linguistic contact in general, to
obsolescence and endangerment of languages. Written by leading scholars
in their respective fields, new chapters are offered on matters such as
the origin of language, evidence from language for reconstructing human
prehistory, invocations of language present in studies of language past,
benefits of linguistic fieldwork for historical investigation, ways in
which not only biological evolution but also field biology can serve as
heuristics for research into the rise and spread of linguistic
innovations, and more. Moreover, it:
- offers novel and broadened content complementing the earlier volume so
as to provide the fullest available overview of a wholly engrossing
field
- includes 23 all-new contributed chapters, treating some familiar
themes from fresh perspectives but mostly covering entirely new topics
- features expanded discussion of material from language families other
than Indo-European
- provides a multiplicity of views from numerous specialists in
linguistic diachrony.
The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, Volume II is an ideal book
for undergraduate and graduate students in linguistics, researchers and
professional linguists, as well as all those interested in the history
of particular languages and the history of language more generally.
