Glottochronology and Eskimo and Eskimo.Aleut Prehistory 声门年的表和爱斯基摩和爱斯基摩人Aleut Prehistory.pdf

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1、GlottochronologyandEskimoandEskimo.AleutPrehistoryDAVIDI.HIRSCHCambridge,MossclchiuetlsTHEnewdatapresentedhereonproblemswithintheEskimofamilyoflanguageswereobtainedbytheglottochronologicaltechniqueforlinguis-ticdating.’Hockett(1953:148)hasmadeaconcisestatementofthebasisforthismethod:‘‘...overre

2、lativelylongperiodsoftime,therateofshiftofitemsinwhatwemaycalltheBASICLEXICONofalanguageisapproxi-matelyconstant.”Byemployingthebasiclexicontoascertainthenumberofcognateformsrelatedlinguisticgroupsstillholdincommonandthenusingthisinformationalongwiththeconstantfortherateofdriftintheappro-priate

3、formula,oneisabletotellwhenthesegroupsdivergedfromoneanother.Bytheuseofanotherformulaitispossiblealsotoarriveattherangeofvaria-tionfromthedateobtainedbytheabovemeans.InapplyingtheglottochronologicaltechniquetotheEskimofamilyoflanguagessomespecialproblemswereinvolved.Exceptforafewlanguagepairs,t

4、herewerenotenoughvocabularyitemsavailabletoadequatelyfillintheoriginalbasicvocabulary.Duetothislimitation,itwasnecessarytosupplementthevocabulary.However,inmakingthischange,itwasnolongerpossibletorelyonthedatesobtainedasabsolutedates.Theconstantfortherateofdriftwasworkedoutonthebasisoftheorigin

5、allistandthereisnowaytodemonstratethatthesameconstantwouldworkforthenewlistotherthangoingthroughallthelaborinvolvedinobtainingtheoriginalconstant.How-ever,itisquitefeasibletousetheresultsobtainedthroughthenewlistasrelativedateswithnospecifictimedepthimplied.Swadesh,inhisarticleonSalishrelations

6、hips(1950),dealtwiththeSalishdatesinthismanner.Evenwiththeadditionalvocabularyitwasnotpossibletogetaverylargelistofwordsforallthedialects.Ifeachvocabularyitemineachdialecthadtobecomparedwiththesameiteminalltheotherdialectstherewouldhavebeenatotalofabout60itemstocompare.Incalculatingtherangeofer

7、rorthesmall-erthenumberofitemsthelargertherangebecomes.Inordertokeeptherangeoferrorassmallaspossibleforeachdialectpairandstillnothaveadifferentlistforeverycomparison,thelargelistwasbrokenupintofoursublistsof184,144,108,and100items