Review article: messages from (not so distant) relatives in the Nuba Mountains: on how (not) to reconstruct Proto-Bantu

IF 0.4 4区文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS

Journal of African Languages and Linguistics Pub Date : 2023-11-29 DOI:10.1515/jall-2023-2012

Gerrit J. Dimmendaal

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The rich morphological systems and discourse-based syntactic structures of a range of modern Bantu languages have attracted the attention of many linguists. The present contribution takes articles in a volume on the reconstruction of Proto-Bantu grammar edited by Bostoen et al. (2022. On Reconstructing Proto-Bantu Grammar, Niger-Congo Comparative Studies 4. Berlin: Language Science Press. 808 pp. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7560553) as a basis, in order to address the origin of these grammatical properties. More specifically, historical as well as synchronic features of Bantu languages are compared with Tima, a related language spoken in the Nuba Mountains, Sudan, and classified as a member of the Kordofanian family within Niger-Congo by Greenberg. Contrary to a popular view, it is claimed here that subject inversion and corresponding (extended) ergative alignment marking with transitive verbs is not only a property of Tima as a Niger-Congo language, but also of several Niger-Congo languages classified as Bantu. Tima consequently may perform a role similar to that of Tocharian in the history of Indo-European studies. The present contribution also raises methodological issues related to lexicon-based Bayesian phylogenetics as against Greenberg’s method of multilateral comparisons, and the historical-comparative method. In addition, it addresses the question of the extent to which the spread of typological features coincides with so-called “belts” postulated in the typological literature on African languages.

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评论文章:来自(不太遥远的)努巴山亲戚的信息:关于如何(不)重建原班图人

现代班图语丰富的词形系统和基于语篇的句法结构吸引了许多语言学家的注意。目前的贡献采用了波斯顿等人(2022)编辑的原班图语语法重建卷中的文章。重建原班图语语法，尼日尔-刚果比较研究柏林:语言科学出版社，808页https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7560553)为基础，以解决这些语法属性的起源。更具体地说，班图语的历史和共时性特征与Tima进行了比较，Tima是苏丹努巴山区的一种相关语言，格林伯格将其归类为尼日尔-刚果的科尔多法尼亚语家族的成员。与流行的观点相反，本文声称主语倒装和与及物动词相对应的(扩展的)否定对齐标记不仅是Tima作为尼日尔-刚果语的特征，而且是一些被归类为班图语的尼日尔-刚果语的特征。因此，提玛语在印欧研究的历史上可能扮演着类似吐火罗语的角色。目前的贡献还提出了与基于词典的贝叶斯系统发育相关的方法论问题，以反对格林伯格的多边比较方法和历史比较方法。此外，它还讨论了类型学特征的传播在多大程度上与关于非洲语言的类型学文献中所假定的所谓“带”相吻合的问题。

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来源期刊

Journal of African Languages and Linguistics Multiple-

CiteScore

0.60

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Journal of African Languages and Linguistics was founded in 1979 and has established itself as an important refereed forum for publications in African linguistics. The Journal of African Languages and Linguistics welcomes original contributions on all aspects of African language studies, synchronic as well as diachronic, theoretical as well as data-oriented. The journal further contains a list of recently published books on African languages and linguistics, which many libraries find to be of use for the acquisition of books. The Journal of African Languages and Linguistics is a peer-reviewed journal of international scope.