Index
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‘a’ see articles: indefinite
a-mutation
ablative
ablaut on; see also a-mutation
Aboriginal languages, Australian
‘about’
‘above’
‘abstract’
abstraction/abstract concepts; and metaphors
Académie Française
accusative
action words; see verbs
actors (linguistic term): and word-order
Adams, John Couch
‘adder’
adjectives; attributive see property words, ‘low life of’; predicative see property words, ‘high life of’; verbal see participles
adverbs
adverbial clauses n
Ælfric, Abbot of Eynsham
Afro-Asiatic languages
‘after’
‘-age’
agreement
Akan
Akkadian/Akkadians; causative template; conjunctions; ‘cut’/’decide’; future tense; gender; ‘have’; hollow verbs; intensive template; letters; passive template; quirk vowel
Albanian
Albuquerque, New Jersey
‘all’
alphabet (Canaanite)
Alqosh, Iraq
American English
American-Indian language
Amharic
Ammonite
analogy (as motive for change); and erosion; see also back formation
anaphora; see also pointing words
Ancrene Wisse (‘Guide for Anchoresses’)
‘and’
Anne, Queen
‘août’
‘apart (from)’
Appendages; word order; see also property words; relative clauses
apposition
Arabic; laryngeals; passives; quirk vowels; reflexives; verbal system; word order
Aramaic
arbitrary sign; see also symbolic nature of language
Armenian
Arnhem Land
‘around’
art (as indication for language)
articles: definite; indefinite
‘aside from’
aspect n, see also nuances of the action
‘assessment’
assimilation (‘Santa Siesta’ principle)
Assyrian; see Akkadian
‘at’
‘at all’
attributive adjectives see property words, ‘low life of’
‘aujourd’hui’
Austen, Jane
Australia see Aboriginal languages, Australian
auxiliaries; word order; see also ‘have’; ‘will’
Aztec
‘b’ to ‘p’, change of
Babel, Tower of
babies see children
Babylon/Babylonians; see Akkadian
‘back’
back formation
Bakunin, Mikhail
‘barmy’
Barrow, Isaac
Basque
‘be’
‘before’
‘behind’
Beowulf
Berber languages
‘besides’
Bible, the; English translations
biological evolution
Bloomfield, Leonard
‘blurb’
‘board’
body parts: as source of abstract terms
Boğazköy, Turkey
Bolivia
Borges, Jorge Luis
Borneo
borrowing
Breton: ‘have’
Brezhnev, Leonid
Brisset, Jean-Pierre
Burney, Charles
Burroughs, Edgar Rice: Tarzan of the Apes
‘but’
‘by’
‘Caesar’s Principle’ see under iconicity
Canaanites
Carroll, Lewis
Carthage
case systems; English (AD 1000); and erosion; Hungarian; Latin; Proto-Indo-European; Russian
Castro, Fidel
categories see syntactic categories
causatives
Celtic; see also Irish; Welsh
Chadic
Chanson de Roland, La
Charlemagne, Emperor
Charles I
Chaucer, Geoffrey: ‘The Friar’s Tale’; ‘The Merchant’s Tale’; Troilus and Criseyde
‘cherry’
children: and language-learning
chimpanzees
Chinese
Chomsky, Noam
‘choose’
Cicero
Classifiers
clauses: with many participants; participial; relative; see also subordination
coefficients sonantiques see laryngeals
cognates
colour-words
communication (patterns of)
comparatives
complementation
‘comprehend’
conceptual metaphors
conjunctions
consistency (in word order)
consonants; loss of; ‘voiced’; ‘voiceless’; see also assimilation; Grimm’s law; roots, consonantal
contact (between languages); see also borrowing
content words
coordination
Coptic
copula
‘corn’
Cousin, Victor
creoles
Croatian
cultural evolution
cuneiform (writing system)
Cushitic languages
‘cut’; and ‘decide’
cyclical change
Czech
‘d’ to ‘t’, change of
Danish
Daras
dative
debasement see decay
decay; see also erosion ‘decide’
declensions, Latin; see also ‘flos, floris’
definite article
deixis/deictic elements see pointing words
demonstratives see pointing words
design features of language; see also hierarchy
determiners; see articles
diachronic variation
dialect
Diderot, Denis: Encyclopédie
direct object
directionality
‘discover’
distribution; see slots; syntactic categories
diversity, linguistic
double articulation
double negatives
Douglas, Alexander
‘down’: as metaphor
Dravidian
duality of patterning
Dullay
Dutch
Eastlake, Charles
economy (as motive for change)
‘edit’
Efik
Egyptian, ancient
Einstein, Albert
Eliot, George
emphatic constructions; and pronouns; see also intensifies
‘employ’
Enannatum, Sumerian ruler
endings (suffixes)
Endo
English: borrowing; case system; changes; metathesis; negation; prepositions and postpositions; pronunciation; reflexives; relation to other languages; spelling; verbs; word order; see also American English
erosion; and analogy; of case systems; of meaning; and metaphor; and reduplication; of sound; of verbal systems; see also assimilation; economy; Grimm’s law
Estonian
Ethiopia, languages of
Ewe: ‘back’
‘except’
‘excluding’
expressiveness (as motive for change)
‘face’
Faroese
‘fast’
Finnish
Fletcher, John: Women Pleased
‘fios, fioris’
food terms: as metaphors
‘for’
forces of creation
forces of destruction see also erosion
foreign languages, learning
Fredegar: Chronicle of the Frankish Kingdoms
French; -age; articles; aujourd’hui; erosion; genders; ‘going to’; ‘have to’; negation; verbs
fricatives
‘from’
Funen (Danish dialect)
future tense: in English see also ‘going to’; in French see also ‘have to’; in Latin; in Semitic
‘g’ to ‘k’, change of
Galileo Galilei
gender
genitive
German; articles; genders; see also Germanic languages; Proto-Germanic
Germanic languages; causatives; vowel mutation; see also Proto-Germanic
Ghana
Gibran, Khalil
‘give’
Gluck, Christoph Willibald
Goethe, Johann von
‘go’/’going to’/’gonna’
Golden Age of perfection
Gothic
gradual sound change, theory of
‘grain’
grammatical elements
grammatical words
grammaticalization see forces of creation
‘greed’
Greek/Greeks; borrowing from; subordination
‘green’
Greenberg, Joseph
Greenland
Grimm, Jacob
Grimm’s law
‘grot’/’grotty’
Gurr-goni
‘guttural’ consonants see laryngeals
‘h’: change from ‘k’
‘h’-dropping
Haile Selassie, Emperor
Hammurabi, Code of
Handel, George Friedrich
Hannibal
‘hara-kiri’
Hard Day’s Night, A
Hattusa
‘have’
‘have to’
head-appendage order
Hebrew: biblical; genders; laryngeals; mazal tov; metathesis; passive of the reflexive; intensive; preposition et; prepositions from body-parts; verbs see also Semitic verbal system
‘here’; see pointing words
hierarchy (in sentence structure)
Higden (monk)
Hindi
Hittite
hollow verbs, Semitic
Homo erectus
Homo sapiens
‘-hood’
‘hot’
Hrozný, Bedrich
Hugo, Victor
‘human’ (etymology of)
Humboldt, Wilhelm von
Hungarian
i-mutation
Icelandic
iconicity; ‘Caesar’s Principle’; ‘Monsieur Jourdain’s Principle’
‘Idleford, Elders of’; see economy
Imperative
‘in’
‘in front of’
Inanna
indefinite article
indirect object
Indo-European languages; see also Hittite; Proto-Indo-European
Indonesian
infinitives
‘-ing’ ending
innateness
inner restlessness (of language)
Inquisition, the
‘insinuation’
intensifiers
intensive template, in Semitic
interrogatives
intransitive verbs
Inuktitut: word order
Iraq
Irish; ‘have’
irregularity; in Semitic
Italian; assimilation; caldo
Japanese; word order
Jemez
Johnson, Samuel: Dictionary of the English Language
Jones, Sir William
jussive
Justinian
just’/jurisdiction’
‘k’ to ‘ch’ to ‘h’, change of
Kannada
Kanzi (pygmy chimpanzee)
Kavadh I (Sasanian king)
Kenya
Khakheperre-seneb
Khoisan
Koran
Korean: pointing words
Koster, Serge
Kuliak
KuryŁowicz, Jerzy
Kwa
laryngeals
larynx
Latin; borrowing from; case system see also ‘flos, floris’; hic/iste/ille verbs
‘legislate’
lenition see erosion of sound
lexical diffusion
‘like’
likelihood
linguistics: 17th-18th-century; 19th-century see also Grimm’s law; 20th-century
literacy: and complex word-structure
Lithuanian
‘lord’
‘-ly’
‘make’/’made’
‘man’/’men’
Mann, Golo
Maori
Marx, Groucho
Mbarabam
‘me Tarzan’ stage
meaning; changes in; erosion; metaphor
Meillet, Antoine
Mesopotamia: language; see Akkadian/Akkadians
metaphors; and abstraction; body-part; conceptual; ‘dead’; and food terms; ‘give’ as; and ‘going to’; ‘have’ as; poetic; and spatial terms; ‘up’ and ‘down’ as
metathesis
metonymy
microliths
Mixtec
Moabite
modifiers; see appendages
Molière: Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme
Möller, Hermann
‘Monsieur Jourdain’s’ principle see iconicity
mood; see also nuances of the action
Morocco
morphology (simple or complex)
motives for language change; see analogy; economy; expressiveness
Mupun: ‘have’
Murshili II, Hittite king
Mursi
‘must’
mutation see a-mutation; i-mutation
Nahuatl
Nama: ‘have’
Namibia
‘nature versus nurture’ controversy
negation/negative markers
Neptune
Neruda, Pablo
newspaper headlines
Newton, Isaac
‘next to’
‘nick-name’
Niger-Congo languages
Nigeria
Nilo-Saharan languages
nominalization
nominative
Norwegian
‘not’
nouns/thing-words; abstract; conversion into verbs; see also case systems; nominalization
nuances of the action
number see plural markers, paucal markers
object see direct object
object-verb word order see OV word order
obligation: and likelihood; and possession
‘of’ see possessives
Orwell, George
Oto-Manguean
‘ought’
‘ou’/où’
‘out of’
‘outside’/‘outside of’
OV (object-verb) word order
‘p’ to ‘f’, change of
Paris, Gaston
participants (in the clause); and appendages
participial clauses
participle (verbal adjective)
‘partridge’
passive
‘past’
past tense
patient; and word-order
paucal markers
Paul, Hermann
Paul, Jean
‘pea’
‘peach’
Persian
person/personal pronouns
Phoenician
phonology: simple and complex
pidgins
plural/plural markers; of English verbs; English nouns; German nouns
pointing words/demonstratives (‘that’, ‘this’)
Polish
Polychronicon
Poole, Joshua
Port-Royal grammarians
possession: and obligation; see ‘have’
possessives (‘of’, ‘’s’); and word order; see also genitive
postpositions; and Latin case system; and possessive markers; from verbs ; and word order
‘poverty of stimulus’ argument
predicative adjectives see property words, ‘high life’ of
prefixes
prepositions; from body-parts; metaphorical use of; and possessive markers; from verbs; and word order
‘primitive’ languages
pronouns ; emphatic; reflexive
pronunciation: and economy; English; see also assimilation; Grimm’s law
property words (adjectives); ‘high life’ of (predicative); ‘low life’ of (attributive)
Proto-Cushitic
Proto-Germanic; see also Germanic languages
Proto-Indo-European; case system; ‘make’; vowel system; see also Indo-European languages
Proto-Semitic; see also Semitic languages
Punjabi
quantifiers
Quechua: ‘have’
questions/question words
quirk vowel (in Semitic)
randomness of change
recursion
‘red’
‘redundant’
reduplication
reference/referring expressions
reflexive constructions/pronouns
relative clauses
‘repent’
‘resent’
Revelations of St Nicholas to a Monk of Evesham
‘rival’
‘rogue sounds’ see laryngeals
Romani, Felice: L’elisir d’amore
root-and-template system (in Semitic)
roots; consonantal
Russian; case system; ‘have’
‘rustic’/’rural’
Sanskrit
‘Santa Siesta’ principle see assimilation
Sapir, Edward
‘sarcastic’
Sargon I, Akkadian king
Saussure, Ferdinand de
Sayers, Dorothy L.
Scaliger, Joseph Justus
Scandinavian languages
Schleicher, August
schwa
‘self’
Semitic languages; laryngeals; verbal system; see also Akkadian; Arabic; Aramaic; Hebrew; Proto-Semitic
Serbian
Shakespeare, William
Sheba, Queen of
Sheridan, Thomas
shifting words; see also pronouns
Shvetambara
Skármeta, Antonio: Burning Patience
slots: inside a word; in the sentence; see also syntactic categories
So: ‘have’
society, structure of: and language complexity
Solomon, King
Somali
sound change: and economy; English; see also assimilation; Grimm’s law
SOV see OV word order
space: as source of abstract concepts
Spanish; ‘have’
spelling, English
‘spoon’
Sri Lanka
stem (in Semitic) see also root
stops (consonants)
subject
subjunctive
subordination/subordinate clauses; see also relative clauses
suffixes see endings
‘suggest’
Sumerian; possessive marker;
Superlatives
SVO see VO word order
Swahili
Swedish
Swift, Jonathan
symbolic nature of language; see also arbitrary sign
synchronic variation
syncope
syntactic categories
Syriac
Tamil; case system; gender system n; ‘going to’; ‘have’
technology: and language
templates (in Semitic); causative; intensive; passive; passive of reflexive; reflexive
tense see future tense; past tense; see also nuances of the action
Terence: Andria
th’: change to ‘f’
Thai; word order
‘that’ see pointing words; as relative clause marker
‘the’
‘there’; see pointing words
thing-words; see nouns
‘this’ see pointing words
Thomassin, Père Louis
‘thrill’
‘through’
Tigré
time
‘to’
Togo
tools: and language
topic
transitive verb
Trukese
truth value/truth v. reference
Turkic
Turkish; ‘have’; participial relative clauses; word order
Twain, Mark
umlaut see a-mutation; i-mutation
‘understand’
uniformitarianism
‘up’: as metaphor
‘up above’
Uralic
Uto-Aztecan
variation: diachronic; synchronic
verb; causative; and erosion; hollow (Semitic); intransitive; from noun; to noun see nominalization; nuances of the action; passive constructions; to postpositions; to prepositions; reflexive; roots; transitive; and word order; see also auxiliaries; English; French; future tense; Latin; past tense; Semitic languages
verb-object word order see VO word order
verbal adjectives see participles
Vietnamese
Virgil
VO (verb-object) word order
vocative
voiced consonants
voiceless consonants
Voltaire
vowels/vowel systems; erosion of; ‘The Great English Vowel Shift’; in Semitic verb see also a-mutation; in Proto-Indo-European; syncope; templates
Waata: ‘have’
Waltz, Gustavus
Warburton, Bishop
Warlpiri
Warnefrit (Lombard Gastald)
Weigel, Hans
Welsh
‘wicked’
‘will’
‘with’
‘within’
‘without’
word order; and ‘actor first/me first’ preferences; of appendages; of auxiliaries; ‘Caesar’s Principle’; and conjunctions see subordination/subordinate clauses; ‘Monsieur Jourdain’s Principle’; in possessive constructions; in Turkish; see also OV, VO
Wulfstan, Archbishop of York
Wycliffe, John
Yeats, W. B.
Yoruba
zero-nominalization
zoomorphic model
Zulu