Methods of comparative study of languages.pdf

1. Methods of
comparative study of
languages
Prepared by Yuliia Prystavska and
Marta Kashchuk (INA-36)

2. The comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying
the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature
comparison of two or more languages with common descent from
a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards to infer the
properties of that ancestor.
This field of study, known as comparative linguistics or historical
linguistics, aims to uncover the historical development of languages
and their genealogical connections.

3. Methods of comparative study of languages are:
historical comparative
method
areal comparative
method
typological comparative
method
contrastive analysis

4. The historical comparative method reconstructs language features based on resemblances in descendant
languages to prove their common descent from a single proto-language.
Developed in the 19th century through the study of Indo-European languages, the comparative method is
the standard approach to determine language relatedness.
In comparative linguistics, the term "cognates" specifically refers to words that have survived in different
languages from a common ancestral language. The word "cognate" itself means "born together."
For example, the word "mother" exists in Latin, Greek, Old Irish, Slavonic, German, and English, among
others, all sharing a similar form. Modern equivalents such as "mere" in French, "Mutter" in German, and
"madre" in Spanish are also considered cognates.
Historical comparative method

5. Areal comparative method
The areal comparative method is used when studying languages bordering
geographically.Such languages maintaining contact reveal common features, which
constitute the so-called secondary affinity. The properties of time, place, and migration
serve as criteria for the comparative arealmethod.
Rasmus K. Rask examined all the languages bordering geographically on Norse to
discover whether they were related. He was the first to recognize the relationship
between the languages now called Germanic.

6. Typological comparative method
Typological comparative method aims at establishing generallinguistic categories for
the classification of both related and non-related languages into differenttypes.
Linguistic typology provides a classificatory system for languages, grouping them based
on their present-day characteristics without considering historical relatedness.
Typological grouping can result in unrelated languages, such as Baltic and Pacific
languages, being classified together based on typological similarities.
Typological investigations have led to various classifications of languages, including
isolating, agglutinative, inflectional, and incorporating languages.

7. Contrastive Analysis
Contrastive Analysis is a systematic study of a pair of languages with a view to identify
their structural differences and similarities. It is not concerned with classification, and, as
the term contrastive implies, is more interested in differences between languages than in
their likenesses.
Contrastive analysis examines both related and unrelated languages, describing
common and divergentfeatures.
The procedures of contrastive analysis were first formulated by Robert Lado in his book
"Linguistics Across Cultures."
Contrastive analysis involves two steps: description and comparison.

8. Thanks for
your
attention!