Revisiting Tungusic Classification from the Bottom up: A Comparison of Evenki and Oroqen  

Oleh:

Whaley, Lindsay J. ; Grenoble, Lenore A. ; Li, Fengxiang

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Language (ada di JSTOR) vol. 75 no. 2 (1999), page 286-321.
Fulltext: Vol. 75, No. 2, pp. 286-321.pdf (835.77KB)

Isi artikel

Efforts to determine the genetic relations among Tungusic languages have been dominated by a methodology that categorizes the entire family on the basis of a small number of sound correspondences and some shared inflectional morphology, despite the fact that this evidence can be interpreted in contradictory ways. The approach, styled after traditional classification, which uses a tree model, is even less successful in indicating the relationships among languages at a finer level of detail. This article demonstrates that two Tungusic languages, Evenki and Oroqen, which have long been treated as a single language for classification purposes, are better treated as distinct linguistic varieties. The article raises fundamental questions about the current classifica- tion of Tungusic languages and suggests a renewed examination of the role of dialect continua and contact languages in understanding the composition of the family. Finally, we question whether a tree-based model is appropriate for classifying languages that have had a high degree of contact and are found in families or branches of a shallow time depth.*

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