The rise and fall of languages
Professor Dixon challenges many of the views held by linguists, archaeologists and geneticists about the origins and development of human language, notably those concerning the usefulness of the 'family tree' model of language relationships and the speculation concerning the reconstruction of a 'proto-language'.
VI, 169 p. : il. ; 21 cm
9780521623100, 9780521626545, 0521623103, 0521626544
433022142
Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction; 2. Preliminaries; 3. Linguistic Areas and Diffusion; 4. The Family Tree Model; 5. Modes of change; 6. The Punctuated Equilibrium Model; 7. More on proto-languages; 8. Recent history; 9. Today's priorities; 10. Summary and prospects; Appendix - where the comparative method discovery procedure fails; References; Index.