Lesson 3: the comparative method

Russian 
Slavonic 
Old
Sanskrit Greek
Latin
German(Gothic) 
Berut 
berot 
bharanti 
pheronti 
Ferunt 
Bairand 
This example shows that the endings 
-ut, -ot, -anti, -onti, -unt, -and
are 
equivalent and come from the same source.
The importance of grammatical criteria is that words can be borrowed, but 
grammatical forms cannot.
As far as the meaning of the reconstructed words is concerned, they need not 
coincide exactly; they can diverge according to the laws of polysemy, as the following 
example shows: 
Sanskrit 
Kravis 
Greek 
Kreas 
Latin 
Cruor 
Lithuanian 
Kraujas 
Old Slavonic 
Krbvb 
Russian 
Krov 
Old High German 
Hreo 
English 
Raw 
On the basis of these forms, it can be assumed that in the Indo-European parent 
language there was a root *"kreu" which could assume different, though related, 
meanings ht all these languages: "blood" in Russian, "meat" in Greek, "raw" in English. 
Correct reconstruction helps us to understand the real etymology of words. We 
can confidently reconstruct the words in the parent language for "brother" and "sister" 
as *
bhriiter
and *
s{jeso(r)
. In the former, the first element 
bhrii-
was a gradational 
variant of the verbal root *
bher-"
to bear", "to carry". The second 
morpheme
was, of 
course, the same 
-ter
as in *
pa-ter
. In *
s{je-sor
the first component was the reflexive 
element meaning "one's own", and the second signified "female", seen also in Latin 
uxor
or 
uksor
"wife". 
These short excursions into etymology should be enough to show the 
fascination of this research.
Engels appreciated the importance of the comparative method in the study of 
languages. He showed that "substance and form of one's own language, however, 
only became intelligible when their origin and gradual evolution are traced, and this 

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cannot be done without taking into account, first, their own extinct forms, and 
secondly, allied languages, both living and dead."
This important statement is of great significance for a proper understanding of 
the essence of the comparative method in linguistics. This method has been justified 
by discoveries made in the 19th century. On the basis of the comparative method it was 
suggested that the Latin nouns 
ager
"tillage", and 
sacer
"sacred" originated from the 
reconstructed forms *
agros
and *
sakros
. In 1899 a document was found in Rome 
dating from the 6th century A. D. in which the suggested form sakros was found.
Some original forms calculated by eminent linguists in the 19th century by 
comparative method were discovered in the Hittite language in the north east of Asia 
Minor at Boghazkoy on the site of the prehistoric capital Hattusas, about eighty miles 
east of Ankara. Some cuneiform tablets in the Hittite language, discovered in 
Boghazkoy in Asia Minor, were translated by the Czechoslovak scholar Bedrich 
Hrozny in December, 1915, who proved its linguistic affinity with Indo-European. A 
revolution was also affected in early Greek studies by the discovery in 1939 of clay 
tablets at Pylos in Messenia which were deciphered by Michael Ventris in 1952. This 
meant putting back the beginning of recorded Greek to a time long before Homer, 
perhaps as early as 1500 B. C.
It was suggested long ago with the help of the comparative method that the Greek 
words 
aichme
"spear" and 
artokopos
"baker" arose from the forms *
aiksmii
and
*
artopokwos
. This was confirmed by the recently deciphered Krito-Micenian 
inscriptions.
The comparative method has been thoroughly applied to the reconstruction of 
Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Romance, Proto-Germanic, Proto-Celtic, and Proto-
Slavonic. Rather Less thorough use of the method has been made in reconstructing 
Proto-Semitic, Proto-Finno-Ugric, and Proto-Bantu. Work is well under way on the 
Malayo-Polynesian languages, Algonquian, and several other groups. 
As we have stated, the comparison of languages which are believed to have 
been dialects of one language in the past, is done by what is known as the 
comparative method.
There is, however, another method of reconstructing the previous stages of a 
language when neither older texts nor related languages are known. A suitable term for
this method is internal reconstruction, the theoretical foundation of which lies 
partly in synchronic, partly in diachronic linguistics. Synchronic linguistics (from the 
Greek
syn
"wi th" and
chronos
"time", IE. simultaneity) deals with the study
of language at the present moment, while diachronic linguistics (from the Greek
dia
"through" and 
chronos
"time", IE. of continuous time) concerns the study of 
language in its historical development.
In the last decade the method of glottochronology has sprung up, better known 
as the Lexicostatistic method, which envisages the measurement of linguistic change,