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Article published In:
Journal of Historical Linguistics
Vol. 9:2 (2019) ► pp.239–281

Isoglosses and subdivisions of Iranian

| CNRS FRE Mondes iranien et indien
The aim of this paper is to look at some of the problems with the traditional subdivisions of Iranian and at possible new approaches. It builds on an argument made in Korn (2016a), adding discussion and further illustrating problems in the data and methods involved in the traditional model of relations among the Iranian languages. It specifically points out that the traditional family tree is based on a set of isoglosses that is an artefact of the data that happened to be available at the time. In addition, the question arises whether the wave model or the concept of linguistic areas would be more adequate to account for the data. The discovery of a corpus of Bactrian manuscripts encourages a new approach. I argue that a sub-branch including Bactrian, Parthian and some other languages is a hypothesis that deserves to be tested; at the same time, the comparison with other Iranian languages as well as typological considerations permit to assess the role of language contact.
Keywords: Iranian, family tree, wave model, linkage, isoglosses, Bactrian
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Tree or wave model? The case of Western Iranian
    • 2.1The traditional isoglosses
    • 2.2The historical dimension
  • 3.Tree or linguistic area? The case of Eastern Iranian
    • 3.1The traditional isoglosses
    • 3.2Linguistic areas
  • 4.On diagnosticity and groupiness
    • 4.1Degrees and types of diagnosticity
    • 4.2Groupiness
  • 5.New isoglosses
    • 5.1The position of Bactrian
    • 5.2Morphological innovations
    • 5.3Discussion
  • 6.Experimenting with Central Iranian
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 29 October 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.17010.kor
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