Alain Matthey de l'Etang
List of John Benjamins publications for which Alain Matthey de l'Etang plays a role.
Articles
2013 Brave new words New Perspectives on the Origins of Language, Lefebvre, Claire, Bernard Comrie and Henri Cohen (eds.), pp. 333–378 | Article
Contrary to the received idea that globally spread papa/mama words are constantly reinvented by children in different languages, we show here that these words are always inherited from the most ancient stages of their respective families, with the exception of a number of borrowings – which are not… read more
2008 The millennial persistence of Indo-European and Eurasiatic pronouns and the origin of nominals In Hot Pursuit of Language in Prehistory: Essays in the four fields of anthropology, Bengtson, John D. (ed.), pp. 439–464 | Article
In further defense of the Proto-Sapiens antiquity of global kinship etymologies, we illustrate the long-lasting survival of personal pronouns first in the Indo-European family, then in the Eurasiatic macrofamily of languages. We then put forward a conjecture about how the category of 1st and 2nd… read more
2008 The age of Mama and Papa In Hot Pursuit of Language in Prehistory: Essays in the four fields of anthropology, Bengtson, John D. (ed.), pp. 417–438 | Article
The global distribution of mama/papa kinship terms has been traditionally explained as the result of linguistic convergence, not of common origin. It is usually alleged that these terms are in no way resistant to linguistic change and that they are subject to constant modification, loss and… read more