Hostname: page-component-75d7c8f48-q7pjp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-03-14T20:45:09.812Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On megalocomparison

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

James A. Matisoff
James A. Matisoff*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
*
Department of Linguistics University of California Berkeley, CA 94720
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

1. Joseph H. Greenberg's Language in the Americas (LIA; 1987) has been greeted with dismay by many specialists in Amerindian linguistics1 (cf. Chafe 1987, Campbell 1988, Adelaar 1989), and defended by the author in a reply to Campbell in Language 65.1 (1989).

Information

Type
Discussion Note
Information
Language , Volume 66 , Issue 1 , March 1990 , pp. 106 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © 1990 by the Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

[Editor's note: Because of the importance to historical linguistics of the issues raised by Joseph Greenberg, his supporters, and his critics, the editor decided to solicit a discussion of these issues by a scholar whose qualifications included extensive experience in comparative linguistic research and a presumed lack of prior bias either for or against Greenberg's views. The following essay is the result.]

References

Adelaar, Willem F. H. 1989. Review of Greenberg 1987. Lingua 78. 249–55.Google Scholar
Benedict, Paul K. 1972. Sino-Tibetan: A conspectus. Contributing editor, James A. Matisoff. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benedict, Paul K. 1973. Tibeto-Burman tones, with a note on teleoreconstruction. Acta Orientalia 35. 127–38.Google Scholar
Benedict, Paul K. 1975. Austro-Thai language and culture, with a glossary of roots. New Haven: Human Relations Area Files Press.Google Scholar
Benedict, Paul K. Forthcoming. Japanese/Austro-Tai. [300-page ms version, 1985.] Ann Arbor: Karoma Press.Google Scholar
Burrow, Thomas, and Emeneau, Murray B. 1961. Dravidian etymological dictionary. Revised Edition. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Callaghan, Catherine A., and Miller, Wick. 1962. Swadesh's Macro-Mixtecan hypothesis and English. Southwest Journal of Anthropology 18. 278–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, Lyle. 1988. Review article on Greenberg 1987. Lg. 64.591–615.Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace. 1987. Review of Greenberg 1987. Current Anthropology 28. 652–3.Google Scholar
Cooke, Joseph R. 1968. Pronominal reference in Thai, Burmese, and Vietnamese. (University of California Publications in Linguistics, 52.) Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Diffloth, Gérard. 1985. What happened to Austric? University of Chicago, ms.Google Scholar
Weiguang, Dong, Guangqu, Cao; and Xuequn, Yan. 1984. Hanyu he Dong-Taiyu de qinyuan guanxi [Genetic relationship between Chinese and Dong-Tai languages]. Computational Analysis of Asian and African Languages (Tokyo) 22. 105–21.Google Scholar
Goddard, Ives. 1986. Sapir's comparative method. New perspectives in language, culture and personality, ed. by Cowan, William, Foster, Michael K., & Koerner, Konrad, 191–210. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, Joseph H. 1987. Language in the Americas. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Greenberg, Joseph H. 1989. Classification of American Indian languages: A reply to Campbell. Lg. 65.107–14.Google Scholar
Greenberg, Joseph H. Forthcoming. Indo-European and its closest relatives: the Eurasiatic language family. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Hashimoto, Anne Oi-kan. 1976. Substratum in Southern Chinese—The Tai connection. Computational Analysis of Asian and African Languages (Tokyo) 6. 1–10.Google Scholar
Kaufman, Terrence S. 1990. Otomanguean etymological dictionary. University of Pittsburgh, ms.Google Scholar
Kawamoto, T. 1977/1978. Towards a comparative Japanese-Austronesian. Bulletin of the Nara University of Education 26. 23–49 (Part I), 27. 1–24 (Part II).Google Scholar
Labberton, D. van H. 1924. Preliminary results of researches into the original relationship between the Nipponese and the Malay-Polynesian languages. Journal of the Polynesian Society 33. 244–80.Google Scholar
Kuei, Li Fang. 1976. Sino-Tai. Computational Analysis of Asian and African Languages (Tokyo) 3. 39–48.Google Scholar
Martin, Samuel. 1966. Lexical evidence relating Korean to Japanese. Lg. 43.185–251.Google Scholar
Matisoff, James A. 1976. Austro-Thai and Sino-Tibetan: An examination of body-part contact relationships. Genetic Relationship, Diffusion, and Typological Similarities of East and Southeast Asian Languages, ed. by Hashimoto, Mantaro J., 256–89. Tokyo: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.Google Scholar
Matisoff, James A. 1979. Problems and progress in Lolo-Burmese: Quo vadimus? Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 4.2:11–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matisoff, James A. 1982. Proto-languages and proto-Sprachgefühl. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 6.2:1–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matisoff, James A. 1988. Areal and universal dimensions of grammatization in Lahu. Paper presented at the Symposium on Grammaticalization, University of Oregon. [To appear in Elizabeth Traugott & Bernd Heine, eds., Approaches to grammaticalization, Vol. II. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.]Google Scholar
Miller, Roy Andrew. 1971. Japanese and the other Altaic languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Nishida, Tatsuo. 1978. Chibetto-Biruma-go to Nihongo [Japanese and the Tibeto-Burman languages]. Nihongo no keitoo to rekishi [The lineage and history of Japanese] (Kooza Nihongo 12), ed. by Susumu, Ohno & Takeishi, Shibata, 229–300. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.Google Scholar
Ohno, Susumu. 1980. Sound correspondences between Tamil and Japanese. (Gakushuin Series of Treatises 8.) Tokyo: Gakushuin Educational Foundation.Google Scholar
Pulleyblank, Edwin G. 1978. Chinese and Indo-European: The phonetic role of the kan-chih signs in the Archaic Chinese script and their relation to the alphabet, together with evidence for a genetic relationship between Chinese and Indo-European. Paper presented at the Conference on the Origins of Chinese Civilization, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Rahder, Johannes. 1956/1959. Etymological vocabulary of Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Ainu. Part I (1956): Monumenta Nipponica (Tokyo), Monograph 16. Parts II and III (1959): privately printed, New Haven.Google Scholar
Schmidt, Pater Wilhelm. 1906. Die Mon-Khmer-Völker, ein Bindeglied zwischen Völkern Zentralasiens und Austronesiens. Archiv für Anthropologie 33. 59–109.Google Scholar
Shafer, Robert. 1952. Athabaskan and Sino-Tibetan. IJAL 18. 12–19.Google Scholar
Solomon, James R. 1974. Japanese and the other Austronesian languages: A survey of the literature. Paper presented at the First International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, Honolulu.Google Scholar
Weidert, Alfons. 1987. Tibeto-Burman tonology. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wulff, Kurt. 1934. Chinesisch und Tai. Det Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser 20.3.Google Scholar
Xuequn, Yan. 1983. Miao-Yao Hanyu guanxici de cengci [Strata of related words in Miao, Yao, and Chinese]. Paper presented at the 16th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics, University of Washington.Google Scholar
Yansun, Zhao. Forthcoming. [Bai-Chinese Dictionary.] Edited by Wiersma, Grace.Google Scholar

A correction has been issued for this article:

Corrections