comparative method

Vulgar Latin (in Latin, sermo vulgaris) is a blanket term covering the vernacular dialects of the Latin language spoken mostly in the western provinces of the Roman Empire until those dialects, diverging still further, evolved into the early Romance languages — a distinction usually assigned to about the ninth century. This spoken Latin differed from the literary language of classical Latin in its pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. Some features of Vulgar Latin did not appear until the late Empire. Other features ...

Including:

• Vulgar Latin - What was Vulgar Latin?
• Vulgar Latin - Phonology
• Vulgar Latin - Vowels
• Vulgar Latin - Consonants
• Vulgar Latin - Evidence of changes
• Vulgar Latin - Vocabulary
• Vulgar Latin - Grammar
• Vulgar Latin - The loss of the noun case system
• Vulgar Latin - The Romance articles
• Vulgar Latin - Gender: loss of the neuter
• Vulgar Latin - Prepositions multiply
• Vulgar Latin - Adverbs
• Vulgar Latin - Verbs

Read more here: » Vulgar Latin: Encyclopedia - Vulgar Latin

Historical linguistics (also diachronic linguistics or comparative linguistics) is primarily the study of the ways in which languages change over time, by means of examining languages which are recognizably related through similarities such as vocabulary, word formation, and syntax, as well as the surviving records of ancient languages. Historical linguistics aims to classify the world's languages by their genetic affiliations and to trace the historic development of languages. Modern historical linguistics grew out of t ...

Including:

• Historical linguistics - Language evolution and the comparative method
• Historical linguistics - Non-comparative method theories
• Historical linguistics - Bibliography

Read more here: » Historical linguistics: Encyclopedia - Historical linguistics

The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. Hawaiian, Tahitian, and Malagasy (spoken on Madagascar) are geographic outliers of the Austronesian family. Austronesian has a dozen primary branches, all but one of which are found exclusively on Taiwan and nearby islands (the Formosan languages, which are unrelated to Chinese). All Austronesian languages spoken outside of Taiwan, with the exception of Yami, belong to the Mala ...

Including:

• Austronesian languages - Distant relations
• Austronesian languages - Structure
• Austronesian languages - Languages
• Austronesian languages - Classification
• Austronesian languages - Formosan classification I
• Austronesian languages - Formosan classification II
• Austronesian languages - Consensus Malayo-Polynesian classification Wouk & Ross 2002
• Austronesian languages - Bibliography

Read more here: » Austronesian languages: Encyclopedia - Austronesian languages

Ethology is the scientific study of animal behavior considered as a branch of zoology. A scientist who practices ethology is called an ethologist. Ethology - Origins of the name. The term “ethology” derives from the Greek language, as ethos (ήθος) is the Greek word for "custom". Other words that derive from the Greek word "ethos" are: "ethics" and "ethical." The term was first popularised in English by the American Myrmecologist William Morton Wheeler in 1902. An earlier, slightly diff ...

Including:

• Ethology - Origins of the name
• Ethology - Differences and similarities with comparative psychology
• Ethology - Darwinism and the beginnings of ethology
• Ethology - The Fixed Action Pattern and animal communication
• Ethology - Imprinting
• Ethology - Tinbergen's four questions for ethologists
• Ethology - The flowering of ethology
• Ethology - Social ethology and recent developments
• Ethology - Notes
• Ethology - List of ethologists

Read more here: » Ethology: Encyclopedia - Ethology

Comparative psychology, taken in its most usual, broad sense, refers to the study of the behaviour and mental life of animals other than human beings. It is synonymous with animal psychology, but although the latter would be a more accurate term, it is less often used. Veterinarians sometimes use the phrase "animal psychology" to refer specifically to the study of disordered behaviour in animals, discussed below. Comparative psychology - History. Comparative psychology may be said to have come into b ...

Including:

• Comparative psychology - History
• Comparative psychology - Comparative Psychology and the Comparative Method
• Comparative psychology - Species studied
• Comparative psychology - Animal cognition
• Comparative psychology - Disorders of animal behaviour
• Comparative psychology - Noted comparative psychologists
• Comparative psychology - Related fields

Read more here: » Comparative psychology: Encyclopedia - Comparative psychology

Celtic Continental Celtic languages The Continental Celtic languages are those Celtic languages that are neither Goidelic nor Brythonic. Although it is likely that Celts spoke dozens of different languages and dialects across Europe in pre-Roman times, only four such languages are actually attested: Lepontic (7th to 3rd century BC) Gaulish (3rd century BC to 2nd century AD) Galatian (3rd century BC to 4th century AD) Celtiberian (1st century BC) Lepontic is gene ...

Read more here: » Continental Celtic languages: Encyclopedia - Continental Celtic languages

The racial identity of ancient Egyptians is steeped in controversy. The black presence in Ancient Egypt was generally treated by scholars as a footnote, and the commonly purveyed notion of blacks in pharaonic Egypt was that they were Nubian slaves of very European-looking Egyptian masters and mistresses. With the excavation of the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt in 1922, a wave of what has been called "Egyptomania" swept the Western world, triggering renderings of ancient Egyptians in consumer goods, dec ...

Including:

• Controversy over race of Ancient Egyptians - Obstacles in ascertaining race
• Controversy over race of Ancient Egyptians - Kemet -- black land
• Controversy over race of Ancient Egyptians - Linguistic arguments
• Controversy over race of Ancient Egyptians - Geographic arguments
• Controversy over race of Ancient Egyptians - Artistic arguments
• Controversy over race of Ancient Egyptians - Ethnographic murals
• Controversy over race of Ancient Egyptians - Analysis of mummified remains
• Controversy over race of Ancient Egyptians - Melanin tests
• Controversy over race of Ancient Egyptians - Cranial analysis and forensic reconstruction
• Controversy over race of Ancient Egyptians - Cultural and religious arguments
• Controversy over race of Ancient Egyptians - Notes

Read more here: » Controversy over race of Ancient Egyptians: Encyclopedia - Controversy over race of Ancient Egyptians

Mass lexical comparison - Lexical similarity. In an effort to extend comparative linguistics beyond its present limits, and arrive at his broad super-family groupings, Greenberg invented a new statistical method, mass lexical comparison. In this method, one simply compares a large sample of words from one language A with its equivalents in the other language B, looking for similar sound patterns. Thus, for example, Spanish cabezaSee also:

Mass lexical comparison, Mass lexical comparison - Traditional historical linguistics, Mass lexical comparison - The comparative method, Mass lexical comparison - Limitations of the comparative method, Mass lexical comparison - Mass lexical comparison, Mass lexical comparison - Lexical similarity, Mass lexical comparison - From similarity to phylogeny, Mass lexical comparison - Mass comparison, Mass lexical comparison - Choosing the sample lexicon, Mass lexical comparison - Weaknesses of the method, Mass lexical comparison - Significance of the similarity, Mass lexical comparison - Onomatopoeic forms, Mass lexical comparison - Semantic drift and subjectivity, Mass lexical comparison - Assessment, Mass lexical comparison - Empirical validation, Mass lexical comparison - Acceptance

Read more here: » Mass lexical comparison: Encyclopedia II - Mass lexical comparison - Mass lexical comparison

Creole language - Colonial origins. The term creole comes from Portuguese crioulo, via Spanish criollo and French créole. Crioulo is related to the Portuguese verb criar (to raise), with a suffix of debated origin. The term was coined in the 16th century, during the great expansion in European maritime power and trade and the establishment of European colonies in Americas, in Africa, and along the coast of South and Southeast Asia up to the Philippines, China and Japan, ...

See also:

Creole language, Creole language - History of the concept, Creole language - Colonial origins, Creole language - Historical neglect, Creole language - Recognition and renaissance, Creole language - Development of a creole language, Creole language - Classification of creoles, Creole language - Whose creole?, Creole language - Substrate and superstrate, Creole language - General features, Creole language - Creoles by main parent language

Read more here: » Creole language: Encyclopedia II - Creole language - History of the concept

Through the work of Lorenz and Tinbergen, ethology developed strongly in continental Europe in the years before World War II. After the war, Tinbergen moved to the University of Oxford, and ethology became stronger in the UK, with the additional influence of William Thorpe, Robert Hinde and Patrick Bateson at the Sub-department of Animal Behaviour of the University of Cambridge, located in the village of Madingley. In this period, too, ethology began to develop strongly in North America. Lorenz, Tinbergen, and von Frisch were jointly awarded the Nobe ...

See also:

Ethology, Ethology - Origins of the name, Ethology - Differences and similarities with comparative psychology, Ethology - Darwinism and the beginnings of ethology, Ethology - The Fixed Action Pattern and animal communication, Ethology - Imprinting, Ethology - Tinbergen's four questions for ethologists, Ethology - The flowering of ethology, Ethology - Social ethology and recent developments, Ethology - Notes, Ethology - List of ethologists

Read more here: » Ethology: Encyclopedia II - Ethology - The flowering of ethology

Proto-Celtic language - Consonants. The phonological changes from Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Celtic consonants may be summarised as follows (an asterisk [*] prior to a letter or word designates that the phoneme or lexeme is not attested but is a hypothetical, reconstructed form): In contrast to the parent language, Proto-Celtic does not use aspiration as a feature for distinguishing phonemes. So where the Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirated stops *See also:

Proto-Celtic language, Proto-Celtic language - Phonological reconstruction, Proto-Celtic language - Consonants, Proto-Celtic language - Vowels, Proto-Celtic language - Transition to Welsh, Proto-Celtic language - Morphology

Read more here: » Proto-Celtic language: Encyclopedia II - Proto-Celtic language - Phonological reconstruction

Proto-Indo-European is conjectured to have used the following phonemes. See Indo-European languages for a summary of how these sounds evolved in the various Indo-European languages. Proto-Indo-European language - Consonants. The table gives the most common notation in modern publications. Variant transcriptions are given below. Raised ʰ stands for aspiration. According to the glottalic theory, the "voi ...

See also:

Proto-Indo-European language, Proto-Indo-European language - Phonology, Proto-Indo-European language - Consonants, Proto-Indo-European language - Vowels, Proto-Indo-European language - Ablaut, Proto-Indo-European language - Noun, Proto-Indo-European language - Pronoun, Proto-Indo-European language - Verb, Proto-Indo-European language - Numbers, Proto-Indo-European language - Relationship to other language families, Proto-Indo-European language - Sample texts

Read more here: » Proto-Indo-European language: Encyclopedia II - Proto-Indo-European language - Phonology

Much more controversial are hypotheses about relatedness which are not supported by application of the comparative method. Scholars who attempt to probe deeper than the comparative method supports (for example, by tabulating similarities found by mass lexical comparison without setting up sound correspondences) are often accused of scholarly wishful thinking. The problem is that any two languages have a huge number of opportunities to resemble one another just by accident, so merely pointing out isolated resemblances has little eviden ...

See also:

Historical linguistics, Historical linguistics - Language evolution and the comparative method, Historical linguistics - Non-comparative method theories, Historical linguistics - Bibliography

Read more here: » Historical linguistics: Encyclopedia II - Historical linguistics - Non-comparative method theories

Through the work of Lorenz and Tinbergen, ethology developed strongly in continental Europe in the years before World War II. After the war, Tinbergen moved to the University of Oxford, and ethology became stronger in the UK, with the additional influence of William Thorpe, Robert Hinde and Patrick Bateson at the Sub-department of Animal Behaviour of the University of Cambridge, located in the village of Madingley. In this period, too, ethology began to develop strongly in North America. Lorenz, Tinbergen, and von Frisch were jointly awarded the Nobe ...

See also:

Ethology, Ethology - Origins of the name, Ethology - Differences and similarities with comparative psychology, Ethology - Darwinism and the beginnings of ethology, Ethology - The fixed action pattern and animal communication, Ethology - Imprinting, Ethology - Tinbergen's four questions for ethologists, Ethology - The flowering of ethology, Ethology - Social ethology and recent developments, Ethology - Notes, Ethology - List of ethologists

Read more here: » Ethology: Encyclopedia II - Ethology - The flowering of ethology

Vulgar Latin - The loss of the noun case system. The sound changes that were occurring in Vulgar Latin made the noun case system of Classical Latin harder to sustain, and ultimately spelled doom for the system of Latin declensions. As a result of the untenability of the noun case system after these phonetic changes, vulgar Latin moved from being a synthetic language to an analytic language where word order is a necessary element of syntax. Consider what the loss of final /m/, the loss of phonemic vowel length, and the sound shift from AE /ae/ to E /e/ entailed for a typical f ...

See also:

Vulgar Latin, Vulgar Latin - What was Vulgar Latin?, Vulgar Latin - Phonology, Vulgar Latin - Vowels, Vulgar Latin - Consonants, Vulgar Latin - Evidence of changes, Vulgar Latin - Vocabulary, Vulgar Latin - Grammar, Vulgar Latin - The loss of the noun case system, Vulgar Latin - The Romance articles, Vulgar Latin - Gender: loss of the neuter, Vulgar Latin - Prepositions multiply, Vulgar Latin - Adverbs, Vulgar Latin - Verbs

Read more here: » Vulgar Latin: Encyclopedia II - Vulgar Latin - Grammar

Social research (and social science in general) is based on logic and empirical observations. Charles C. Ragin writes in his Constructing Social Research book that "Social research involved the interaction beteen ideas and evidence. Ideas help social researchers make sense of evidence, and researchers use evidence to extend, revise and test ideas". Social research thus attempts to create or validate theories through data collection and data analysis, and its goal is exploration, description and explanation. It should never lead or be ...

See also:

Social research, Social research - Ordinary human inquiry, Social research - Foundations of social research, Social research - Types of explanations, Social research - Types of inquiry, Social research - Quantitative / Qualitative Debate, Social research - Paradigms, Social research - The ethics of social research, Social research - Social Research Organisations, Social research - Social Research Projects, Social research - Social Research Techniques

Read more here: » Social research: Encyclopedia II - Social research - Foundations of social research

Sindarin is mainly analytic, though traits of its highly inflected progenitor can still be seen. Sindarin - Phonology. Sindarin was designed to have a Welsh-like phonology. It has most of the same sounds and similar phonotactics. An accent signifies a long vowel (á, é, etc). In a monosyllabic word, a circumflex is used (â, ê, etc). However, for practical reasons, users of the ISO Latin-1 chara ...

See also:

Sindarin, Sindarin - Grammar, Sindarin - Phonology, Sindarin - Nouns, Sindarin - Mutation, Sindarin - Pronouns, Sindarin - Verbs, Sindarin - Dialects, Sindarin - Reference

Read more here: » Sindarin: Encyclopedia II - Sindarin - Grammar

Scholars value data that is directly connected to observation, for example, data taken from examining a composer's or author's manuscript, the proceedings of parliamentary debates, or diary entries. Such data are called primary sources. Sources that synthesize and interpret information from primary sources are secondary sources, and works that depend on secondary sources are called tertiary sources. Tertiary sources are not without value--sometimes a work of tertiary scholarship is acclaimed for its insight--but scholars trust fa ...

See also:

Scholarly method, Scholarly method - Scholars, Scholarly method - What is good scholarship?, Scholarly method - Data gathering, Scholarly method - Techniques in data gathering, Scholarly method - Interpreting primary data, Scholarly method - Scholarly procedure, Scholarly method - Publication, Scholarly method - Citation, Scholarly method - Personnel, Scholarly method - Scholarly values

Read more here: » Scholarly method: Encyclopedia II - Scholarly method - Data gathering

Sociologists study society and social behaviour by examining the groups and social institutions people form, as well as various social, religious, political, and business organizations. They also study the behaviour of, and social interaction among, groups, trace their origin and growth, and analyze the influence of group activities on individual members. Sociologists are concerned with the characteristics of social groups, organizations, and institutions; the ways individuals are affected by each other and by the groups to which they belong ...

See also:

Sociology, Sociology - History of sociology, Sociology - The science and mathematics of sociology, Sociology - Social theory, Sociology - Social research methods, Sociology - Sociology and other social sciences, Sociology - Subfields of sociology

Read more here: » Sociology: Encyclopedia II - Sociology - The science and mathematics of sociology

Proto-Germanic language - Consonants. Since the fricatives ƀ, đ, ǥ are not in phonological contrast with voiced stops, they are also written as simple b, d, g. The most notable change in the Germanic languages, Grimm's law, is a chain shift of the stop consonants: /p/ > /f/; /b/ > /p/; /bʰ/ > /b/ /t/ > See also:

Proto-Germanic language, Proto-Germanic language - Evolution of Proto-Germanic, Proto-Germanic language - Hybridization as conjectured cause, Proto-Germanic language - Non-Indo-European elements, Proto-Germanic language - Phonology, Proto-Germanic language - Consonants, Proto-Germanic language - Vowels, Proto-Germanic language - Morphology, Proto-Germanic language - Simplification of the inflectional system, Proto-Germanic language - Nouns, Proto-Germanic language - Adjectives, Proto-Germanic language - Determiners

Read more here: » Proto-Germanic language: Encyclopedia II - Proto-Germanic language - Phonology