Robert M. W. Dixon
Author of The Rise and Fall of Languages
About the Author
Disambiguation Notice:
The blues, language, autobiography are by the same author. He also wrote some mysteries and sf.
Series
Works by Robert M. W. Dixon
Areal Diffusion and Genetic Inheritance: Problems in Comparative Linguistics (2001) — Editor — 16 copies
Words of our country : stories, place names, and vocabulary in Yidiny, the Aboriginal language of the Cairns-Yarrabah… (1991) 11 copies
The Handbook of Australian Languages: Volume 4: The Aboriginal Language of Melbourne and Other Grammatical Sketches (Th (1991) 10 copies
Dyirbal Song Poetry: The Oral Literature of an Australian Rainforest People (UQP paperbacks) (1996) 8 copies
Wargamay, the Mpakwithi dialect of Anguthimri, Watjarri, Margany and Gunya, Tasmanian (1979) 8 copies
Where Have All the Adjectives Gone?: And Other Essays in Semantics and Syntax (Janua Linguarum. Series Maior, 107) (1982) 7 copies
Edible gender, mother-in-law style, and other grammatical wonders : studies in Dyirbal, Yidin, and Warrgamay (2015) 4 copies
Handbook of Australian Languages, Vol. 5: Grammatical Sketches of Bunuba, Ndjébbana and Kugu Nganhcara (2000) 2 copies
Jezici bolji od drugih 1 copy
Associated Works
Language form and linguistic variation : papers dedicated to Angus McIntosh (1982) — Contributor — 4 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Dixon, Robert Malcolm Ward
- Other names
- Brown, Hosanna (pseudonym)
Tully, Simon (pseudonym) - Birthdate
- 1939-01-25
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England, UK
- Education
- University of Oxford
University of Edinburgh - Awards and honors
- Leonard Bloomfield Award (Linguistics, 2006)
- Disambiguation notice
- The blues, language, autobiography are by the same author. He also wrote some mysteries and sf.
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Reviews
Awards
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Statistics
- Works
- 59
- Also by
- 2
- Members
- 678
- Popularity
- #37,272
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 4
- ISBNs
- 163
- Languages
- 2
A brief book about language change, which dates back to 1997 but I don't know how fast the field moves. The author has two main points to make. First off, he compares the evolution of language to Steven Jay Gould's concept of punctuated equilibrium in biology: long periods of steady development with little change, interspersed with periods when the environment changes rapidly and organisms, or languages, must adapt equally rapidly to survive. The impact of Western colonialism is the most recent and largest such traumatic change to have hit the world's language groups and ddiversity.
His other main point is to propose an alternative to the "family tree" model of language relationships. It works well for Indeo-European (within limits) and also for the Austronesian languages of the Pacific; but he is sceptical, to put it politely, of Greenblatt's claims to have constructed family trees for the African and Amerindian languages, let alone the pretensions of Nostratic. Surely in most cases where different language groups exist side by side for centuries, it makes at least as much sense to consider a "linguistic area" where neighbouring speakers may steal vocabulary and grammar from each other. His example is Australia, the area he knows best, but I can see relevance for the Albanian / Macedonian / Bulgarian / Romanian relationship which I've always found fascinating. He makes the point that even Proto-Indo-European doesn't appear to have been homogenous - did the instrumental plural end with *-bhis or *-mis ?
Anyway, I found this rather more digestible than dear old C.-J. Bailey's essay collection. Must look out for more on this topic...… (more)