Studies in Comparative Austroasiatic Linguistics [antikvár]

The Austroasiatic-Vietnamese-Muong (AVM)1 family of languages is of considerable interest both to the comparative linguist and to the culture histórián of the Southeastern Asian region and those regions adjacent to it, and has been the subject of large but largely unproven hypotheses. The great majority of the AVM languages are - or have been until recently - unwritten, and are spoken in regions difficult of access. The linguistic information we have on the many2 languages of this family is not extensive, and much of what there is is inadequate for any sort of linguistic analysis. Nor has much comparative linguistic work been done where usable data have been available until recently. In the past ten years, our synchronic and diachronic knowledge of these languages has increased at a more rapid rate. A number of previously poorly known AVM languages have been or are being studied by competent linguists, and these languages include several of crucial interest in the reconstruction of proto-AVM, such as Nicobarese and Muong. Comparative work, too, is being carried on by a number of scholars.3 It is hoped that within ten years much of the comparative phonology and substantial portions of the comparative morphology and syntax of most of the AVM subfamilies will have been worked out, and the various problems in reconstructing the history of the notably divergent syntactic systems wichin AVM can be properly resolved. At that time we shall alsó be in a position to propose more precise areal hypotheses about Southeast Asian linguistic history and, more generally, about linguistic change. This volume collects a number of linguistic papers on historical and 1 This awkward neologism is used to accord with Pinnow's preempting of the term 'Austroasiatisch' for AVM minus Vietnamese-Muong (Pinnow, H.-J., Versuch einer Historischen Lautlehre der Kharia-Sprache, Wiesbaden, 1959). 2 A listing of the languages is to be found in Pinnow |op. cit., pp. 1-6). 3 Most of the few linguists working on comparative problems of AVM subgroups or on AVM as a whole are represented in this volume; important exceptions are H. L. Shorto and Róbert Shafer.