Comparative-historical method in linguistics

The historical method of cognition includes different types. By means of various methods, the cognition of phenomena to one degree or another is realized.

The comparative-historical method is a scientific method, with the use of which one determines the "general" and "special" in phenomena. With the help of him, different stages of the development of two different or the same phenomena are known.

Comparative-historical method makes it possible to identify and compare the changes that have occurred in the development of the object of study, as well as to determine the direction of further progress.

Experts classify several subspecies of this method of cognition. So, there is a comparative-comparative method (revealing the nature of objects), a historical-typological (explaining the similarity of phenomena unrelated in origin from the point of view of development and genesis conditions), historical-genetic (studying and determining similarity on the basis of kinship by descent). There is also a way of knowing, in which the mutual influences of different phenomena are evaluated.

Comparative-historical method is a set of techniques, with the help of which they prove the affinity of some languages and restore facts from the history of their development. This method of cognition was created in the 19th century. Its founders are outstanding scientists (Alexander Vostokov, Jacob Grimm, Franz Bopp, Rasmus Raek).

In some languages, similar words may occur. This is due to borrowing. There are also those who rarely go from one language to another. They include, for example, adjectives, which denote the most simple signs, names of body parts and so on. The endings of declined and conjugated words from one language to another do not pass. However, they are often similar. According to the researchers, the reason is that these endings are the result of the development of one word, and the languages in which they exist are descendants of one "proto-language".

The comparative-historical method includes several methods of investigation.

Reception of external reconstruction is often used. It is the identification of genetically identical words and morphemes in related languages. In this case, they find the results of regular changes in the sounds of the original language. In addition, a method is used to construct a hypothetical model of the proto-language and the rules for the derivation of certain morphemes in descendants. When a sufficiently large number of related morphemes and a not very complicated phonetic history of descendants are preserved, the results of sound changes act as correspondences between related languages. In another case, the detection of sound changes is possible only with the reconstruction of intermediate stages of development. At the same time, the proto-languages of groups and subgroups in the family of languages are explored .

Internal reception is also used. In this case, in the structure of a certain language, the relationships and phenomena that unequivocally testify to the fact that there are some components of the system at an early stage of its development are revealed.

There is a method of comparative analysis of loan words.

In some cases, researchers extract information from toponymic data. At the same time, the resulting reconstructions concern all aspects of the linguistic system: morphology, phonology, vocabulary, morphology, syntax (to some extent). Along with this, the models obtained can not be identified directly with the actual proto-language. The educated reconstructions reflect only information about it, which will inevitably be incomplete, due to the inability to recreate phonemic oppositions, roots and other that have disappeared in all subsequent languages.