Madhuvidya

Author(s): S D Laddu, T N Dharmadhikari, Madhvi Kolhatkar, Pratibha Pingle
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 372

INTERNAL AND COMPARATIVE RECONSTRUCTION*
(Some Procedural Considerations)
Ву M. A. MEHENDALE, Deccan College, Poona
The procedure for Internal Reconstruction has been outlined by Henry M. Hoenigswald, Language 22.138-43, 1946 (and also in his recent book--Language Change and Linguistic Reconstruction, Chicago 1960). Wallace L. Chafe, while writing on Internal Reconstruction in Seneca, Language 35.477 ff. 1959, points out what he considers to be the shortcomings in the existing theory and gives suggestions for a revised theory,
In the first instance Chafe points out that there is an essential methodological similarity between internal and comparative reconstruction in as much as both are based on the comparison of cognate forms. In comparative reconstruction the cognates are taken from different but genetically related languages; in internal reconstruction the comparison is made between cognate allomorphs. Thus we get a correspondence t/d from the German allomorphs Bunt and Bund(e) or Sanskrit allomorphs sarat and sarad(a). We have another set t/t extracted from laut and laut(e) or Sanskrit marut and marut(a). From the point of view of distribution these two sets contrast
word final (t, t) because both occur in the environment
. We therefore
before a vowel (d, t)' assign them to two different phonemes *d and *t. Now we have also a set d/d which never occurs in the above environment in which t/d occurs. We can therefore combine these two sets and assign them to one phoneme *d.
This is a good point made by Chafe as it shows how internal reconstruction is similar to comparative reconstruction. But if this was the only method available for reconstruction on internal evidence, it would have a liinitation which does not figure in Hoenigswald's procedure. For, Chafe's method can work only if the language fortunately shows a paradigmatic set
Paper submitted for discussion at the Autumn Seminar in Linguistics,
M. S. University, Baroda, Oct.-Nov. 1962. 1 Also cf. J. W. MARCHAND, Internal Reconstruction of Phonemic Split,
Language 32.245-53 (1956). 2 It is of course presumed that allomorphs are cognates, unless suppletion
has clearly taken place.
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