4. Experiments

Experimental techniques are widely used in Linguistics, namely, Phonetics, Cognitive Linguistics; Psycholinguistics, Sociolinguistics, child language acquisition and language pathology. In grammar and semantics experimental studies usually take the form of controlled methods for eliciting judgements about sentences or the elements they contain. Informants can be asked to identify errors, to rate the acceptabil­ity of sentences, to make judgements of perception or comprehension, and to carry out a variety of analytical procedures.

5. The Comparative Method. The reconstruction technique.

The first quarter of the 19^th century witnessed the emergence of the historical comparative method of language study as a scientific proof of the relationship among languages. It became possible in connection with the comparative observation of languages belonging to the Indo-Euro­pean family and the discovery of Sanskrit.

William Jones (1746-1794) a prominent British scholar was the first to point out a scientific hypothesis that Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Gothic, and some languages of India and Europe had sprung from the same source, which no longer existed. The relations among the languages of the Indo-European family were also studied scientifically by Franz Bopp, Kristian Rask, Jacob Grimm and A.Vostokov. They not only made comparative and historical observations of the kindred languages, but also defined the fundamental conception of Linguistic kinship and created the his­torical comparative method in Linguistics. The rise of this method marks the emergence of Linguistics as a science in the strict sense of the word, and the principal line of European Linguistics for many years to come.

In Historical Linguistics the comparative method is a way of sys­tematically comparing a series of languages in order to prove a histori­cal relationship between them. Scholars begin by identifying a set of formal similarities and differences between the languages, and try to work out (or "reconstruct") an earlier stage of development from which all the forms could have derived.

So, reconstruction is applied when no data are available at all - as in the case of the historical study of language where written records are lacking. But it is possible to break through even this apparent barrier, by using the "reconstruction techniques" of comparative philology. The forms of Proto-Indo-European and other reconstructed languages may be totally hypo­thetical in status but they have nonetheless become a major field of lin­guistic inquiry.

Evidence of common origin for groups of languages was readily avail­able in Europe, in that French, Spanish, Italian and other Romance lan­guages clearly descended from Latin - which in this case is known to have existed. The same reasoning was applied to longer groups of lan­guages and by the beginning of the 19^th century there was convincing evi­dence to support the hypothesis that there was once a language from which many of the languages of Eurasia have derived. This proto-language came to be called Proto-Indo-European. Very quickly, other groups of languages were examined using the same techniques.

The main metaphor that is used to explain the historical relationships is that of the language family or family tree.

The parent lan­guage of a family and the intermediary parent languages of further groups are subgroups within the family. e.g. in the genealogical prehistory of the Indo-European family we distinguish the Parent ("Primitive") Indo-Euro­pean language, and its direct and indirect descendants: the ("Primitive") Indo-Iranian, the Parent ("Primitive") Germanic, etc.

Within the Romance family Latin is the "parent" language, and French, Spanish, etc. are "daughter" languages; French would then be called a "sister" language to Spanish and the others. The same approach is used with larger groups. Within the Indo-European, Proto-Indo-European is the parent language, and Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and others are daughter languages.

http://www.google.com.ua/imgres?sa=X&biw=1320&bih=699&tbm=isch&tbnid=VZm7BA9wD-7vAM:&imgrefurl=http://srhabay.wikispaces.com/19%2BINDO-EUROPEAN%2BLANGUAGE%2BFAMILY&docid=GwfsLbndXQsS_M&imgurl=http://srhabay.wikispaces.com/file/view/indoeurop.gif/63450400/indoeurop.gif&w=510&h=600&ei=6mrJUsKiCtCYyQPy7IHICw&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:4,s:0,i:90&iact=rc&page=1&tbnh=176&tbnw=149&start=0&ndsp=15&tx=89&ty=25

This way of talking must not be taken too literally. A "parent" lan­guage does not live on after a "daughter" language is "born", nor do lan­guages suddenly appear in the way implied by the metaphor of birth. Nor is it true that, once branches of a family begin to emerge, they develop quite independently. Languages converge as well as diverge. Stages of language development are not clear-cut and even.

The foundations of the historical comparative method are: 1) fami­lies of languages originate due to historical division of languages; 2) lin­gual signs (signals) are arbitrary in the sense that there is no natural con­nection between their form and the things or ideas they signify; 3) the historical development of language is continual, but uneven (different structural elements of language specifically react to and reflect the history of the people. As a result ele­ments no longer existing in one language of a family may be preserved in another kindred language).

E.g. compare the native words of Indo-European languages that evi­dence their kinship:

Ukr.:	брат	мати	Ти
Eng.:	brother	mother	Thou
Germ.:	Bruder	Mutter	Du
Fr.:	frere	mere	Tu
Old Slav.:	братрь	мати(-ере)	ты
Sanskr.:	bhrata(-r)	mata(-r)	Tuvan
Lat.:	frater	mater	Tu
Goth.:	brobar	-	Bu, etc.
Compare the finite forms of the verbs:
Sanskr.	Lat.	Goth.	Old Slav.
asmi	sum	lm	IECMb
asi	es	Is	1ЕСИ
asti	est	1st	IECTb, etc.
Bharami	fero	Baira	БЕРУ
bharasi	fers	Bairis	БЕРЕШИ
bharati	fert	bairib	БЕРЕТЪ. etc.

By comparing forms in kindred languages, linguists reveal the sys­tem of phonetical correspondences characterising one family in reference to another language or groups of languages. E.g., the Indo-European [p], [t], [k] correspond to the Germanic [f] [b] [x]; the Indo-European [b], [d], [g] correspond to the Germanic [p], [t], [k]; the Indo-European [bh], [dh], [gh] correspond to the Germanic [b] [d] [g] (the Germanic consonant shift discovered by J.Grimm). Further, the Germanic [d] corresponds to the German [t], the Germanic [b] corresponds to the German [d], the Ger­manic [t] corresponds to the German [s] (after a vowel) or [z] (in other positions), etc., (the second Germanic consonant shift).

Cf.	Ukr.	Eng.	Germ.
	Десять	ten	Zehn
	Два	two	Zwei
	Три	three	Drei, etc.

Such systems of correspondences are the final sign of language kin­ship, showing differentiation and unity.

6. Quantitative methods are represented by sets of complicated, formal, usu. mathemetical, formulae. They are applied in quantitative linguistics (QL) which studies the multitude of quantitative properties which are essential for the description and understanding of the development and the functioning of linguistic systems and their components. The term QL is sometimes substituted with the terms mathematical linguistics; speech statistics; statistical analysis; linguostatistics.

The role of QL is now to unveil corresponding phenomena, to systematically describe them, and to find and formulate laws which explain the observed and described facts. Quantitative interrelations have an enormous value for fundamental research but they can also be used and applied in many fields such as computational linguistics and natural language processing, language teaching, optimisation of texts, etc.

Quantitative methods are widely applied at Chernivtsi University at the department of German, General and Comparative linguistics (earlier headed by V.V.Levytskyi). Their famous x2 is known by a host of linguists.