Historical Linguistics and the Comparative Study of African Languages -- Title page -- LCC Data -- Table of contents -- Preface -- Figures -- Maps -- Tables -- Part I. The comparative method -- 1. Explaining similarities -- 1.1 The introduction of historical-comparative linguistics in an African context -- 1.2 Sound correspondences and reconstructions -- 1.3 Additional methodological considerations -- 2. Explaining sound change -- 2.1 Some common types of segmental changes -- 2.2 Tonal changes -- 2.3 Sound change and its link with syllable structure and word structure -- 2.4 Structural consequences of sound change -- 2.5 What does it mean to explain sound changes? -- 2.6 Explaining exceptions -- 3. Classification and subclassification techniques -- 3.1 Shared innovations -- 3.2 Lexicostatistics -- 3.3. Mass comparison -- 3.4 The comparative study of African language families: A brief summary -- 4. Morphosyntactic changes -- 4.1 Morphological innovations and subclassification -- 4.2 More on analogy -- 4.3 Other types of morphological reinterpretations -- 4.4 Syntactic reconstruction -- 5. Semantic change -- 5.1 Stating the problem -- 5.2 Metaphors and metonymy -- 5.3 Grammaticalisation theories -- 5.4 Semantic change and cultural experience -- 5.5 The role played by cognition -- 6. Internal reconstruction -- 6.1 The historical relevance of synchronic morphophonemic alternations -- 6.2 Why today's morphology is not necessarily yesterday's syntax -- 7. Language-internal variation -- 7.1 Establishing dialect zones -- 7.2 Dialectometrical studies -- 7.3 The transition problem -- 7.4 Resolving the Neogrammarian controversy -- Part II. The linguistic manifestation of contact -- 8. Borrowing -- 8.1 Lexical and grammatical borrowing -- 8.2 Structural borrowing -- 8.3 Codeswitching -- 8.4 Linguistic areas on the African continent.

9. Pidginisation and creolisation -- 9.1 Pidginised and creolised languages -- 9.2 Bickerton's bio-program -- 9.3 The role of substrate languages -- 9.4 Pidginisation and creolisation rather than pidgins and creoles -- 10. Syncretic languages -- 10.1 On so-called mixed languages -- 10.2 The emblematic role of syncretic languages -- 10.3 Special-purpose languages -- 11. Language contraction and language shift -- 11.1 Language contraction -- 11.2 Language shift and social identity -- 12. Language contact phenomena and genetic classification -- 12.1 History repeats itself -- 12.2 On so-called non-genetic and multi-genetic developments -- 12.3 Cladistic versus rhizotic models -- Part III. Studying language change in a wider contex -- 13. Language typology and reconstruction -- 13.1 Phonological typology as a heuristic and controlling device -- 13.2 Morphological typology and reconstruction -- 13.3 Syntactic typology and reconstruction -- 14. Remote relationships and genetic diversity on the African continent -- 14.1 On so-called long range comparisons -- 14.2 Afroasiatic -- 14.3 Nilo-Saharan -- 14.4 Niger-Congo -- 14.5 Additional language families and linguistic isolates -- 14.6 A note on stable and unstable features in languages -- 15. Language and history -- 15.1 The words-and-things method -- 15.2 The spreading of language families and population movement -- 15.3 Interpreting borrowing in a cultural-historical perspective -- 16. Some ecological properties of language development -- 16.1 Biological evolution and language evolution -- 16.2 Punctuation and equilibrium periods -- 16.3 A potential linguistic parallel of the species-area effect -- 16.4 Self-organising principles -- 16.5 Some final remarks -- References -- Appendix -- Language and language family index -- Subject index.