Preface -- Contents -- List of Contributors -- Introduction: The comparative method -- American Indian Languages -- Summary report: American Indian languages and principles of language change -- The role of typology in American Indian historical linguistics -- Algonquian linguistic change and reconstruction -- Mayan languages and linguistic change -- Austronesian languages -- Summary report: Linguistic change and reconstruction methodology in the Austronesian language family -- The "aberrant" (vs. "exemplary") Melanesian languages -- Patterns of sound change in the Austronesian languages -- Indo-European languages -- Etymologies, equations, and comparanda: Types and values, and criteria for judgment -- Is the "comparative" method general or family-speciflc? -- Australian Languages -- Summary report: Linguistic change and reconstruction in the Australian language family -- Social parameters of linguistic change in an unstratified Aboriginal society -- The significance of pronouns in the history of Australian languages -- Altaic Languages -- Morphological clues to the relationships of Japanese and Korean -- Afro-Asiatic Languages -- A survey of Omotic grammemes -- The regularity of sound change: A Semitistic perspective -- Indexes -- Subject index -- Language index -- Author index.