Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- Contributors -- Introduction: The comparative method / Baldi, Philip -- American Indian Languages -- Summary report: American Indian languages and principles of language change / Campbell, Lyle / Goddard, Ives -- The role of typology in American Indian historical linguistics / Mithun, Marianne -- Algonquian linguistic change and reconstruction / Goddard, Ives -- Mayan languages and linguistic change / Campbell, Lyle -- Austronesian languages -- Summary report: Linguistic change and reconstruction methodology in the Austronesian language family / Blust, Robert -- The "aberrant" (vs. "exemplary") Melanesian languages / Grace, George W. -- Patterns of sound change in the Austronesian languages / Blust, Robert -- Indo-European languages -- Etymologies, equations, and comparanda: Types and values, and criteria for judgment / Watkins, Calvert -- Is the "comparative" method general or family-specific? / Hoenigswald, Henry M. -- Australian Languages -- Summary report: Linguistic change and reconstruction in the Australian language family / Dixon, R. M. W. -- Social parameters of linguistic change in an unstratified Aboriginal society / Johnson, Steve -- The significance of pronouns in the history of Australian languages / Blake, Barry J. -- Altaic Languages -- Morphological clues to the relationships of Japanese and Korean / Martin, Samuel E. -- Afro-Asiatic Languages -- A survey of Omotic grammemes / Bender, M. Lionel -- The regularity of sound change: A Semitistic perspective / Lieberman, Stephen J. -- Indexes -- Subject index -- Language index -- Author index -- Backmatter