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Internal reconstruction
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Internal reconstruction is a method of recovering information about a language's past from the characteristics of the language at a later date. Whereas the comparative method compares variations between languages — such as in sets of cognates — under the assumption that they descend from a single proto-language, internal reconstruction compares variant forms within a single language under the assumption that they descend from a single, regular form.
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Internal reconstruction is a method of recovering information about a language's past from the characteristics of the language at a later date. Whereas the comparative method compares variations between languages — such as in sets of cognates — under the assumption that they descend from a single proto-language, internal reconstruction compares variant forms within a single language under the assumption that they descend from a single, regular form. For example, these could take the form of allomorphs of the same morpheme.
The basic premise of internal reconstruction is that a meaning-bearing element that alternates between two or more similar forms in different environments was probably a single form in the past, into which alternation was introduced by the usual mechanisms of sound change and analogy.
Language forms reconstructed by means of internal reconstruction are denoted with the pre- prefix, similar to the use of proto- to indicate a language reconstructed by means of the comparative method; for example, proto-Indo-European. So, an earlier form of English would be referred to as pre-English, intermediate between hypothetical Proto-Germanic and the earliest attested Old English.
It is even possible to apply internal reconstruction to proto-languages reconstructed by the comparative method. For example, performing internal reconstruction on proto-Mayan would yield pre-proto-Mayan. In some cases it is also desirable to use internal reconstruction to uncover an earlier form of various languages, and then submit those pre- languages to the comparative method. Care must be taken, however, because internal reconstruction performed on languages before applying the comparative method can remove significant evidence of the earlier state of the language and thus reduce the accuracy of the reconstructed proto-language.
Role in Historical Linguistics
In the case of languages whose histories are well understood, either via the comparative method or historical attestation of significant time-depth, internal reconstruction is little more than an entertaining parlor-game, at best a kind of test to see if the data and the reasoning applied to them actually "work"; that is, actually conform to what is known about the history of a language from other sources. And to take note of the fact that, as in the example from Spanish, below, the likeliest inferences from such an analysis do not necessarily recover the best history. (In the Spanish case, the result of the best analysis is correct in principle but faulty in detail.)
When undertaking a comparative study of a hitherto un(der)analyzed family of languages, however, it is worthwhile to get an understanding of their systems of alternations, if any, before tackling the greater complexities of analyzing entire linguistic structures. For example, the Type A forms of verbs in Samoan (as in the example, below) are the citation forms, i.e., the forms in dictionaries and word lists, but when making historical comparisons with other Austronesian languages it would be a blunder to use Samoan citation forms with parts missing. (And an analysis of the verb sets would alert the researcher to the certainty that many other words in Samoan have lost a final consonant.) Another way of looking at it is that internal reconstruction gives access to an earlier historical stage, at least in some details, of the languages being compared, and this can be valuable: the more time that passes, the more changes accumulate in the structure of a (living) language, and for this reason we always try to use the earliest known attestations of languages when working with the comparative method.
Internal reconstruction, when not a sort of preliminary to the application of the comparative method, is most useful in cases where the superior analytic power of the comparative method is unavailable.
Internal reconstruction can also draw limited inferences from peculiarities of distribution. Even before comparative investigations had sorted out the true history of Indo-Iranian phonology, some scholars had wondered if the extraordinary frequency of the phoneme /a/ in Sanskrit (20% of all phonemes together, an astonishing total) might point to some historical fusion of two or more vowels. (In fact, it represents the final outcome of five different Proto-Indo-European syllabics two of which—the syllabic states of /m/ and /n/—can be discerned by the application of internal reconstruction.) But in such cases, internal analysis is better at raising questions than at answering them. The extraordinary frequency of /a/ in Sanskrit hints at some sort of historical event, but does not lead, and cannot, to any specific theory.
Issues and Shortcomings
Neutralizing Environments
One issue in internal reconstruction is neutralizing environments, which can be an obstacle to historically correct analysis. Consider the following forms from Spanish, spelled phonemically rather than orthographically:
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! infinitive
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! 3rd person sg
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| bolbér
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