Grammatical Change and Linguistic Theory

by Þórhallur Eyþórsson

This book contains 15 revised papers originally presented at a symposium at Rosendal, Norway, under the aegis of The Centre for Advanced Study (CAS) at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

Grammatical Change and Linguistic Theory

Author: Þórhallur Eyþórsson

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

ISBN: 9789027233776

Page: 441

View: 587

This book contains 15 revised papers originally presented at a symposium at Rosendal, Norway, under the aegis of The Centre for Advanced Study (CAS) at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. The overall theme of the volume is 'internal factors in grammatical change.' The papers focus on fundamental questions in theoretically-based historical linguistics from a broad perspective. Several of the papers relate to grammaticalization in different ways, but are generally critical of 'Grammaticalization Theory'. Further papers focus on the causes of syntactic change, pinpointing both extra-syntactic (exogenous) causes and – more controversially – internally driven (endogenous) causes. The volume is rounded up by contributions on morphological change 'by itself.' A wide range of languages is covered, including Tsova-Tush (Nakh-Dagestan), Zoque, and Athapaskan languages, in addition to Indo-European languages, both the more familiar ones and some less well-studied varieties.

The Paradox of Grammatical Change

by Ulrich Detges

Recent years have seen intense debates between formal (generative) and functional linguists, particularly with respect to the relation between grammar and usage.

The Paradox of Grammatical Change

Author: Ulrich Detges

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

ISBN: 9789027248084

Page: 252

View: 130

Recent years have seen intense debates between formal (generative) and functional linguists, particularly with respect to the relation between grammar and usage. This debate is directly relevant to diachronic linguistics, where one and the same phenomenon of language change can be explained from various theoretical perspectives. In this, a close look at the divergent and/or convergent evolution of a richly documented language family such as Romance promises to be useful. The basic problem for any approach to language change is what Eugenio Coseriu has termed the paradox of change: if synchronically, languages can be viewed as perfectly running systems, then there is no reason why they should change in the first place. And yet, as everyone knows, languages are changing constantly. In nine case studies, a number of renowned scholars of Romance linguistics address the explanation of grammatical change either within a broadly generative or a functional framework.

Grammatical Change

by Dianne Jonas

This book advances research on grammatical change and shows the breadth and liveliness of the field.

Grammatical Change

Author: Dianne Jonas

Publisher: Oxford University Press

ISBN: 0199582629

Page: 384

View: 484

This book advances research on grammatical change and shows the breadth and liveliness of the field. International scholars report on the nature and outcomes of all aspects of syntactic change, including grammaticalization, variation, syntactic movement, determiner-phrase syntax, pronominal systems, case systems, negation, and alignment.

Grammatical Change in Indo European Languages

by Vít Bubeník

This suffix also gave origin to the neuter nominative-accusative plural, formerly a
collective rather than a count plural. The semantic development is accompanied
by morphological change: in the case of the neuter nominative-accusative plural,
 ...

Grammatical Change in Indo European Languages

Author: Vít Bubeník

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

ISBN: 9027248214

Page: 262

View: 277

The product of a group of scholars who have been working on new directions in Historical Linguistics, this book is focused on questions of grammatical change, and the central issue of grammaticalization in Indo-European languages. Several studies examine particular problems in specific languages, but often with implications for the IE phylum as a whole. Given the historical scope of the data (over a period of four millennia) long range grammatical changes such as the development of gender differences, strategies of definiteness, the prepositional phrase, or of the syntax of the verbal diathesis and aspect, are also treated. The shifting relevance of morphology to syntax, and syntax to morphology, a central motif of this research, has provoked lively debate in the discipline of Historical Linguistics.

Grammatical Change in English World Wide

by Peter Collins

The contributions to this volume apply and extend the techniques of corpus linguistics and diachronic linguistics to the challenge of describing and explaining grammatical change in varieties of English world-wide.

Grammatical Change in English World Wide

Author: Peter Collins

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

ISBN: 9027268908

Page: 488

View: 722

The contributions to this volume apply and extend the techniques of corpus linguistics and diachronic linguistics to the challenge of describing and explaining grammatical change in varieties of English world-wide. The book is divided into two parts, with ten chapters on ‘Inner Circle’ varieties such as Australian, Canadian, and Irish English, and eight on ‘Outer Circle’ varieties such as Philippine, Indian, and Nigerian English. Contributors examine a range of topics including the progressive aspect, modal auxiliaries, do-support, verb morphology, and quotatives, using a wide variety of corpus resources. Overarching research questions addressed include the following: Do diachronic tendencies observed in a particular variety converge with, diverge from, or run in parallel with, those in the parent variety? What are the possible causes of changes observed (e.g. English teaching traditions, Americanisation, internal changes in registers)? This book will appeal to linguists, particularly those interested in grammatical description, corpus linguistics and World Englishes.

Quantitative Approaches to Grammar and Grammatical Change

by Sam Featherston

The newly-emerging field of theoretically informed but simultaneously empirically based syntax is dynamic but little-represented in the literature. This volume addresses this need.

Quantitative Approaches to Grammar and Grammatical Change

Author: Sam Featherston

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

ISBN: 3110402122

Page: 240

View: 549

The newly-emerging field of theoretically informed but simultaneously empirically based syntax is dynamic but little-represented in the literature. This volume addresses this need. While there has previously been something of a gulf between theoretical linguists in the generative tradition and those linguists who work with quantitative data types, this gap is narrowing. In the light of the empirical revolution in the study of syntax, even people whose primary concern is grammatical theory take note of processing effects and attribute certain effects to them. Correspondingly, workers focusing on the surface evidence can relate more to the concepts of the theoreticians, because the two layers of explanation have been brought into contact. And these workers too must account for the data gathered by the theoreticians. An additional innovation is the generative analysis of historical data – this is now seen as psycholinguistic theory-relevant data like any other. These papers are thus a snapshot of some of the work currently being done in evidence-based grammar, using both experimental and historical data.

Change in Contemporary English

by Geoffrey Leech

Based on the systematic analysis of large amounts of computer-readable text, this book shows how the English language has been changing in the recent past, and discusses the linguistic and social factors that are contributing to this ...

Change in Contemporary English

Author: Geoffrey Leech

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

ISBN: 0521867223

Page: 341

View: 500

Based on the systematic analysis of large amounts of computer-readable text, this book shows how the English language has been changing in the recent past, and discusses the linguistic and social factors that are contributing to this process.

Grammatical Relations in Change

by Jan Terje Faarlund

International Conference of Historical Linguistics in Vancouver 1999 I organized
a workshop called Grammatical Relations and Grammatical Change. This
workshop was the beginning of the collective work resulting in this book. Of the
eleven ...

Grammatical Relations in Change

Author: Jan Terje Faarlund

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

ISBN: 9027298041

Page: 326

View: 750

The eleven selected contributions making up this volume deal with grammatical relations, their coding and behavioral properties, and the change that these properties have undergone in different languages. The focus of this collection is on the changing properties of subjects and objects, although the scope of the volume goes beyond the central problems pertaining to case marking and word order. The diachrony of syntactic and morphosyntactic phenomena are approached from different theoretical perspectives, generative grammar, valency grammar, and functionalism. The languages dealt with include Old English, Mainland Scandinavian, Icelandic, German and other Germanic languages, Latin, French and other Romance languages, Northeast Caucasian, Eskimo, and Popolocan. This book provides an opportunity to compare different theoretical approaches to similar phenomena in different languages and language families.

The Grammaticalization of Verbs Verbs as Sources of Grammatical Change

by Melanie Bobik

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, Free University of Berlin (Anglistik), language: English, abstract: The famous dictum, “grammars code best ...

The Grammaticalization of Verbs Verbs as Sources of Grammatical Change

Author: Melanie Bobik

Publisher: GRIN Verlag

ISBN: 3668867321

Page: 113

View: 405

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, Free University of Berlin (Anglistik), language: English, abstract: The famous dictum, “grammars code best what speakers do most” coined by Du Bois, is a central postulate of all discourse-based approaches to grammaticalization (also known as grammaticization, grammatization). It points to the assumption that frequent repetition in discourse plays a crucial role in the development of grammatical forms, and that basicness is an inherent characteristics of most source concepts. There is only a limited number of lexical items likely to be sources for grammaticalization. Since verbs form the core element of every sentence, expressing different conditions such as states, changes and activities, they provide a rich source for grammatical targets. So how do verbs serve as a source of grammatical change? This academic paper gives answers to this question, discussing the grammaticalization of verbs, and how verbs typically evolve into prepositions, aspectual as well as quotative markers, and complementizers. Evidence is taken not only from English, but also from, i.a., Chinese, German, Spanish, French and African languages.

Grammatical Change

by Rachel Hendery

This volume comprises a collection of papers on the theme of grammatical change that evolved out of a workshop sponsored by the Centre for Research on Language Change (The Australian National University).

Grammatical Change

Author: Rachel Hendery

Publisher:

ISBN:

Page: 201

View: 910

This volume comprises a collection of papers on the theme of grammatical change that evolved out of a workshop sponsored by the Centre for Research on Language Change (The Australian National University). The papers extend the boundaries of what has been addressed under the label of 'grammatical change' by applying theories and models of grammatical change to new evidence; by illuminating the historical relationships between grammar and other levels of linguistics; and by extending the range of languages that have been examined from the perspective of grammatical change. Languages discussed include Murriny Patha, Walpiri, Gurindji, Walmajarri, and Kayardild, Lardil, Yukulta, English, Dutch, German, Afrikaans, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Slovenian, Albanian, Greek, Old Church Slavonic, Tocharian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Quechua, Basque, and Tok Pisin

The Lexical Basis of Grammatical Borrowing

by Ruth Elizabeth King

This book is a detailed study of French-English linguistic borrowing in Prince Edward Island, Canada which argues for the centrality of lexical innovation to grammatical change.

The Lexical Basis of Grammatical Borrowing

Author: Ruth Elizabeth King

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

ISBN: 9789027237163

Page: 241

View: 582

This book is a detailed study of French-English linguistic borrowing in Prince Edward Island, Canada which argues for the centrality of lexical innovation to grammatical change. Chapters 1–4 present the theoretical and methodological perspectives adopted along with the sociolinguistic history of Acadian French. Chapter 5 outlines the basic features of Acadian French morphosyntax. Chapter 6 provides an overview of the linguistic consequences of language contact in Prince Edward Island. Chapters 7–9 consider three particular cases of grammatical borrowing: the borrowing of the English adverb back and the semantic and syntactic reanalysis it has undergone, the borrowing of a wide range of English prepositions, resulting in dramatic changes in the syntactic behaviour of French prepositions, and the borrowing of English wh-ever words, resulting in the emergence of a new type of free relative. Chapter 10 argues for a theory of grammar contact by which contact-induced grammatical change is mediated by the lexicon.

Grammatical Variation and Change in Jersey English

by Anna Rosen

Positioned at the intersection of dialectology, sociolinguistics and contact
linguistics, this study attempts to discern patterns of variation and change in the
insular variety of JersE. The Channel Islands present us, or so it seems, with
laboratory ...

Grammatical Variation and Change in Jersey English

Author: Anna Rosen

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

ISBN: 902727052X

Page: 237

View: 853

Situated at the crossroads of dialectology, sociolinguistics and contact linguistics, this volume provides a first comprehensive description of the morphosyntactic inventory of the variety of English spoken on Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands. Based on a specially compiled corpus of spoken material containing both present-day sociolinguistic and archive data, it thereby reveals an intricate network of variation and change in this language-shift variety. The study adopts a cross-varietal approach for its analyses, which enables a first more systematic comparison between the Englishes spoken on Jersey, on its sister island Guernsey and beyond. In addition, it discusses the implications of identity aspects for language use in Jersey. The book will therefore be of major interest to any researcher or student working in the areas of language variation and change, language contact or dialectology and to those interested in sociolinguistic methodology and the relationships between language and identity.

Diachrony and Dialects

by Paola Benincà

This book examines morphosyntactic variation in the Romance varieties spoken in Italy from both a regional and historical perspective.

Diachrony and Dialects

Author: Paola Benincà

Publisher: Oxford University Press

ISBN: 0198701780

Page: 400

View: 808

This book examines morphosyntactic variation in the Romance varieties spoken in Italy from both a regional and historical perspective. It examines a range of phenomena, backed up by extensive empirical data, and will be a valuable resource not only for specialists in Italo-Romance but also for researchers in morphosyntactic change more generally

Advancing Socio grammatical Variation and Change

by Karen V. Beaman

This groundbreaking collection showcases Jenny Cheshire’s influential work in bringing greater attention to quantitative analysis of socio-grammatical variation and builds upon her contributions with new lines of inquiry pushing ...

Advancing Socio grammatical Variation and Change

Author: Karen V. Beaman

Publisher: Routledge

ISBN: 1000092704

Page: 418

View: 668

This groundbreaking collection showcases Jenny Cheshire’s influential work in bringing greater attention to quantitative analysis of socio-grammatical variation and builds upon her contributions with new lines of inquiry pushing sociolinguistic research forward. Featuring contributions from leading experts in the field, the volume is structured in six parts with a particular focus on syntactic, morpho-syntactic, and discourse-pragmatic variation and change, each section turning a lens on a different aspect of socio-grammatical variation. The first sections of the volume focus on the role of structure, its relevance for sociolinguistic production and perception and the impact of social structure on formal structure. Two sections look at the interface of variationist research with other aspects of linguistic research, including generative syntax and discourse-pragmatic features. The final sections consider the importance of integrating broader external factors in socio-grammatical variation, exploring the impact of interactional pressures in the sociolinguistic environment and the role of multi-ethnic contact varieties. Taken together, this volume demonstrates the critical role of socio-grammatical variation in our understanding of language change as a holistic process.

Word Order Change as a Source of Grammaticalisation

by Susann Fischer

Preface Grammaticalisation is generally seen as the change whereby lexical
elements become grammatical elements and/or whereby grammatical elements
become even more grammatical elements (Meillet 1912, Kurylowicz 1965, ...

Word Order Change as a Source of Grammaticalisation

Author: Susann Fischer

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

ISBN: 9027288186

Page: 200

View: 875

This book presents a new perspective on the interaction between word-order and grammaticalisation by investigating the changes that stylistic fronting and oblique subjects have undergone in Romance (Catalan, French, Spanish) as compared to Germanic (English, Icelandic). It discusses a great deal of historical comparative data showing that stylistic fronting and oblique subjects have (had) a semantic effect in the Germanic and in the Romance languages, and that they both appear in the same functional category. The loss of stylistic fronting and oblique subjects is seen as an effect of grammaticalisation, where grammaticalisation is taken to be a regular case of parameter change. In contrast to previous and recent approaches to grammaticalisation, however, the author shows that it is not the loss of morphology that triggers grammaticalisation with subsequent word-order changes, but that the word-order change sets off grammaticalisation in the functional categories, which is then followed by the loss of morphology.

Language Change in Contact Languages

by J. Clancy Clements

This volume, originally published as special issue of Studies in Language 33:2 (2009), aims to make the work of several language contact experts available to a wider audience.

Language Change in Contact Languages

Author: J. Clancy Clements

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

ISBN: 9027282552

Page: 241

View: 263

The studies in Language Change in Contact Languages showcase the contributions that the study of contact language varieties make to the understanding of phenomena such as relexification, transfer, reanalysis, grammaticalization, prosodic variation and the development of prosodic systems. Four of the studies deal with morphosyntactic issues while the other three address questions of prosody. The studies include data from the Atlantic creoles (Saramaccan, Sranan, Haitian Creole, Jamaican Creole, Trinidadian Creole, Papiamentu), as well as Singapore English. This volume, originally published as special issue of Studies in Language 33:2 (2009), aims to make the work of several language contact experts available to a wider audience. The studies will be of use to any student or scholar interested in different approaches to contact-induced language processes, particularly as they relate to morphosyntax and prosody.

Language Acquisition and Change

by Jurgen Meisel

3.1 The LAnguAge-LeARnIng chILd AS The LocuS of gRAmmATIcAL chAnge. T.
he variability of language use, across and within individuals, suggests that we
may be witnessing ongoing processes of lan- guage change, including changes
in ...

Language Acquisition and Change

Author: Jurgen Meisel

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

ISBN: 0748677992

Page: 208

View: 331

Under which circumstances does grammatical change come about? Is the child the principle agent of change as suggested by historical linguistics?This book discusses diachronic change of languages in terms of restructuring of speakers' internal grammatical knowledge. Efforts to construct a theory of diachronic change consistent with findings from psycholinguistics are scarce. Here, these questions are therefore addressed against the background of insights from research on monolingual and bilingual acquisition. Given that children are remarkably successful in reconstructing the grammars of their ambient languages, commonly held views need to be reconsidered according to which language change is primarily triggered by structural ambiguity in the input and in settings of language contact. In an innovative take on this matter, the authors argue that morphosyntactic change in core areas of grammar, especially where parameters of Universal Grammar are concerned, typically happens in settings involving second language acquisition. The children acting as agents of restructuring are either L2 learners themselves or are continuously exposed to the speech of L2 speakers of their target languages. Based on a variety of case studies, this discussion sheds new light on phenomena of change which have occupied historical linguists since the 19th century and will be welcomed by advanced undergraduate and graduate students as well as researchers in the fields of historical linguistics and language acquisition.

Language and Space

by Peter Auer

Contact-induced. grammatical. change: A. cautionary. tale. 1. Introduction 2.
Background 3. Establishing change 4. Applying the comparative variationist
framework to the investigation of change 5. Putting contact-induced change to the
test 6.

Language and Space

Author: Peter Auer

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

ISBN: 3110180022

Page: 889

View: 905

The dimensions of time and space fundamentally cause and shape the variability of all human language. To reduce investigation of this insight to manageable proportions, researchers have traditionally concentrated on the deepest dialects. But it is increasingly apparent that, although most people still speak with a distinct regional coloring, the new mobility of speakers in recently industrialized and postindustrial societies and the efflorescence of communication technologies cannot be ignored. This has given rise to a reconsideration of the relationship between geographical place and cultural space, and the fundamental link between language and a spatially bounded territory. Language and Space: An International Handbook of Linguistic Variation seeks to take full account of these developments in a comprehensive, theoretically rich way. The introductory volume examines the concept of space and linguistic approaches to it, the structure and dynamics of language spaces, and relevant research methods. A second volume offers the first thorough exploration of the interplay between linguistic investigation and cartography, and subsequent volumes uniformly document the state of research into the spatial dimension of particular language groupings. Key features: comprehensive coverage of the field in terms of theory and methods the unique volume stands alone, since it neither is a handbook of dialectology or of areal linguistics, nor a handbook on language variation alone gathers together a great number of distinguished scholars and experts in the field "