Download or read book Late Modern English Syntax written by Marianne Hundt and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-08-14 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using increasingly sophisticated databases, this volume explores grammatical usage from the Late Modern period in a broad context.

Download or read book Actualization written by Henning Andersen and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2001 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of papers consolidates the observation that linguistic change typically is actualized step by step: any structural innovation being introduced, accepted, and generalized, over time, in one grammatical environment after another, in a progression that can be understood by reference to the markedness values and the ranking of the conditioning features. The Introduction to the volume and a chapter by Henning Andersen clarify the theoretical bases for this observation, which is exemplified and discussed in separate chapters by Kristin Bakken, Alexander Bergs and Dieter Stein, Vit Bubenik, Ulrich Busse, Marianne Mithun, Lene Schosler, and John Charles Smith in the light of data from the histories of Norwegian, English, Hindi, Northern Iroquoian, and Romance. A final chapter by Michael Shapiro adds a philosophical perspective. The papers were first presented in a workshop on "Actualization Patterns in Linguistic Change" at the XIV International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Vancouver, B.C. in 1999.

Download or read book Reanalysis and Actualisation written by Stephen Zill and published by . This book was released on 2021* with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study investigates the extension of nominative case to the experiencer argument of ME liken and selected other impersonal verbs. Using tokens from the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English and the Parsed Corpus of Early English Correspondence as the primary database, the hypothesis is tested that this process is favoured by the experiencer's relative susceptibility to an agentive interpretation. While a regression model of the diachronic development does not confirm the hypothesis, distinct pragmatic functions for personal and impersonal constructions emerge, which continue to be exploited by language users into the late EModE period.

Download or read book Connecting Grammaticalisation written by Jens Nørgård-Sørensen and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grammar is seen as a complex sign system, and, as a consequence, grammatical change always comprises semantic change. The book introduces the concept of connecting grammaticalisation to describe the formation, restructuring and dismantling of such complex paradigms. It offers a broad general discussion of theoretical issues and three case studies

Download or read book Gradience Gradualness and Grammaticalization written by Elizabeth Closs Traugott and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, which emerged from a workshop at the "New Reflections on Grammaticalization 4" conference held at KU Leuven in July 2008, contains a collection of papers which investigate the relationship between synchronic gradience and the apparent gradualness of linguistic change, largely from the perspective of grammaticalization. In addition to versions of the papers presented at the workshop, the volume contains specially commissioned contributions, some of which offer commentaries on a subset of the other articles. The articles address a number of themes central to grammaticalization studies, such as the role of reanalysis and analogy in grammaticalization, the formal modelling of grammaticalization, and the relationship between formal and functional change, using data from a range of languages, and (in some cases) from particular electronic corpora. The volume will be of specific interest to historical linguists working on grammaticalization, and general linguists working on the interface between synchrony and diachrony.

Download or read book Indexicality written by Peter Juul Nielsen and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2024-06-04 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book offers the first full-scale focused treatment of linguistic indexicality as a tool for analysis and explanation of the organization of linguistic structures. The book demonstrates the application of the concept of indexicality in the description of a broad range of linguistic phenomena, from the internal workings of morphology via relations within syntactic constructions to lexical and grammatical elements designed to hook on to features outside the clause in the interactional context. The book presents studies of the role of indexicality in synchrony and diachrony with descriptive cases from a number of languages from diverse language families. Part I focuses on the general nature of linguistic indexicality in the larger perspective of the semiotics of language, including examinations of domain-straddling indexical functions. Part II focuses on the role of indexicality in diachrony and the way it enters into the mechanisms of change, including examinations of semiotic shifts from indexical to symbolic function and vice versa. The book is relevant for researchers and students in historical and synchronic linguistics from a variety of linguistic frameworks with an interest in the role of semiotics in linguistic analysis.

Download or read book Usage Based Approaches to Language Change written by Evie Coussé and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2014-07-15 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Usage-based approaches to language have gained increasing attention in the last two decades. The importance of change and variation has always been recognized in this framework, but has never received central attention. It is the main aim of this book to fill this gap. Once we recognize that usage is crucial for our understanding of language and linguistic structures, language change and variation inevitably take centre stage in linguistic analysis. Along these lines, the volume presents eight studies by international authors that discuss various approaches to studying language change from a usage-based perspective. Both theoretical issues and empirical case studies are well-represented in this collection. The case studies cover a variety of different languages – ranging from historically well-studied European languages via Japanese to the Amazonian isolate Yurakaré with no written history at all. The book provides new insights relevant for scholars interested in both functional and cognitive linguistic theory, in historical linguists and in language typology.

Download or read book Corpus based Analysis and Diachronic Linguistics written by Yuji Kawaguchi and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nowadays, linguists do not question the existence of synchronic variation, and the dichotomy between synchrony and diachrony. They recognize that synchrony can be motivated regionally (diatopic variation), sociolinguistically (diastratic variation), or stylistically (diaphasic variation). But, further, they can also recognize the hybrid nature of synchrony, which is referred to as "dynamic synchrony." This conception of synchrony assumes that similar patterns of usage can coexist in a community during a certain period and that their mutual relations are not static but conflicting enough to result in a future systematic change through symptomatic synchronic variation. Emergence of a large corpus of written texts for some languages has enabled quantitative as well as qualitative analyses of the synchronic conditions for diachronic changes, over both long and short spans of time. Most of the 14 papers in this volume represent studies on synchronic and diachronic variations based on such corpus data. For sale in all countries except Japan. For customers in Japan: please contact Yushodo Co.

Download or read book Theoretical and Empirical Issues in Grammaticalization written by Elena Seoane and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume and its companion one"Rethinking grammaticalization: New perspectives" offer a selection of papers from the "Third International Conference New Reflections on Grammaticalization," held at the University of Santiago de Compostela in July 2005. The overall aim of the book is to enrich our understanding of what grammaticalization entails via detailed case studies in combination with theoretical and methodological discussions. Some of the theoretical issues discussed in the sixteen articles included in the volume are the nature of grammaticalization and related processes such as anti-, re- and degrammaticalization, the relationship between grammaticalization and lexicalization, the role of frequency in grammaticalization and the interplay between information structure and grammaticalization. Other topics covered are the grammaticalization of composite predicates in English, the emergence of modal particles in German and particle clusters in Dutch and the grammaticalization of various modal auxiliaries in Spanish and in Swedish.

Download or read book Auxiliary Selection in Spanish written by Malte Rosemeyer and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although usage-based linguistics emphasises the need for studies of language change to take frequency effects into account, there is a lack of research that tries to systematically model frequency effects and their relation to diffusion processes in language change. This monograph offers a diachronic study of the change in Spanish perfect auxiliary selection between Old and Early Modern Spanish that led to the gradual replacement of the auxiliary ser ‘be’ with the auxiliary haber ‘have’. It analyses this process in terms of the interaction between gradience, gradualness, and the conserving effects of frequency and persistence in language change. The study contributes to the theory and methodology of diachronic linguistics, additionally offering insights on how to explain synchronic grammatical variation both within a language and between languages. The book is of interest to the fields of Spanish and Romance linguistics, syntax, as well as historical and variationist linguistics.

Download or read book English Historical Linguistics written by Laurel J. Brinton and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-06 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uniquely organized in terms of theoretical approaches, this is an advanced textbook on the study of English historical linguistics.

Download or read book Perspectives on Language Structure and Language Change written by Lars Heltoft and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2019-06-15 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume centers on three important theoretical concepts for the study of language change and the ways in which language structure emerges and turns into new structure: reanalysis, actualization, and indexicality. Reanalysis is a part of ongoing everyday language use, a process through which language is reproduced and changed. Actualization refers to the processes through which a reanalyzed structure spreads throughout single communities and society. Indexicality covers the way in which parts of a linguistic system can point to other parts of the system, both syntagmatically and paradigmatically. The inclusion of indexicality leads to fine-grained analysis in morphology, word order, and constructional syntax.

Download or read book Current Trends in Diachronic Semantics and Pragmatics written by Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2012-11-02 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The focus of this volume is on semantic and pragmatic change, its causes and mechanisms. The papers gathered here offer both theoretical proposals of more general scope and in-depth studies of language-specific cases of meaning change in particular notional domains. The analyses include data from English, several Romance languages, German, Scandinavian languages, and Oceanic languages. Detailed case-studies covering central semantic domains, such as concession, evidentiality, intensification, modality, negation, scalarity, subjectivity, and temporality, allow the authors to test and refine current models of semantic change, by focusing, for instance, on the respective roles of speakers and hearers in the process and on the relationship between semantic and syntactic reanalysis. Key theoretical notions, such as presuppositions, paradigms, word order, and discourse status are revisited in a diachronic perspective to provide innovative accounts of causes and motivations for linguistic changes. A prominent theme is the evolution of procedural meanings of various kinds. Thus, several papers feature different types of pragmatic markers as their object of study, while others are concerned with items and constructions expressing modality, evidentiality, negation, and relational meanings. Closely related themes are: the interface between semantics and pragmatics/discourse, with figurative uses of language, rhetorical-argumentational strategies, discourse traditions, information structure, and the importance of dialogic contexts in change playing a salient role in several papers; the relationship between meaning change and processes such as grammaticalization, subjectification and pragmaticalization; and, the thorny issue of the categorization of linguistic items such as discourse markers or modal particles, evidentials or epistemic modals, to which the diachronic data are shown to contribute substantially. The volume will be of interest to graduate students and researchers in the fields of semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis, grammaticalization, and historical linguistics.

Download or read book Historical Syntax in Cross Linguistic Perspective written by Alice C. Harris and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1995-09-21 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this major new work Alice Harris and Lyle Campbell set out to establish a general framework for the investigation of linguistic change. Systematic cross-linguistic comparison of syntactic change across a wide variety of languages is used to construct hypotheses about the universals and limits of language change more generally. In particular, the authors seek to move closer towards describing the range of causes of syntactic change to develop an understanding of the mechanisms of syntactic change, and to provide an understanding of why some languages undergo certain changes and not others. The authors draw on languages as diverse as Pipil and French, Georgian and Estonian, and the data presented is one of the book's great strengths. Rigor and precision are combined here with a great breadth of scholarship to produce a unique resource for the study of linguistic change, which will be of use to scholars and students alike.

Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics written by Claire Bowern and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-03-24 with total page 777 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics provides a survey of the field covering the methods which underpin current work; models of language change; and the importance of historical linguistics for other subfields of linguistics and other disciplines. Divided into five sections, the volume encompass a wide range of approaches and addresses issues in the following areas: historical perspectives methods and models language change interfaces regional summaries Each of the thirty-two chapters is written by a specialist in the field and provides: a introduction to the subject; an analysis of the relationship between the diachronic and synchronic study of the topic; an overview of the main current and critical trends; and examples from primary data. The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics is essential reading for researchers and postgraduate students working in this area. Chapter 28 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315794013.ch28

Download or read book Mechanisms of Syntactic Change written by Charles N. Li and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2014-09-10 with total page 641 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historical linguistics, the oldest field in linguistics, has been traditionally dominated by phonological and etymological investigations. Only in the late twentieth century have linguists begun to focus their interest and research on the area of syntactic change and the insight it provides on the nature of language. This volume represents the first major contribution on the mechanisms of syntactic change. The fourteen articles that make up this volume were selected from the Symposium on the Mechanisms of Syntactic Change held at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1976, one of a series of three conferences sponsored by the National Science Foundation. These papers clearly demonstrate that the generative approach to the study of language does not explain diachronic processes in syntax. This collection is enlightening, provocative, and carefully documented with data drawn from a great variety of language families.

Download or read book On Reconstructing Grammar written by Spike Gildea and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows how to combine grammaticalization theory with the comparative method to reconstruct the grammar of Proto-Languages. To showcase the methodology, seven morphosyntactically distinct verbal systems in the Cariban family--three ergative, three nominative, and one inverse--are reconstructed. Spike Gildea presents detailed data in his reconstruction of Proto-Carib verbal and nominal morphologies. The inverse verbal system reconstructs to Proto-Carib; the other six are innovative, and reconstruct to Proto-Carib nonfinite source-constructions.