Diachronic Syntax

Diachronic Syntax PDF Author: Susan Pintzuk
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780198250272
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
This text reflects developing trends in linguistic research, specifically the study of syntax and its pivotal position in current theories of language acquisition.

Diachronic Syntax

Diachronic Syntax PDF Author: Susan Pintzuk
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780198250272
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
This text reflects developing trends in linguistic research, specifically the study of syntax and its pivotal position in current theories of language acquisition.

Diachronic Syntax

Diachronic Syntax PDF Author: Ian Roberts
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199283664
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 523

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Book Description
This book shows how the generative approach to linguistics may be used to understand how languages change. Generative diachronic syntax has developed since the inception of the principles and parameters approach to comparative syntax in the early 1980s: it has become increasingly important in historical linguistics and generative theory, acting as a bridge between them and providing insights to both. Ian Roberts relates work in historical linguistics to contemporary work on universal grammar and historical syntactic variation. He explains how standard questions in historical linguistics - including word-order change, grammaticalization, and reanalysis - can be explored in terms of current generative theory. He examines the nature of the links between syntactic change and first-language acquisition and considers the short and long-term effects of language contact. Professor Roberts provides numerous examples from a range of different languages, guides to further reading, and a comprehensive glossary. This is the ideal textbook introduction for students of syntactic change.

Diachronic Syntax

Diachronic Syntax PDF Author: Ian Roberts
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192605887
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 704

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Book Description
This second edition of Ian Roberts's highly successful textbook on diachronic syntax has been fully revised and updated throughout to take account of the multiple developments in the field in the last decade. The book provides a detailed account of how standard questions in historical linguistics - including word order change, grammaticalization, and reanalysis - can be explored in terms of current minimalist theory and Universal Grammar. This new edition offers expanded coverage of a range of topics, including null subjects, the Final-over-Final Condition, the diachrony of wh-movement, the Tolerance Principle, and creoles and creolization, and explores further advances in the theory of parametric variation. Each chapter includes suggestions for further reading, and the book concludes with a comprehensive glossary of key terms. Written by one of the leading scholars in the field, the volume will remain an ideal textbook for students of historical linguistics and a valuable reference for researchers and students in related areas such as syntax, comparative linguistics, language contact, and language acquisition.

Micro-change and Macro-change in Diachronic Syntax

Micro-change and Macro-change in Diachronic Syntax PDF Author: Eric Mathieu
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191065021
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
The chapters in this volume address the process of syntactic change at different granularities. The language-particular component of a grammar is now usually assumed to be nothing more than the specification of the grammatical properties of a set of lexical items. Accordingly, grammar change must reduce to lexical change. And yet these micro-changes can cumulatively alter the typological character of a language (a macro-change). A central puzzle in diachronic syntax is how to relate macro-changes to micro-changes. Several chapters in this volume describe specific micro-changes: changes in the syntactic properties of a particular lexical item or class of lexical items. Other chapters explore links between micro-change and macro-change, using devices such as grammar competition at the individual and population level, recurring diachronic pathways, and links between acquisition biases and diachronic processes. This book is therefore a great companion to the recent literature on the micro- versus macro-approaches to parameters in synchronic syntax. One of its important contributions is the demonstration of how much we can learn about synchronic linguistics through the way languages change: the case studies included provide diachronic insight into many syntactic constructions that have been the target of extensive recent synchronic research, including tense, aspect, relative clauses, stylistic fronting, verb second, demonstratives, and negation. Languages discussed include several archaic and contemporary Romance and Germanic varieties, as well as Greek, Hungarian, and Chinese, among many others.

Historical Syntax in Cross-Linguistic Perspective

Historical Syntax in Cross-Linguistic Perspective PDF Author: Alice C. Harris
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521478816
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
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.

Austroasiatic Syntax in Areal and Diachronic Perspective

Austroasiatic Syntax in Areal and Diachronic Perspective PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004425608
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
This volume elevates historical morpho-syntax to a research priority in the field of Southeast Asian language history, transcending the traditional focus on phonology and lexicon. The eleven chapters reflect work by 13 leading researchers in Austroasiatic language studies.

Diachronic and Comparative Syntax

Diachronic and Comparative Syntax PDF Author: Ian Roberts
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315310554
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 582

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Book Description
This book brings together for the first time a series of previously published papers featuring Ian Roberts’ pioneering work on diachronic and comparative syntax over the last thirty years in one comprehensive volume. Divided into two parts, the volume engages in recent key topics in empirical studies of syntactic theory, with the eight papers on diachronic syntax addressing major changes in the history of English as well as broader aspects of syntactic change, including the introduction to the formal approach to grammaticalisation, and the eight papers on comparative syntax exploring head-movement, the nature and distribution of clitics, and the nature of parametric variation and change. This comprehensive collection of the author’s body of research on diachronic and comparative syntax is an essential resource for scholars and researchers in theoretical, comparative, and historical linguistics.

Micro-change and Macro-change in Diachronic Syntax

Micro-change and Macro-change in Diachronic Syntax PDF Author: Eric Mathieu
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198747845
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
Annotation This volume addresses syntactic change at the macro and the micro level, and explores how these different levels of change are related. It includes numerous case studies of changes in syntactic constructions including relative clauses, verb second, and negation, in a range of languages.

Papers from the Parasession on Diachronic Syntax, April 22, 1976

Papers from the Parasession on Diachronic Syntax, April 22, 1976 PDF Author: Chicago Linguistic Society
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Grammar, Comparative and general
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description


Syntax over Time

Syntax over Time PDF Author: Theresa Biberauer
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191511749
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
This book provides a critical investigation of syntactic change and the factors that influence it. Converging empirical and theoretical considerations have suggested that apparent instances of syntactic change may be attributable to factors outside syntax proper, such as morphology or information structure. Some even go so far as to propose that there is no such thing as syntactic change, and that all such change in fact takes place in the lexicon or in the phonological component. In this volume, international scholars examine these proposals, drawing on detailed case studies from Germanic, Romance, Chinese, Egyptian, Finnic, Hungarian, and Sámi. They aim to answer such questions as: Can syntactic change arise without an external impetus? How can we tell whether a given change is caused by information-structural or morphological factors? What can 'microsyntactic' investigations of changes in individual lexical items tell us about the bigger picture? How universal are the clausal and nominal templates ('cartography'), and to what extent is syntactic structure more generally subject to universal constraints? The book will be of interest to all linguists working on syntactic variation and change, and especially those who believe that historical linguistics and linguistic theory can, and should, inform one another.