Reorganising grammatical variation : diachronic studies in the rentention, redistribution and refunctionalisation of linguistic variants / edited by Antje Dammel, Matthias Eitelmann, Mirjam Schmuck ; [[contributors], Elżbieta Adamczyk [and others]].

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Dammel, Antje, editor.

Eitelmann, Matthias, editor.

Schmuck, Mirjam, 1977- editor.

Adamczyk, Elżbieta, 1976- contributor.

Series:

Studies in language companion series ; 0165-7763 v. 203.

Studies in language companion series (SLCS), 0165-7763 ; volume 203

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Language and languages--Variation.

Language and languages.

Grammar, Comparative and general.

Physical Description:

302 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : John Benjamins Publishing Company, [2018]

Summary:

"With most studies on grammatical variation concentrating on the synchronic level, a systematic investigation of long-term grammatical variation within the context of language change, i.e. from a predominantly diachronic perspective, has largely remained a desideratum. The present volume fills this research gap by bringing together nine empirically rich bottom-up case studies on morphological and morphosyntactic variation phenomena in standard and dialect varieties of Indo-European languages (Germanic, Romance, Greek). While variation has often been regarded as merely a transitory epiphenomenal symptom of change, the findings of this volume show that variation is a resilient feature of human language and answer the question what makes variation time-stable. Bridging the gap between corpus-based research on language variation and more theory-driven typological and functional approaches, the volume is of special interest for all researchers concerned with interface phenomena seeking to gain a broader understanding of the mechanisms of linguistic variation and change"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: on the role of reorganisation in long-term variation and change and its theoretical implications / Antje Dammel, Matthias Eitelmann and Mirjam Schmuck

Plural inflection in North Sea Germanic languages: a multivariate analysis of morphological variation / Arjen P. Versloot and Elzbieta Adamczyk

Frequency as a key to language change and reorganisation: on subtraction in German dialects / Magnus Breder Birkenes

The history of the mixed inflection of German masculine and neuter nouns: sound shapes, dialectal variation, typology / Elke Ronneberger-Sibold

Genesis and diachronic persistence of overabundance: data from romance languages / Chiara Cappellaro

Ablaut reorganisation: the case of German x-o-o / Jessica Nowak

Reorganising voice in the history of Greek: split complexity and prescriptivism / Nikolaos Lavidas

Making sense of grammatical variation in Norwegian / Marianne Brodahl Sameien, Eivor Finset Spilling and Hans-Olav Enger

Manner of motion and semantic transitivity: a usage-based perspective on change and continuity in the system of the German perfect auxiliaries haben and sein / Melitta Gillmann

Active and passive tough-infinitives: a case of long-term grammatical variation / Dagmar Haumann.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Reorganising grammatical variation

ISBN:

9789027201645

9027201641

OCLC:

1057241358