Mechanisms of syntactic change/monograph / edited by Charles N. Li.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Li, Charles N., editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Grammar, Comparative and general--Syntax--Congresses.

Linguistic change--Congresses.

Grammar, Comparative and general--Syntax.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (641 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Austin, Texas : University of Texas Press, 2012.

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Participants

Acknowledgments

Introduction

I. The Nature of Syntactic Change

1. On the Gradual Nature of Syntactic Change

2. Syntactic Reanalysis

3. Reanalysis and Actualization in Syntactic Change

II. Word Order Change

4. The Drift from VSO to SVO in Biblical Hebrew: The Pragmatics of Tense-Aspect

5. Syntactic Change and SOV Structure: The Yuman Case

6. Motivations for Exbraciation in Old English

III. Syntactic Change and Ergativity

7. On Mechanisms by Which Languages Become Ergative

8. The Syntactic Development of Australian Languages

IV. Development of the Copula

9. A Mechanism for the Development of Copula Morphemes

10. From Existential to Copula: The History of Yuman BE

V. Clisis and Verb Morphology

11. The Evolution of Third Person Verb Agreement in the Iroquoian Languages

12. From Auxiliary Verb Phrase to Inflectional Suffix

13. Clisis and Diachrony

VI. Multiple Analyses

14. Multiple Analyses

Author Index

Language Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4773-0104-6

OCLC:

1286807396