Diachronic Changes Underlying Synchronic Distribution

Diachronic Changes Underlying Synchronic Distribution PDF Author: I-Hsuan Chen
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811301700
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
This book deals with synchronic variation in Chinese through a diachronic lens, based on the evidence from a quantitative, longitudinal corpus study. Departing from the traditional analysis in diachronic changes in Chinese linguistics, the cognitive constructionist approach employed in this book is able to capture incremental changes by combining syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Topics such as word order, focus, scopes of quantifiers, information structure, and negation have been important issues in linguistics, but they are rarely integrated as a whole. The book makes their diachronic interactions available to the students and researchers in the fields of general and Chinese linguistics.

Diachronic Changes Underlying Synchronic Distribution

Diachronic Changes Underlying Synchronic Distribution PDF Author: I-Hsuan Chen
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811301700
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book

Book Description
This book deals with synchronic variation in Chinese through a diachronic lens, based on the evidence from a quantitative, longitudinal corpus study. Departing from the traditional analysis in diachronic changes in Chinese linguistics, the cognitive constructionist approach employed in this book is able to capture incremental changes by combining syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Topics such as word order, focus, scopes of quantifiers, information structure, and negation have been important issues in linguistics, but they are rarely integrated as a whole. The book makes their diachronic interactions available to the students and researchers in the fields of general and Chinese linguistics.

Diachronic Construction Grammar

Diachronic Construction Grammar PDF Author: Jóhanna Barðdal
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027268614
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
Construction Grammar as a framework offers a new perspective on traditional historical questions in diachronic linguistics and language change: how do new constructions arise, how should competition in diachronic variation be accounted for, how do constructions fall into disuse, and how do constructions change in general, formally and/or semantically, and with what implications for the language system as a whole? This volume offers a broad introduction to the confluence of Construction Grammar and historical syntax, and also detailed case studies of various instances of syntactic change modeled within Construction Grammar. The volume demonstrates that Construction Grammar as a theory is particularly well suited for modeling historical changes in morphosyntax, and it also documents challenging new phenomena that require a theoretical account within any competing framework of syntactic change.

Categories, Constructions, and Change in English Syntax

Categories, Constructions, and Change in English Syntax PDF Author: Nuria Yáñez-Bouza
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108419569
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
Explores categories, constructions, and change in the syntax of English, both past and present, methodologically and theoretically.

Synchrony and Diachrony

Synchrony and Diachrony PDF Author: Anna Giacalone Ramat
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027272077
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
The focus of this volume is on the relation between synchrony and diachrony. It is examined in the light of the most recent theories of language change and linguistic variation. What has traditionally been treated as a dichotomy is now seen rather in terms of a dynamic interface. The contributions to this volume aim at exploring the most adequate tools to describe and understand the manifestations of this dynamic interface. Thorough analyses are offered on hot topics of the current linguistic debate, which are all involved in the analysis of the synchrony-diachrony interface: gradualness of change, synchronic variation and gradience, constructional approaches to grammaticalization, the role of contact-induced transfer in language change, analogy. Case studies are discussed from a variety of languages and dialects including English, Welsh, Latin, Italian and Italian dialects, Dutch, Swedish, German and German dialects, Hungarian. This volume is of great interest to a broad audience within linguistics, including historical linguistics, typology, pragmatics, and areal linguistics.

Spreading Patterns

Spreading Patterns PDF Author: Hendrik De Smet
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199812756
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
Examines the emergence and spread of three types of complements from the Middle English period to the present day

Survival of the Fittest

Survival of the Fittest PDF Author: Karolina Broś
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443879258
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
Survival of the Fittest provides an in-depth analysis of weakening processes attested in Spanish and English within the framework of Optimality Theory (OT). The book examines fricative lenition as an instance of sound change in progress, contributing to the study of phonological change and the notion of strength in phonology. It also provides motivation for the introduction of a derivational stage in OT analysis. A critical discussion of various OT sub-theories presented by the author leads to interesting conclusions concerning the way in which lenition and opacity processes should be addressed in OT. Furthermore, under the assumption that language change should be conceived in evolutionary terms, the book concludes that sounds undergo continuous modification which is not at all accidental. The direction of change tends to be a constant on the temporal axis, and the leniting character of a large portion of phonological processes observed in the world’s languages points to the universal tendency for sounds to gradually fade and give way to other, stronger segments, which may be interpreted as an instantiation of ‘'natural selection’ within language. In taking a broader perspective on language, the book considers phonological processes to be successors of phonetic innovations, and predecessors of morphological and lexical shifts. Thus, in order to encompass more than just a formal discussion of certain phonological phenomena, this book pursues the more profound question of why and how certain regularities within irregularities are attested across languages. The empirical data from Chilean Spanish and English serve as instantiations of these universal patterns.

The Power of Analogy

The Power of Analogy PDF Author: Dieter Wanner
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 9783110188738
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
This study demonstrates how historical linguistics regains a central role for the understanding of language as soon as the artificial distinction between synchrony and diachrony is abandoned. The author systematically explores the potential of the concept of analogy within the new framework of "Soft Syntax," illustrating his analysis with numerous examples from the history of the Romance languages. He shows that the openness of analogy allows historical linguistics to improve on old problems and to ask new questions about language change.

The Cambridge Companion to English Dictionaries

The Cambridge Companion to English Dictionaries PDF Author: Sarah Ogilvie
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108568459
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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Book Description
How did a single genre of text have the power to standardise the English language across time and region, rival the Bible in notions of authority, and challenge our understanding of objectivity, prescription, and description? Since the first monolingual dictionary appeared in 1604, the genre has sparked evolution, innovation, devotion, plagiarism, and controversy. This comprehensive volume presents an overview of essential issues pertaining to dictionary style and content and a fresh narrative of the development of English dictionaries throughout the centuries. Essays on the regional and global nature of English lexicography (dictionary making) explore its power in standardising varieties of English and defining nations seeking independence from the British Empire: from Canada to the Caribbean. Leading scholars and lexicographers historically contextualise an array of dictionaries and pose urgent theoretical and methodological questions relating to their role as tools of standardisation, prestige, power, education, literacy, and national identity.

Cycles in Language Change

Cycles in Language Change PDF Author: Miriam Bouzouita
Publisher: Oxford Studies in Diachronic a
ISBN: 0198824963
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
This volume explores the multiple aspects of cyclical syntactic change from a wide range of empirical perspectives. The notion of 'linguistic cycle' has long been recognized as being relevant to the description of many processes of language change. In grammaticalization, a given linguistic form loses its lexical meaning - and sometimes some of its phonological content - and then gradually weakens until it ultimately vanishes. This change becomes cyclical when the grammaticalized form is replaced by an innovative item, which can then develop along exactly the same pathway. But cyclical changes have also been observed in language change outside of grammaticalization proper. The chapters in this book reflect the growing interest in the phenomenon of grammaticalization and cyclicity in generative syntax, with topics including the diachrony of negation, the syntax of determiners and pronominal clitics, the internal structure of wh-words and logical operators, cyclical changes in argument structure, and the relationship between morphology and syntax. The contributions draw on data from multiple language families, such as Indo-European, Semitic, Japonic, and Athabascan. The volume combines empirical descriptions of novel comparative data with detailed theoretical analysis, and will appeal to historical linguists working in formal and usage-based frameworks, as well as to typologists and scholars interested in language variation and change more broadly.

On Understanding Grammar

On Understanding Grammar PDF Author: Talmy Givón
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 1483259935
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
On Understanding Grammar covers the interdependencies among the various aspects of linguistics and the human language. This eight-chapter text considers some pertinent topics in linguistics, such as discourse-pragmatics, diachronic syntax, topology, creology, method, and ontology. Chapter 1 describes the notions of fact, theory, and explanation, particularly about how these notions manifest themselves in actual practice. Chapter 2 redefines syntax in terms of communicative function and discourse-pragmatics, and about the relation between the function of grammatical devices and their formal properties. Chapter 3 deals with discourse-pragmatics and how it transcends the narrow bounds of deductive logic, as well as the function and ontology of negation in language, and how those relate to the fundamental information-theoretic principle of figure versus ground. Chapter 4 explores the two major aspects of case systems, namely, the semantic role and pragmatic function, and how the two interact in determining the typological characteristics of grammars. Chapter 5 examines the relation between discourse and syntax based on diachronic, ontogenetic, phylogenetic viewpoints. Chapter 6 tackles the relation between synchronic grammar and diachronic change, while Chapter 7 describes the relationship between human language and its phylogenetic evolution. Chapter 8 is about language and ontology, as well as the relation between cognition and the universe. This book will prove useful to linguistics and language researchers.