Explaining Language Change

Explaining Language Change PDF Author: William Croft
Publisher: Pearson Education
ISBN: 9780582356771
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
William Croft's text weaves together recent research findings from sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, grammatical change, pragmatics, social variation, language contact and genetic linguistics.

Explaining Language Change

Explaining Language Change PDF Author: William Croft
Publisher: Pearson Education
ISBN: 9780582356771
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
William Croft's text weaves together recent research findings from sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, grammatical change, pragmatics, social variation, language contact and genetic linguistics.

Understanding Language Change

Understanding Language Change PDF Author: April M. S. McMahon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521446655
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
This textbook analyses changes from every area of grammar and addresses recent developments in socio-historical linguistics.

Understanding Language Change

Understanding Language Change PDF Author: Kate Burridge
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1315463008
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
2 Changes to the lexicon -- Introduction -- 2.1 Gaining words - lexical addition -- 2.1.1 Compounding -- 2.1.2 Affixation -- 2.1.3 Backformation -- 2.1.4 Conversion -- 2.1.5 Abbreviation -- 2.1.6 Acronyms -- 2.1.7 Blending -- 2.1.8 Commonization -- 2.1.9 Reduplication -- 2.1.10 Borrowing -- 2.1.11 Sound symbolism -- 2.1.12 A final word on the processes -- 2.2 Losing words - lexical mortality -- 2.2.1 Obsolescence -- 2.2.2 "Verbicide"--2.2.3 Reduction -- 2.2.4 Intolerable homonymy -- 2.3 Etymology - study of the origin of words -- Summary -- Further reading -- Exercises

Language Change

Language Change PDF Author: Jean Aitchison
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521795357
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
This is a lucid and up-to-date overview of language change. It discusses where our evidence about language change comes from, how and why changes happen, and how languages begin and end. It considers both changes which occurred long ago, and those currently in progress. It does this within the framework of one central question - is language change a symptom of progress or decay? It concludes that language is neither progressing nor decaying, but that an understanding of the factors surrounding change is essential for anyone concerned about language alteration. For this substantially revised third edition, Jean Aitchison has included two new chapters on change of meaning and grammaticalization. Sections on new methods of reconstruction and ongoing chain shifts in Britain and America have also been added as well as over 150 new references. The work remains non-technical in style and accessible to readers with no previous knowledge of linguistics.

Changing Minds Changing Tools

Changing Minds Changing Tools PDF Author: Vsevolod Kapatsinski
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262037866
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
A book that uses domain-general learning theory to explain recurrent trajectories of language change. In this book, Vsevolod Kapatsinski argues that language acquisition—often approached as an isolated domain, subject to its own laws and mechanisms—is simply learning, subject to the same laws as learning in other domains and well described by associative models. Synthesizing research in domain-general learning theory as it relates to language acquisition, Kapatsinski argues that the way minds change as a result of experience can help explain how languages change over time and can predict the likely directions of language change—which in turn predicts what kinds of structures we find in the languages of the world. What we know about how we learn (the core question of learning theory) can help us understand why languages are the way they are (the core question of theoretical linguistics). Taking a dynamic, usage-based perspective, Kapatsinski focuses on diachronic universals, recurrent pathways of language change, rather than synchronic universals, properties that all languages share. Topics include associative approaches to learning and the neural implementation of the proposed mechanisms; selective attention; units of language; a comparison of associative and Bayesian approaches to learning; representation in the mind of visual and auditory experience; the production of new words and new forms of words; and automatization of repeated action sequences. This approach brings us closer to understanding why languages are the way they are, Kapatsinski contends, than approaches premised on innate knowledge of language universals and the language acquisition device.

On Explaining Language Change

On Explaining Language Change PDF Author: Lass
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521228367
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Roger Lass is concerned about the nature of argumentation within linguistics and the status of its data and theoretical constructs. Through an examination of standard strategies of explanation in historical linguistics (particularly of phonological change), in the light of past approaches to scientific epistemology, Dr Lass convincingly demonstrates that attempts to model explanations of linguistic change on those of the physical sciences are failures both in practice and in principle. Linguists can neither assimilate their discipline crudely to the natural or the other human sciences nor, at the other extreme, shelter behind the notion of a private self-validating paradigm. Although Dr Lass outlines some tentative paths towards an alternative epistemology, his main concern is that linguists should confront the philosophical implications of their subject, and he raises questions which both linguists and philosophers will need to consider.

The Changing English Language

The Changing English Language PDF Author: Marianne Hundt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107086868
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 431

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Book Description
Experts from psycholinguistics and English historical linguistics address core factors in language change.

Language Change

Language Change PDF Author: Joan Bybee
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107020166
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
This new introduction explores all aspects of language change, with an emphasis on the role of cognition and language use.

Historical Linguistics and Language Change

Historical Linguistics and Language Change PDF Author: Roger Lass
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521459242
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
Roger Lass offers a critical survey of the foundations of the art of historical linguistics.

Words Matter

Words Matter PDF Author: Sally McConnell-Ginet
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108427219
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 339

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Book Description
Featuring current and historical concrete examples and minimising technical vocabulary, Words Matter is for all interested in examining ideas about language and its connections to social conflict and change. Accessible to general readers, the book will also be useful in linguistics, philosophy, anthropology, or other classes featuring language.