Continuity and Change in Grammar (Linguistik Aktuell Linguistics Today)

✍ Scribed by Anne Breitbarth, Christopher Lucas, Sheila Watts, Dr. David Willis (editors)

• Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 369
• Series: Linguistik Aktuell / Linguistics Today volume 159
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

One of the principal challenges of historical linguistics is to explain the causes of language change. Any such explanation, however, must also address the ‘actuation problem’: why is it that changes occurring in a given language at a certain time cannot be reliably predicted to recur in other languages, under apparently similar conditions? The sixteen contributions to the present volume each aim to elucidate various aspects of this problem, including: What processes can be identified as the drivers of change? How central are syntax-external (phonological, lexical or contact-based) factors in triggering syntactic change? And how can all of these factors be reconciled with the actuation problem? Exploring data from a wide range of languages from both a formal and a functional perspective, this book promises to be of interest to advanced students and researchers in historical linguistics, syntax and their intersection.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover Page......Page 1
Continuity and Change in Grammar......Page 2
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA) Editorial Page......Page 3
Title: Continuity and Change in Grammar......Page 4
ISBN 9789027255426......Page 5
Table of contents......Page 6
List of contributors......Page 8
1. Approaches to continuity and change......Page 10
2. Continuity......Page 13
3. Change......Page 15
Acknowledgements......Page 17
References......Page 18
Part I. Continuity......Page 20
1. Introduction......Page 44
2. The Final-over-Final Constraint......Page 45
3. FOFC and diachronic change......Page 51
3.1 OV to VO in the history of English......Page 52
3.2 OV to VO in the history of French......Page 54
3.3 Word-order variation in Afrikaans......Page 55
4. FOFC and borrowing......Page 57
5. Conclusion......Page 63
References......Page 64
1. Introduction......Page 22
2. Case study 1: Pro-drop in German......Page 24
2.1 Pro-drop in the modern dialects......Page 25
2.2 Pro-drop in early German......Page 27
2.3.1 The emergence of double agreement......Page 30
2.3.2 Double agreement and the rise of pro-drop......Page 32
2.3.3 Conclusion......Page 33
3.1 Negation......Page 34
3.2 Possessive constructions......Page 35
3.3 The consolidation of verb-final order......Page 36
4. Conclusion......Page 38
References......Page 39
1. Introduction......Page 70
2.1 En is a polarity marker in Flemish......Page 71
2.2.1 Emphatic contradictions......Page 72
2.2.2 Contradicting an expectation in negative sentences......Page 74
3. The historical development of Flemish en......Page 75
4. An asymmetric view of stage II......Page 76
5. Flemish preverbal en: Continuity is change......Page 79
6. Conclusion......Page 81
References......Page 82
2. Defining convergence......Page 86
3. Previous work on convergence......Page 87
4. Convergence and code-switching......Page 89
5. Convergence in Welsh......Page 90
6. The differences and similarities in Welsh and English word order......Page 91
8. Applying the MLF model to the data......Page 94
9. Cases where the source of the ML is not positively identifiable......Page 96
10. The data......Page 98
11. Results......Page 99
12. Clauses with a dichotomous Matrix Language......Page 101
13. Conclusions......Page 102
References......Page 103
1. Introduction......Page 106
2. Language contact as a promoter of linguistic change......Page 107
3. Language contact as an inhibitor of linguistic change......Page 109
4. Historical clues for contact-induced continuity in grammar......Page 112
4.1 Morphological and periphrastic future......Page 113
4.2 Obligation periphrases......Page 114
4.3 Preverbal negative concord......Page 115
4.4 Lexical-semantic transfer with syntactic consequences......Page 117
4.5 Deixis in demonstratives......Page 118
4.7 Prepositional uses ......Page 120
5. Summary and conclusions......Page 123
References......Page 124
1. Introduction......Page 128
2.1 English CI involves no movement to C......Page 130
2.2 Diachronic continuity in the syntax of CI......Page 133
3.1 CI in Modern French......Page 135
3.2 CI in earlier French......Page 141
4. Continuity in the syntax of CI......Page 143
5. Open issues and conclusions......Page 147
Major corpora and primary textual sources used in this study......Page 149
References......Page 150
1.1 Domain of inquiry......Page 154
1.2 Corpus......Page 156
2. Quantitative analysis: OV and VO word order in Middle Norwegian and Middle Low German......Page 157
2.1 Variables that affect OV/VO variation......Page 159
2.2.1 OV word order in Middle Norwegian......Page 160
2.2.2 OV word order in Middle Low German......Page 161
3.1 Retention as a result of contact......Page 162
3.2 Continuity as a result of syntactic variation......Page 164
3.3 Change as a result of syntactic variation......Page 166
4. Summary and conclusions......Page 171
Secondary sources......Page 172
Part II. Change......Page 176
1. Introduction......Page 178
2. Verb-initial languages......Page 179
3. Subject in SVO languages......Page 183
4. Conclusion......Page 186
References......Page 187
1. Introduction......Page 190
2. Theoretical background......Page 192
3. Negation in pre-Modern English......Page 195
4. Diachronic trends in English coordinate negation......Page 198
5. Analysis of affirmative + negative coordination......Page 202
6. Summary......Page 205
Primary sources......Page 206
References......Page 207
1. Introduction......Page 210
2. Some characteristics of the article in Old and Modern Spanish......Page 211
2.1 Introduction: Scope of the study......Page 212
2.2 Definite nominals......Page 215
2.3 Generics......Page 217
2.4. Singular vs. non-singular nouns......Page 218
2.5 Summary......Page 219
3.1 Nominal features......Page 220
3.2 OS and MS nominal structures: A basic difference......Page 221
3.3 From OS1 to OS2......Page 223
3.4 MS stage......Page 224
3.5 Boundaries between the sub-periods......Page 225
3.6 Some comments on untouched issues......Page 227
4. Summary and concluding remarks......Page 228
Primary sources......Page 230
References......Page 231
1. Introduction......Page 234
2. Types of non-finite clauses......Page 235
3. Verbal nouns in copular clauses......Page 240
4. Do + verbal noun in non-copular clauses......Page 243
5. Middle and Modern Irish developments......Page 250
6. Conclusion......Page 254
References......Page 256
1. Introduction......Page 258
2. The Bantu locative system......Page 259
3.1 Development of new locative morphology......Page 262
3.2 Reanalysis of historical locative noun class prefixes as locative prepositions......Page 265
3.3 Loss of locative verbal agreement marking......Page 269
3.4 Loss of relative agreement except in locative relatives......Page 271
4. Accumulation of changes and the restructuring of the locative system......Page 272
5. Conclusions......Page 274
References......Page 275
1. Introduction......Page 278
2. Successful changes......Page 280
2.1 Kroch’s model......Page 281
2.2 Evaluation of Kroch (1989)......Page 283
3. Failed changes......Page 287
3.1 Constructing a compelling case......Page 288
3.2 The refuting case: The rise of the reflexive in Middle Dutch......Page 289
4.1 The model......Page 291
4.2 Deriving the model: Accidental and inherent failures......Page 292
4.3 The symmetry of the failed change......Page 295
4.4 Explaining the model......Page 297
4.5 Applying off-grammaticality to the case study......Page 300
4.6 Evidence for the off-grammatical outset......Page 301
5. Discussion......Page 302
6. Do-support in positive declaratives in English revisited......Page 303
6.2 The normalization problem......Page 304
6.3 Calculation of the 8% level of the failed change......Page 307
7. Should all linguistic data be considered grammatical?......Page 308
Appendix......Page 309
References......Page 310
1. Introduction......Page 312
2.1 Two different notions of grammaticalization......Page 314
2.2 Two similar notions of degrammaticalization......Page 315
3.1 The verb böhöv......Page 316
3.2 Brännström’s (1933) hypothesis......Page 318
3.3 Semantic aspects of böhöv, bö X höv and bö......Page 320
3.4 The syntactic reanalyses of böhöv, bö X höv and bö......Page 321
4. Is the emergence of bö a true case of degrammaticalization?......Page 323
5. Final comments......Page 325
References......Page 326
1. Introduction......Page 330
2. The phonological change of German from a syllable language to a word language......Page 331
3.1 Old High German ni......Page 334
3.2.1 Iwein (Low Franconian)......Page 337
4. The gradual loss of the preverbal negation particle and the phonological structure of negated words......Page 338
Primary sources......Page 340
Secondary references......Page 341
1. Introduction......Page 344
2. Background and hypotheses......Page 345
3. Sources and data......Page 346
4.1 The Old Bulgarian determiner system......Page 347
4.2 Criteria......Page 348
4.3 Other modifiers inside the nominal expression......Page 351
5. Parameter shift and the loss of N-to-D movement......Page 356
7. Conclusions......Page 361
References......Page 362
Language index......Page 364
Subject index......Page 366
The series Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today......Page 369

✦ Subjects

Языки и языкознание;Лингвистика;Грамматика (общая теория);