Historical Syntax and Linguistic Theory

✍ Scribed by Paola Crisma, Giuseppe Longobardi

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 432
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book of new work by leading international scholars considers developments in the study of diachronic linguistics and linguistic theory, including those concerned with the very definition of language change in the biolinguistic framework, parametric change in a minimalist conception of grammar, the tension between the observed gradual nature of language change and the binary nature of parameters, and whether syntactic change can be triggered internally or requires the external stimuli produced by phonological or morphological change or through language contact. It then tests their value and applicability by examining syntactic change at different times and in a wide range of languages, including German, Chinese, Dutch, Sanskrit, Egyptian, Norwegian, old Italian, Portuguese, English, the Benue-Kwa languages of Niger-Congo, Catalan, Spanish, and old French. The book is divided into three parts devoted to (i) theoretical issues in historical syntax; (ii) external (such as contact and interference) and internal (grammatical) sources of morphosynactic change; and (iii) parameter setting and reanalysis.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 6
Notes on Contributors......Page 8
Foreword......Page 14
1 Change, relatedness, and inertia in historical syntax......Page 16
Part I: Theoretical issues in historical syntax......Page 30
2 Linguistic theory and the historical creation of English reflexives......Page 32
3 Spontaneous syntactic change......Page 56
4 The return of the Subset Principle......Page 73
5 Many small catastrophes: gradualism in a microparametric perspective......Page 90
Part II: External and internal sources of morphosyntactic change......Page 106
6 Feature economy in the Linguistic Cycle......Page 108
7 Sources of change in the German syntax of negation......Page 125
8 The consolidation of verb-second in Old High German: What role did subject pronouns play?......Page 143
9 Syntactic change as chain reaction: the emergence of hyper-raising in Brazilian Portuguese......Page 159
10 On the emergence of TER as an existential verb in Brazilian Portuguese......Page 173
11 Gradience and auxiliary selection in Old Catalan and Old Spanish......Page 191
12 Verb-to-preposition reanalysis in Chinese......Page 209
13 Downward reanalysis and the rise of stative HAVE got......Page 227
Part III: Parameter resetting and reanalysis......Page 246
14 The Old Chinese determiner zhe......Page 248
15 Grammaticalization of modals in Dutch: uncontingent change......Page 265
16 Correlative clause features in Sanskrit and Hindi/Urdu......Page 286
17 Towards a Diachronic Theory of Genitive Assignment in Romance......Page 307
18 Expletive pro and misagreement in Late Middle English......Page 326
19 Morphosyntactic parameters and the internal classification of Benue-Kwa (Niger-Congo)......Page 344
20 On the Germanic properties of Old French......Page 359
21 A parametric shift in the D-system in Early Middle English: relativization, articles, adjectival inflection, and indeterminates......Page 373
References......Page 390
C......Page 428
G......Page 429
N......Page 430
S......Page 431
Y......Page 432

✦ Subjects

Языки и языкознание;Лингвистика;Синтаксис;