Language Change at the Syntax-Semantics Interface

✍ Scribed by Gianollo, Chiara(Editor);Jäger, Agnes(Editor);Penka, Doris(Editor)

• Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
• Year: 2015
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 368
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This volume focuses on the interplay of syntactic and semantic factors in language change. The contributions draw on data from numerous Indo-European languages and address the question of how syntactic and semantic change are linked and whether both are governed by similar constraints, principles and systematic mechanisms. The volume will appeal to scholars in historical linguistics and formal theories of syntax and semantics.

✦ Table of Contents

Preface and acknowledgements......Page 5
Table of contents......Page 7
1 Language change at the syntax-semantics interface. Perspectives and challenges......Page 9
2 Semantic and formal features: Feature economy in language change......Page 41
3 Linking syntax and semantics of adnominal possession in the history of German......Page 65
4 Most historically......Page 109
5 The “indefinite article” from cardinal to operator to expletive......Page 133
6 The Greek Septuagint and language change at the syntax-semantics interface: from null to “pleonastic” object pronouns......Page 161
7 The agreement of collective nouns in the history of Ancient Greek and German......Page 191
8 Vedic local particles at the syntax-semantics interface......Page 231
9 Aspect shifts in Indo-Aryan and trajectories of semantic change......Page 269
10 The development of conditional should in English......Page 301
11 The Greek Jespersen’s cycle: Renewal, stability and structural microelevation......Page 331
Subject index......Page 363