Categories, Constructions, and Change in English Syntax

Categories, Constructions, and Change in English Syntax
Author: Nuria Yáñez-Bouza
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 423
Release: 2022-06-09
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9781108411424

A pioneering collection of new research that explores categories, constructions, and change in the syntax of the English language. The volume, with contributions by world-renowned scholars as well as some emerging scholars in the field, covers a wide variety of approaches to grammatical categories and categorial change, constructions and constructional change, and comparative and typological research. Each of the fourteen chapters, based on the analysis of authentic data, highlights the wealth and breadth of the study of English syntax (including morphosyntax), both theoretically and empirically, from Old English through to the present day. The result is a body of research which will add substantially to the current study of the syntax of the English language, by stimulating further research in the field.

Categories, Constructions, and Change in English Syntax

Categories, Constructions, and Change in English Syntax
Author: Nuria Yáñez-Bouza
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 425
Release: 2019
Genre: English language
ISBN: 1108419569

A pioneering collection of new research that explores categories, constructions, and change in the syntax of the English language. The volume, with contributions by world-renowned scholars as well as some emerging scholars in the field, covers a wide variety of approaches to grammatical categories and categorial change, constructions and constructional change, and comparative and typological research. Each of the fourteen chapters, based on the analysis of authentic data, highlights the wealth and breadth of the study of English syntax (including morphosyntax), both theoretically and empirically, from Old English through to the present day. The result is a body of research which will add substantially to the current study of the syntax of the English language, by stimulating further research in the field.

Late Modern English Syntax

Late Modern English Syntax
Author: Marianne Hundt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 409
Release: 2014-08-14
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1107032792

Using increasingly sophisticated databases, this volume explores grammatical usage from the Late Modern period in a broad context.

Construction Grammar and its Application to English

Construction Grammar and its Application to English
Author: Martin Hilpert
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2014-03-17
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0748675868

Construction Grammar explains how knowledge of language is organized in speakers' minds. The central and radical claim of Construction Grammar is that linguistic knowledge can be fully described as knowledge of constructions, which are defined as symbolic units that connect a linguistic form with meaning.

Category Change from a Constructional Perspective

Category Change from a Constructional Perspective
Author: Kristel Van Goethem
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2018-03-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 902726435X

Category change, broadly defined as the shift from one word class to another, is often studied as part of other changes, such as grammaticalization or lexicalization, but not in its own right. This volume offers a survey of different types of category change and their properties, e.g. abrupt versus gradual changes, morphological versus syntactic changes, or context-independent versus context-sensitive changes. The purpose of this collection of papers is to explore the concepts of linguistic category and category change from the perspective of Construction Grammar. Using data from a variety of languages, the authors address a number of themes that are central to current theorizing about category change, such as the question of whether or not categories should be considered discrete entities, how new categories arise, or whether category change can be considered as the emergence of a new construction, i.e. a new form-meaning pairing. The novel approach advanced in this volume will be of interest to historical linguists as well as to general linguists working on the nature of linguistic categories.

Radical Construction Grammar

Radical Construction Grammar
Author: William Croft
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2001
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780198299547

This book is based on the results of research in language typology, and motivated by the need for a theory to explain them. Croft proposes intimate links between syntactic and semantic structures, and argues that the basic elements of any language are not syntactic but rather syntactic-semantic "Gestalts." He puts forward a new approach to syntactic representation and a new model of how language and languages work.

Syntactic Constructions in English

Syntactic Constructions in English
Author: Jong-Bok Kim
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2020-05-21
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1108634753

Construction grammar (CxG) is a framework for syntactic analysis that takes constructions - pairings of form and meaning that range from the highly idiomatic to the very general - to be the building blocks of sentence meaning. Offering the first comprehensive introduction to CxG to focus on both English words and the constructions that combine them, this textbook shows students not only what the analyses of particular structures are, but also how and why those analyses are constructed, with each chapter taking the student step-by-step through the reasoning processes that yield the best description of a data set. It offers a wealth of illustrative examples and exercises, largely based on real language data, making it ideal for both self-study and classroom use. Written in an accessible and engaging way, this textbook will open up this increasingly popular linguistic framework to anyone interested in the grammatical patterns of English.

Twentieth-Century English

Twentieth-Century English
Author: Christian Mair
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 26
Release: 2006-10-26
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1139459627

Standard English has evolved and developed in many ways over the past hundred years. From pronunciation to vocabulary to grammar, this concise survey clearly documents the recent history of Standard English. Drawing on large amounts of authentic corpus data, it shows how we can track ongoing changes to the language, and demonstrates each of the major developments that have taken place. As well as taking insights from a vast body of literature, Christian Mair presents the results of his own cutting-edge research, revealing some important changes which have not been previously documented. He concludes by exploring how social and cultural factors, such as the American influence on British English, have affected Standard English in recent times. Authoritative, informative and engaging, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in language change in progress, particularly those working on English, and will be welcomed by students, researchers and language teachers alike.

The syntax of early English

The syntax of early English
Author: Olga Fischer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2000
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 9780521556262

This book is a guide to the development of English syntax between the Old and Modern periods. Beginning with an overview of the main features of early English syntax, it gives a unified account of the significant grammatical changes that occurred during this period. Four leading experts demonstrate how these changes can be explained in terms of grammatical theory and the theory of language acquisition. Drawing on a wealth of empirical data, the book covers a wide range of topics including changes in word order, infinitival constructions and grammaticalization processes.

Lost in Change

Lost in Change
Author: Svenja Kranich
Publisher: Studies in Language Companion Series
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2021
Genre: Language obsolescence
ISBN: 9789027208637

So far a systematic investigation into the processes and motivations of decline and loss in language change is lacking. This book is a first step towards remedying this state of affairs.