Developments in English Historical Morpho-Syntax

Developments in English Historical Morpho-Syntax
Author: Claudia Claridge
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2019-06-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027262470

Spanning the time from Old English to modern American English, this volume provides fresh perspectives on core issues and theories in the morphosyntactic history of English nominal, verbal and adverbial constructions. The contributions discuss the loss, rise and restructuring of morphonological marking, periphrastic verbal constructions, auxiliary variation and evolution, as well as changing word order options. Favouring corpus-linguistic, frequency-based and statistical approaches, the studies are firmly empirically grounded. The book is aimed at scholars interested in the history of the English language and in language variation and change.

Morphosyntactic Change

Morphosyntactic Change
Author: Olga Fischer
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2007
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0199267049

This book presents a critical comparison of the two leading theories of linguistic change. After introducing the aims and methods of historical linguistics, Olga Fischer provides an exposition of the main theories used to describe morphosyntactic change and a full account of the causes and mechanisms by which their leading exponents seek to explain it. She measures the effectiveness of rival theories and methods in different contexts and in the process throws fresh light on the balance of factors influencing linguistic change. Professor Fischer emphazises the unity of form and meaning in the linguistic sign and examines the role played by analogy. She looks at how changes in discourse, lexicon, semantics, pragmatics, and sound interact with changes in morphosyntax, and explores the relationship between external and internal causes of change. She considers whether morphosyntactic change is gradual or abrupt and discusses how far rates of change reflect the degree to which grammar is innate or learned. She uses detailed case studies to illustrate different types of morphosyntactic change, and to show how each theory fares when put into practice. The author's clear style and her balanced approach to this fascinating and complex subject combine to make this a book that will be of central interest and value to scholars and students of linguistic change, at graduate level and above.

Developments in English

Developments in English
Author: Irma Taavitsainen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2014-10-31
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1316061175

The history of the English language is a vast and diverse area of research. In this volume, a team of leading historians of English come together to analyse 'real' language, drawing on corpus data to shed new light on long-established issues and debates in the field. Combining synchronic and diachronic analysis, the chapters address the major issues in corpus linguistics – methodological, theoretical and applied – and place special focus on the use of electronic resources in the research of English and the wider field of digital humanities. Topics covered include polemical articles on the optimal use of corpus linguistic methods, macro-level patterns of text and discourse organisation, and micro-features such as interjections and hesitators. Covering Englishes from the past and present, this book is designed specifically for graduate students and researchers working in fields of corpus linguistics, the history of the English language, and historical linguistics.

Information Structure and Syntactic Change in the History of English

Information Structure and Syntactic Change in the History of English
Author: Anneli Meurman-Solin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2012-08-02
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0199860211

The unifying topic of this volume is the role of information structure, broadly conceived, as it interacts with the other levels of linguistic description, syntax, morphology, prosody, semantics and pragmatics.

Constructional Change in English

Constructional Change in English
Author: Martin Hilpert
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2013-02-28
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1107013488

Is construction grammar a useful framework for the study of language change? Hilpert combines the current linguistic theory of construction grammar with advanced corpus-based methodology in order to study language change in a new way. This new perspective has wide-ranging consequences for the way historical linguists think about language change.

New Perspectives on English Historical Linguistics: Syntax and morphology

New Perspectives on English Historical Linguistics: Syntax and morphology
Author: Christian Kay
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2004-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027247633

This is the first of two volumes of papers selected from those given at the 12th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics. The second is New Perspectives on English Historical Linguistics (2): Lexis and Transmission. Together the volumes provide an overview of many of the issues that are currently engaging practitioners in the field. In this volume, the primary concern is with the historical grammar of English. Some papers take a broad overview of the subject, positioning it within current advances in linguistic theory, while others deal with specific points of syntax and morphology in a historical context. There is a recurrent emphasis on data collection and analysis, with a chronological range from Old to Present Day English, and a geographical spread from Scotland to Newfoundland. Contributions from scholars around the world remind us that not only English itself but the history of English is now an international possession.

The Cambridge Handbook of English Historical Linguistics

The Cambridge Handbook of English Historical Linguistics
Author: Merja Kytö
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 1092
Release: 2016-05-03
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1316472914

English historical linguistics is a subfield of linguistics which has developed theories and methods for exploring the history of the English language. This Handbook provides an account of state-of-the-art research on this history. It offers an in-depth survey of materials, methods, and language-theoretical models used to study the long diachrony of English. The frameworks covered include corpus linguistics, historical sociolinguistics, historical pragmatics and manuscript studies, among others. The chapters, by leading experts, examine the interplay of language theory and empirical data throughout, critically assessing the work in the field. Of particular importance are the diverse data sources which have become increasingly available in electronic form, allowing the discipline to develop in new directions. The Handbook offers access to the rich and many-faceted spectrum of work in English historical linguistics, past and present, and will be useful for researchers and students interested in hands-on research on the history of English.

A Brief History of English Syntax

A Brief History of English Syntax
Author: Olga Fischer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2017-06-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0521768586

An accessible, up-to-date account of the major changes in English syntax since its beginnings up to the present day.

Historical Syntax in Cross-Linguistic Perspective

Historical Syntax in Cross-Linguistic Perspective
Author: Alice C. Harris
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 512
Release: 1995-09-21
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780521478816

In this major new work Alice Harris and Lyle Campbell set out to establish a general framework for the investigation of linguistic change. Systematic cross-linguistic comparison of syntactic change across a wide variety of languages is used to construct hypotheses about the universals and limits of language change more generally. In particular, the authors seek to move closer towards describing the range of causes of syntactic change to develop an understanding of the mechanisms of syntactic change, and to provide an understanding of why some languages undergo certain changes and not others. The authors draw on languages as diverse as Pipil and French, Georgian and Estonian, and the data presented is one of the book's great strengths. Rigor and precision are combined here with a great breadth of scholarship to produce a unique resource for the study of linguistic change, which will be of use to scholars and students alike.

Heritage Languages and Their Speakers

Heritage Languages and Their Speakers
Author: Maria Polinsky
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2018-08-16
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1107047641

A pioneering study of heritage languages, from a leading scholar in this area of study world-wide.