Competing Models Of Linguistic Change

Competing Models Of Linguistic Change Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle version is available to download in english. Read online anytime anywhere directly from your device. Click on the download button below to get a free pdf file of Competing Models Of Linguistic Change book. This book definitely worth reading, it is an incredibly well-written.

Competing Models of Linguistic Change

Author : Ole Nedergaard Thomsen
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027247940

Get Book

Competing Models of Linguistic Change by Ole Nedergaard Thomsen Pdf

The articles of this volume are centered around two competing views on language change originally presented at the 2003 International Conference on Historical Linguistics in the two important plenary papers by Henning Andersen and William Croft. The latter proposes an evolutionary model of language change within a domain-neutral model of a 'generalized analysis of selection', whereas Henning Andersen takes it that cultural phenomena could not possibly be handled, i.e. observed, described, understood, in the same way as natural phenomena. These papers are models of succinct presentation of important theoretical framework. The other papers present and discuss additional models of change, e.g. invisible hand-processes, system-internal models, functional and cognitive models. Most papers do not subscribe to the evolutionary model; instead, they focus on functional factors in the selection and propagation of variants (as opposed to factors of code efficiency), or on cognitive and pragmatic perspectives. Several papers are inspired by the late Eugenio Coseriu and by Henning Andersen's theories on language change. In particular, the volume contains articles proposing interesting grammaticalization studies and extended models of grammaticalization. The clear presentation of important and competing approaches to fundamental questions concerning language change will be of high interest for scholars and students working in the field of diachrony and typology. The languages referred to in the papers include Cantonese, the Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages, Danish, English, Eskimo languages, German, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish.

Competing Models of Linguistic Change

Author : Ole Nedergaard Thomsen
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 354 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2006-10-25
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027293190

Get Book

Competing Models of Linguistic Change by Ole Nedergaard Thomsen Pdf

The articles of this volume are centered around two competing views on language change originally presented at the 2003 International Conference on Historical Linguistics in the two important plenary papers by Henning Andersen and William Croft. The latter proposes an evolutionary model of language change within a domain-neutral model of a ‘generalized analysis of selection’, whereas Henning Andersen takes it that cultural phenomena could not possibly be handled, i.e. observed, described, understood, in the same way as natural phenomena. These papers are models of succinct presentation of important theoretical framework. The other papers present and discuss additional models of change, e.g. invisible hand-processes, system-internal models, functional and cognitive models. Most papers do not subscribe to the evolutionary model; instead, they focus on functional factors in the selection and propagation of variants (as opposed to factors of code efficiency), or on cognitive and pragmatic perspectives. Several papers are inspired by the late Eugenio Coseriu and by Henning Andersen’s theories on language change. In particular, the volume contains articles proposing interesting grammaticalization studies and extended models of grammaticalization. The clear presentation of important and competing approaches to fundamental questions concerning language change will be of high interest for scholars and students working in the field of diachrony and typology. The languages referred to in the papers include Cantonese, the Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages, Danish, English, Eskimo languages, German, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish.

Competition in Language Change

Author : Eva Zehentner
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 557 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2019-06-17
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783110630442

Get Book

Competition in Language Change by Eva Zehentner Pdf

This book addresses one of the most pervasive questions in historical linguistics – why variation becomes stable rather than being eliminated – by revisiting the so far neglected history of the English dative alternation. The alternation between a nominal and a prepositional ditransitive pattern (John gave Mary a book vs. John gave a book to Mary) emerged in Middle English and is closely connected to broader changes at that time. Accordingly, the main quantitative investigation focuses on ditransitive patterns in the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English; in addition, the book employs an Evolutionary Game Theory model. The results are approached from an ‘evolutionary construction grammar’ perspective, combining evolutionary thinking with diachronic constructionist notions, and the alternation’s emergence is interpreted as a story of constructional innovation, competition, cooperation and co-evolution. The book not only provides a thorough and detailed analysis of the history of one of the most-discussed syntactic phenomena in English, but by fusing two frameworks and employing two different methodologies also presents a highly innovative approach to a problem of relevance to historical linguistics in general.

Exaptation and Language Change

Author : Muriel Norde,Freek Van de Velde
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing Company
Page : 421 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2016-02-24
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027267474

Get Book

Exaptation and Language Change by Muriel Norde,Freek Van de Velde Pdf

This volume is the first collection of papers that is exclusively dedicated to the concept of exaptation, a notion from evolutionary biology that was famously introduced into linguistics by Roger Lass in 1990. The past quarter-century has seen a heated debate on the properties of linguistic exaptation, its demarcation from other processes of linguistic change, and indeed the question of whether it is a useful concept in historical linguistics at all. The contributions in the present volume reflect these diverging points of view. Along with a comprehensive introduction, covering the history of the notion of exaptation from its conception in the field of biology to its adoption in linguistics, the book offers extensive discussion of the concept from various theoretical perspectives, detailed case studies as well as critical reviews of some stock examples. The book will be of interest to scholars working in the fields of evolutionary linguistics, historical linguistics, and the history of linguistics.

Iconicity and Analogy in Language Change

Author : Janice Aski,Cinzia Russi
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 206 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2015-09-25
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781614516392

Get Book

Iconicity and Analogy in Language Change by Janice Aski,Cinzia Russi Pdf

This book examines the alternation between accusative-dative and dative-accusative order in Old Florentine clitic clusters and its decline in favor of the latter. Based on an exhaustive analysis of data collected from medieval Florentine and Tuscan texts we offer a novel analysis of the rise of the variable order, the transition from one order to the other, and the demise of the alternation that relies primarily on iconicity and analogy.The bookemploys exophoric pragmatic iconicity, a language-external iconic relationship based on similarity between linguistic structure and the speaker/writer's conceptualization of reality, and endophoric iconicity, a language-internal iconic relationship where the iconic ground is construed between linguistic signs and structures. Analogy is viewed as a productive process that generalizes patterns or extends grammatical rules to formally similar structures, and obtains the form of the analogical relationship between the masculine singular definite article and the third person singular accusative clitic, which shared the same phonotactically constrained distribution patterns. The data indicate that exophoric pragamatic iconicity exploits and maintains the alternation, whereas endophoric iconicity and analogy conspire to end it.

Usage-Based Approaches to Language Change

Author : Evie Coussé,Ferdinand von Mengden
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing Company
Page : 282 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2014-07-15
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027270092

Get Book

Usage-Based Approaches to Language Change by Evie Coussé,Ferdinand von Mengden Pdf

Usage-based approaches to language have gained increasing attention in the last two decades. The importance of change and variation has always been recognized in this framework, but has never received central attention. It is the main aim of this book to fill this gap. Once we recognize that usage is crucial for our understanding of language and linguistic structures, language change and variation inevitably take centre stage in linguistic analysis. Along these lines, the volume presents eight studies by international authors that discuss various approaches to studying language change from a usage-based perspective. Both theoretical issues and empirical case studies are well-represented in this collection. The case studies cover a variety of different languages – ranging from historically well-studied European languages via Japanese to the Amazonian isolate Yurakaré with no written history at all. The book provides new insights relevant for scholars interested in both functional and cognitive linguistic theory, in historical linguists and in language typology.

The Locus of Linguistic Variation

Author : Constantine Lignos,Laurel MacKenzie,Meredith Tamminga
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing Company
Page : 193 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2018-09-06
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027263667

Get Book

The Locus of Linguistic Variation by Constantine Lignos,Laurel MacKenzie,Meredith Tamminga Pdf

This volume explores how the patterning of surface variation can shed light on the grammatical representation of variable phenomena. The authors explore variation in several domains, addressing intra- and inter-dialectal patterns, using diverse sources of data including corpora of naturally-occurring speech and judgment studies, and drawing on lesser-studied varieties of familiar languages, such as Northwest British Englishes and varieties of Canadian French. Ultimately, the contributions serve to expand our understanding of the nature of the mental representations and abstract processes required to support variation in language. Originally published as special issue of Linguistic Variation 16:2 (2016)

Perspectives on Language Structure and Language Change

Author : Lars Heltoft,Iván Igartua,Brian D. Joseph,Kirsten Jeppesen Kragh,Lene Schøsler
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing Company
Page : 431 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2019-06-15
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027262639

Get Book

Perspectives on Language Structure and Language Change by Lars Heltoft,Iván Igartua,Brian D. Joseph,Kirsten Jeppesen Kragh,Lene Schøsler Pdf

This volume centers on three important theoretical concepts for the study of language change and the ways in which language structure emerges and turns into new structure: reanalysis, actualization, and indexicality. Reanalysis is a part of ongoing everyday language use, a process through which language is reproduced and changed. Actualization refers to the processes through which a reanalyzed structure spreads throughout single communities and society. Indexicality covers the way in which parts of a linguistic system can point to other parts of the system, both syntagmatically and paradigmatically. The inclusion of indexicality leads to fine-grained analysis in morphology, word order, and constructional syntax.

Language Change and Variation

Author : Ralph W. Fasold,Deborah Schiffrin
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 466 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 1989-01-01
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027286079

Get Book

Language Change and Variation by Ralph W. Fasold,Deborah Schiffrin Pdf

The study of language variation in social context continues to hold the attention of a large number of linguists. This research is promoted by the annual colloquia on New Ways of Analyzing Variation in English' (NWAVE). This volume is a selection of revised papers from the NWAVE XI, held at Georgetown University. It deals with a number of items, some of which have often been discussed, others that have been less emphasized. The first group of articles in the volume center on a frequent theme: speech communities as the essential setting for understanding variation in language. Earlier work in linguistic variation dealt for the most part with phonological variation and change. Syntactic and morphological change and variation in syntax are also discussed. A selection on the role of variation in understanding first language acquisition comprises three papers. Articles in the last section of the volume concern theoretical controversy and methodological advances.

Variation, Selection, Development

Author : Regine Eckardt,Gerhard Jäger,Tonjes Veenstra
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 417 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2008-08-27
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783110205398

Get Book

Variation, Selection, Development by Regine Eckardt,Gerhard Jäger,Tonjes Veenstra Pdf

Can language change be modelled as an evolutionary process? Can notions like variation, selection and competition be fruitfully applied to facts of language development? The present volume ties together various strands of linguistic research which can bring us towards an answer to these questions. In one of the youngest and rapidly growing areas of linguistic research, mathematical models and simulations of competition based developments have been applied to instances of language change. By matching the predicted and observed developmental trends, researchers gauge existing models to the needs of linguistic applications and evaluate the fruitfulness of evolutionary models in linguistics. The present volume confronts these studies with more empirically-based studies in creolization and historical language change which bear on key concepts of evolutionary models. What does it mean for a linguistic construction to survive its competitors? How do the interacting factors in phases of creolization differ from those in ordinary language change, and how - consequently - might Creole languages differ structurally from older languages? Some of the authors, finally, also address the question how different aspects of our linguistic competence tie in with our more elementary cognitive capacities. The volume contains contributions by Brady Clark et al., Elly van Gelderen, Alain Kihm, Manfred Krifka, Wouter Kusters, Robert van Rooij, Anette Rosenbach, John McWhorter, Teresa Satterfield, Michael Tomasello and Elizabeth C. Traugott. The book brings together contributions from two areas of research: the study of language evolution by means of methods from artifical intelligence/artificial life (like computer simulations and analytic mathematical methods) on the one hand, and empirically oriented research from historical linguistics and creolisation studies that uses concepts from evolutionary theory as a heuristic tool in a qualitative way. The book is thus interesting for readers from both traditions because it supplies them with information about relevant ongoing research and useful methods and data from the other camp.

Languages in Space and Time: Models and Methods from Complex Systems Theory

Author : Marco Patriarca,Els Heinsalu,Jean Leó Leonard
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 223 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2020-10-29
Category : Computers
ISBN : 9781108480659

Get Book

Languages in Space and Time: Models and Methods from Complex Systems Theory by Marco Patriarca,Els Heinsalu,Jean Leó Leonard Pdf

Demonstrates how complexity theory and statistical mechanics help define the language groups and model the language dynamics.

Historical Linguistics 2015

Author : Michela Cennamo,Claudia Fabrizio
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing Company
Page : 649 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2019-09-15
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027262455

Get Book

Historical Linguistics 2015 by Michela Cennamo,Claudia Fabrizio Pdf

The collection of articles presented in this volume addresses a number of general theoretical, methodological and empirical issues in the field of Historical Linguistics, in different levels of analysis and on different themes: (i) phonology, (ii) morphology, (iii) morphosyntax, (iv) syntax, (v) diachronic typology, (vi) semantics and pragmatics, and (vii) language contact, variation and diffusion. The topics discussed, often in a comparative perspective, feature a variety of languages and language families and cover a wide range of research areas. Novel analyses and often new diachronic data — also from less known and under-investigated languages — are provided to the debate on the principles, mechanisms, paths and models of language change, as well as the relationship between synchronic variation and diachrony. The volume is of interest to scholars of different persuasions working on all aspects of language change.

Reorganising Grammatical Variation

Author : Antje Dammel,Matthias Eitelmann,Mirjam Schmuck
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing Company
Page : 310 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2018-10-15
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027263421

Get Book

Reorganising Grammatical Variation by Antje Dammel,Matthias Eitelmann,Mirjam Schmuck Pdf

With most studies on grammatical variation concentrating on the synchronic level, a systematic investigation of long-term grammatical variation within the context of language change, i.e. from a predominantly diachronic perspective, has largely remained a desideratum. The present volume fills this research gap by bringing together nine empirically rich bottom-up case studies on morphological and morphosyntactic variation phenomena in standard and dialect varieties of Indo-European languages (Germanic, Romance, Greek). While variation has often been regarded as merely a transitory epiphenomenal symptom of change, the findings of this volume show that variation is a resilient feature of human language and answer the question what makes variation time-stable. Bridging the gap between corpus-based research on language variation and more theory-driven typological and functional approaches, the volume is of special interest for all researchers concerned with interface phenomena seeking to gain a broader understanding of the mechanisms of linguistic variation and change.

Cognitive Linguistics - A Survey of Linguistic Subfields

Author : Ewa Dąbrowska,Dagmar Divjak
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 253 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2019-07-08
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783110626452

Get Book

Cognitive Linguistics - A Survey of Linguistic Subfields by Ewa Dąbrowska,Dagmar Divjak Pdf

The chapters provide comprehensive surveys of the major subfields of Cognitive Linguistics. Apart from phonology, construction grammar and lexical semantics, the areas of language use, language acquisition and literary discourse are comprehensively presented.

Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics

Author : Ewa Dabrowska,Dagmar Divjak
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 650 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2015-05-19
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783110292022

Get Book

Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics by Ewa Dabrowska,Dagmar Divjak Pdf

Cognitive Linguistics is an approach to language study based on the assumptions that our linguistic abilities are firmly rooted in our cognitive abilities, that meaning is essentially conceptualization, and that grammar is shaped by usage. The Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics provides state-of-the-art overviews of the numerous subfields of cognitive linguistics written by leading international experts which will be useful for established researchers and novices alike. It is an interdisciplinary project with contributions from linguists, psycholinguists, psychologists, and computer scientists which will emphasise the most recent developments in the field, in particular, the shift towards more empirically-based research. In this way, it will, we hope, help to shape the field, encouraging methodologically more rigorous research which incorporates insights from all the cognitive sciences. Editor Ewa Dąbrowska was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Professorship 2018.