Linguistic Cycles are ever present in language change and involve a phrase or word that gradually disappears and is replaced by a new linguistic item. The most well-known cycles involve negatives, where an initial single negative, such as not, is reinforced by another negative, such as no thing, and subjects, where full pronouns are reanalyzed as endings on the verb. This book presents new data and insights on the well-known cyclical changes as well as on less well-known ones, such as the preposition, auxiliary, copula, modal, and complementation cycles. Part I covers the negative cycle with chapters looking in great detail at the steps that are typical in this cycle. Part II focuses on pronouns, auxiliaries, and the left periphery. Part III includes work on modals, prepositions, and complementation. The book ends with a psycholinguistic chapter. This book brings together linguists from a variety of theoretical frameworks and contributes to new directions in work on language change.
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1. List of contributors; 2. Chapter 1. Cyclical change, an introduction (by Gelderen, Elly van); 3. Part I. Negatives; 4. Chapter 2. Jespersen recycled (by Hoeksema, Jack); 5. Chapter 3. The Jespersen cycles (by Auwera, Johan van der); 6. Chapter 4. The negative cycle in Early and Modern Russian (by Tsurska, Olena); 7. Chapter 5. Jespersen off course? The case of contemporary Afrikaans negation (by Biberauer, Theresa); 8. Part II. Pronouns, agreement, and topic markers; 9. Chapter 6. Weak pronouns in Italian: Instances of a broken cycle? (by Vedovato, Diana); 10. Chapter 7. The subject cycle of pronominal auxiliaries in Old North Russian (by Kwon, Kyongjoon); 11. Chapter 8. Two instances of a broken cycle: Sentential particles in Old Italian (by Poletto, Cecilia); 12. Part III. Copulas, auxiliaries, and adpositions; 13. Chapter 9. The Copula cycle (by Lohndal, Terje); 14. Chapter 10. RATHER - On a modal cycle (by Gergel, Remus); 15. Chapter 11. Cycles of complementation in the Mayan languages (by Pye, Clifton); 16. Chapter 12. The Preposition cycle in English (by Waters, Cathleen); 17. Part IV. An experiment; 18. Chapter 13. The study of syntactic cycles as an experimental science (by Hancock, Roeland); 19. Author index; 20. Subject index
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This is a very useful comparative volume that also raises interesting general questions about the nature of syntactic change. It puts pathways and cycles of change firmly at the heart of historical syntax and shows their relevance for wider theoretical questions.
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9789027255297
Publisert
2009-07-29
Utgiver
Vendor
John Benjamins Publishing Co
Vekt
760 gr
Høyde
245 mm
Bredde
164 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet

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